INTERROGATING MOTHERHOOD OPEL – Open Paths to Enriched Learning Series Editor: Connor Houlihan
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INTERROGATING MOTHERHOOD OPEL – Open Paths to Enriched Learning Series editor: Connor Houlihan Open Paths to Enriched Learning (OPEL) reflects the continued commitment of Athabasca University to removing the barriers— including the cost of course material—that restrict access to university-level study. The OPEL series offers introductory texts, on a broad array of topics, written especially with undergraduate students in mind. Although the books in the series are designed for course use, they also afford lifelong learners an opportunity to enrich their own knowledge. Like all AU Press publications, OPEL course texts are available for free download, as well as for purchase in both print and digital formats. Series Titles Open Data Structures: An Introduction Pat Morin Mind, Body, World: Foundations of Cognitive Science Michael R. W. Dawson Legal Literacy: An Introduction to Legal Studies Archie Zariski Health and Safety in Canadian Workplaces Jason Foster and Bob Barnetson Interrogating Motherhood Lynda R. Ross INTERROGATING Lynda R. Ross MOTHERHOOD Copyright © 2016 Lynda R. Ross Published by AU Press, Athabasca University 1200, 10011 – 109 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8 ISBN 978-1-77199-143-8 (pbk.) 978-1-77199-144-5 (pdf) 978-1-77199-145-2 (epub) doI: 10.15215/aupress/9781771991438.01 Cover photo by iceteastock / stock.adobe.com, Id #25957521 Cover and interior design by Sergiy Kozakov Printed and bound in Canada by Marquis Book Printers Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Ross, Lynda Rachelle, 1950-, author Interrogating motherhood / Lynda R. Ross. (Open paths to enriched learning) Includes bibliographical references. Issued in print and electronic formats. 1. Motherhood—Social aspects. 2. Motherhood—Psychological aspects. 3. Motherhood—Economic aspects. 4. Mothers. I. Title. II. Series: Open paths to enriched learning HQ759.R666 2016 306.874'3 C2016-906196-5 C2016-906197-3 We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CFB) for our publishing activities. Assistance provided by the Government of Alberta, Alberta Media Fund. This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non- commercial–No Derivative Works 4.0 International: see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original author. To obtain permission for uses beyond those outlined in the Creative Commons license, please contact AU Press, Athabasca University, at [email protected]. Chapter two is an adaptation of a chapter previously written by Lynda R. Ross and published under the title “Mom's the Word: Attachment Theory’s Role in Defining the ‘Good Mother,’” in the collection, Feminist Counselling: Theory, Issues, and Practice (Women’s Press, 2010). Contents Acknowledgements ix 1 The Study of Motherhood 1 2 Reflections on Motherhood: Theory and Popular Culture 11 3 Paid Employment and the Practice of Motherhood 31 4 Enabling Policies: In Theory and in Practice 49 Shauna Wilton 5 Mothering and Poverty 67 6 Mothers, Mothering, and Mental Health 83 7 “Other” Mothers, “Other” Mothering 103 8 The Future of Motherhood 123 References 133 To my wonderful children—Lisa and Michael— for the many, many practical lessons in mothering. Acknowledgements This book would not have been possible without the help and support of a generous community of scholars both inside and outside of my home institution, Athabasca University. For that, I am truly grateful. I would particularly like to acknowledge and thank Martha Joy Rose, founder and director of the Museum of Motherhood (M.O.M.) not only for her com- mitment to mother studies, but for the encouragement, leadership, and inspiration she provides. A thank you also goes out to all of the members of the conference organizing committees and participants of the Annual Academic M.O.M. Conferences. In addition, I would like to acknowledge Shauna Wilton not only for her contribution to this book but for our ongoing research collaborations, shared coffee breaks, and friendship. This book had its genesis in a series of conversations with my former colleague John Ollerenshaw, and I remain in John’s debt for encouraging me to imagine writing a textbook that could accompany a course I was devel- oping on the same topic. I would also like to thank Athabasca University for honouring me with the President’s Award for Research and Scholarly Excellence, which provided the time and space to complete this project. Thanks as well to the anonymous reviewers for their comments on an ear- lier draft of the book. And finally, and with much gratitude, I would like to thank Connor Houlihan, Megan Hall, and other staff at AU Press for their work in bringing this manuscript to publication. ix doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991438.01 1 The Study of Motherhood Motherhood is a universal construct. This fact alone makes the study of mothers an important venture. While we may not all be mothers, or even able to imagine becoming mothers, we were all born of mothers. And while not all