UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY Disrupted Mothering: ____________________________________________________________________________________ A drama in four acts Tamara Power RN BN (Honours) 3rd December 2012 A thesis submitted to fulfil the requirements of a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Degree TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... ii Tables .................................................................................................................................................... vii Statement of Authentication ................................................................................................................. viii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ ix Outcomes of this Thesis to Date ............................................................................................................. x Publications ........................................................................................................................................ x Presentations ...................................................................................................................................... x Abstract .................................................................................................................................................. xi Thesis Overview .................................................................................................................................. xiii SYNOPSIS .................................................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1 Motherhood ............................................................................................................................................. 1 Defining Mothers and Mothering ....................................................................................................... 2 Expectation of Motherhood ................................................................................................................ 4 Always a Mother First ........................................................................................................................ 6 Ideologies Create „Good‟ Mothers ..................................................................................................... 8 The Relentless Responsibility ........................................................................................................... 14 All Mothers are Guilty ...................................................................................................................... 18 Mothering as Performance Art ......................................................................................................... 20 The Love of a Mother‟s Life ............................................................................................................. 23 Motherhood and Women‟s Health ................................................................................................... 25 Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 28 Situating Myself in the Research .......................................................................................................... 29 EXPOSITION ............................................................................................................................................ 31 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 31 Biographical Disruption .................................................................................................................. 32 Derivation of Disruption .................................................................................................................. 34 „Good‟ Mothers Keep Mothering ..................................................................................................... 39 ii Mothering as Motivation .................................................................................................................. 41 Disrupted and Dishonoured ............................................................................................................. 43 Invisible or Inappropriate Support ................................................................................................... 45 Women Privilege and Doctors Discount Motherhood...................................................................... 47 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 50 Aims of the Thesis ................................................................................................................................ 53 DIRECTION AND CUES ......................................................................................................................... 54 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 54 Social Constructionism ......................................................................................................................... 55 Feminist Research ................................................................................................................................. 57 Feminism and Mothering ...................................................................................................................... 58 Motherhood and Oppression ............................................................................................................ 60 The Personal is Political .................................................................................................................. 61 Consciousness Raising ..................................................................................................................... 63 Stories ................................................................................................................................................... 64 What are Stories? ............................................................................................................................. 64 Story and Narrative .......................................................................................................................... 65 Stories have Functions ..................................................................................................................... 65 Through Stories Meaning is Made ................................................................................................... 66 Identity is Created Through Story .................................................................................................... 67 Societies Share Stories ..................................................................................................................... 68 Through Stories a Moral Being is Made .......................................................................................... 70 Stories and Nursing Research .......................................................................................................... 71 Methods ................................................................................................................................................ 73 The Story Sought .............................................................................................................................. 73 Finding Storytellers .......................................................................................................................... 74 Gathering Oral Stories ..................................................................................................................... 75 Stories from the Inbox ...................................................................................................................... 77 From Talk to Text ............................................................................................................................. 79 Narrative Analysis................................................................................................................................. 80 iii Thematic Narrative Analysis ............................................................................................................ 82 Rigour ................................................................................................................................................... 83 Credibility ........................................................................................................................................ 84 Dependability ................................................................................................................................... 85 Confirmability .................................................................................................................................. 86 Transferability .................................................................................................................................