of us were cared for by our biological mothers, most individuals in Western society were cared for in the past, and will be cared for in the future, by mothers. Given the universal nature of mothering, it is surprising that until recently motherhood has remained almost invisible as a compre- hensive area of academic study. This is not to say that theories surrounding the practice of motherhood and the impact of mothering on child develop- ment were not significant topics in the research and popular literatures of the past. We can even go back in time many hundreds of years to the works of some of the great thinkers and see how motherhood was understood. Certainly, these ideas from the past have informed how we imagine the roles and responsibilities of motherhood in the present. The term “motherhood” dates back to the 1400s. Motherhood is a word that was and remains imbued with a sense of goodness, “something regarded as so unquestionably good as to be beyond criticism [and a state of being] representing irrefutable and unquestionable goodness and integrity” (Oxford English Dictionary). However, this everyday understanding does not problematize or recognize the socially constructed nature of mother- hood, nor does it speak to the fluid and shifting nature of the practice of 1 doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991438.01 mothering and its dependence on historical, social, political, and economic contexts. Instead it imagines simply that women naturally bear and rear children and that, for the most part, they perform these functions in a state of unquestionable joy. The voices of women (and men) who mother in the “real” world are largely absent from this imagining. In addition to its universal nature, motherhood also provides a lens through which to view the complex world that women inhabit in contem- porary Western societies. Women who enter into motherhood do so from complicated spaces, spaces further complicated by pregnancy, childbirth, and the caring of infants and children. Not only are these spaces defined by cultural, social, political, and economic contexts, they also involve women’s mental and physical health, their sexual orientations, and their employment situations, as well as the quality of their intimate and close personal relationships. Women who mother must negotiate the challenges of pregnancy, childbirth (or adoption), and child care from within those same spaces. In short, women’s lives are complicated, not simplified, by the prospect and reality of motherhood. Though the wonders of birth and the joys of motherhood are ideals celebrated in contemporary Western societies, not all women are able to approach and experience motherhood with such positive feelings. Thus the critical study of motherhood involves an understanding of the complex realities defining contemporary women’s lives and the consequences of those realities for women’s, children’s, and society’s well-being. This text brings a decidedly social sciences perspective to the study of mothers and motherhood. In doing so, it emphasizes social structure as a critical variable for understanding the realities of women (and men) who choose motherhood (or have it chosen for them). More than 50 years ago, Naomi Weisstein challenged the discipline of psychology to include women as a legitimate area of study. At that time, she noted that “psychology has nothing to say about what women are really like, what they need and what they want” (1993, p. 197), simply because psychology did not know. A first step in expanding the focus of the traditional discipline was recognizing a need to include and make visible an understudied and essentially invisible group. At that time, the group was women. Early advocates for a “psychology of women” faced a number of challenges. These included both legitimizing the need to study women to make them a focal point in psychology and 2 Interrogating Motherhood doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991438.01 articulating a knowledge base upon which psychology of women courses could be taught. Perhaps the most contentious of all issues faced by this new subdiscipline, putting it at odds with traditional psychology, was that it valued knowledge derived from disciplines outside of psychology (Richard- son, 1982). In so doing, the psychology of women acknowledged the critical role that social context played in shaping human behaviour. Today we see the study of mothers in a similar light. Pregnancy, childbirth, and the transition to motherhood are significant life experiences for most women and represent important choices for all women, whether they become mothers or not (Hoffnung, 2011). This stance is not advocating that women be defined by their childbearing capacity, but it is asking that we teach about mothers and mothering in ways that challenge the “motherhood mystique”—the shared cultural belief that motherhood provides ultimate fulfillment for all women. While there are no shortage of books and articles that focus on mothering, much of this literature originates from the popular press and outside the established methodologies of the social sciences.