MOTHERHOOD INC.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines motherhood simply as “the state, condition, or fact of being a mother”, and provides a set of usage examples in books and media to qualify the “state, condition, or fact”. Motherhood, then, exists as a complex, culturally (and economically) bound identity. There is an Ideal Motherhood, or at least several articulations of the Ideal Motherhood, that hold the following in common:
In order to maintain this ideal identity, motherhood discourse implicitly requires the silencing and erasure of motherhood experiences that do not fit. This privileging of Ideal Motherhood narratives, and the subsequent silencing/erasing of other motherhood narratives, informs the individual’s performance of the motherhood identity.
- (One of) The most important job(s) of a woman, esp. as a biological imperative.
- Motherhood is a (miraculous) gift.
- Motherhood is instinctive, joyous, and wholly fulfilling.
- Mothers sacrifice for and love their children unconditionally.
In order to maintain this ideal identity, motherhood discourse implicitly requires the silencing and erasure of motherhood experiences that do not fit. This privileging of Ideal Motherhood narratives, and the subsequent silencing/erasing of other motherhood narratives, informs the individual’s performance of the motherhood identity.
Motherhood in the US
Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1976) details the public expectations of motherhood and offers a feminist poststructuralist critique that still holds true today. Rich identifies certain contradictions and tensions that arise from the public expectations of mothers to divest their own personhood in order to properly fit the role of mother, which she terms “institutionalized motherhood”. Rich (1976) argues that the this type of motherhood privileges maternal “instinct” over intelligence, selflessness over self-creation, and promotes the re-identification of subjecthood in relation to others (42). That is, the biological imperative of reproduction (instinct) requires that the woman, once she becomes mother, abandon any identity or endeavor that might inhibit her from nurturing her child (and the future generation), and so redefine her existence with the child at the center. Implicit in this argument is that doing so in order to nurture her child is only natural. The hegemonic patriarchy further entrenches this notion of motherhood (womanhood, even) within the heterosexual nuclear family structure to further naturalize and socially normalize it (43). This prohibits mothers from claiming an identity as women outside of the institution of motherhood, or from articulating any negative emotions within motherhood experiences, like anger and sadness, without being labeled unnatural.
Subsequent scholarship since has identified Ideal Motherhood as unattainable myth.
In The Impossibility of Motherhood: Feminism, Individualism, and the Problem of Mothering, Patrice DiQuinzio (1999) describes how daunting the set of expectations for motherhood in U.S. culture can be. DiQuinzio’s articulation of motherhood identity requires the mother to feel continuous, unconditional love towards her child. Any break in unconditional love, such as a desire for space for self-realization, or any non-loving feelings towards her child invalidates her credibility, and therefore her identity, as a mother. This, in effect, preempts any critical engagement with motherhood discourse because to publicly acknowledge any non-nurturing, individualistic feeling is to invalidate her own identity and so lose the right to talk about it. In doing so, motherhood expectations disavow and invalidate the troubling or negative experiences of motherhood - such as feelings of stress, sadness, anger and frustration that can arise from health and financial complications (socio-economic context). Diquinzio argues that the unattainable ideal of motherhood is irreconcilable to the experiences of motherhood because it is detached from relationship and context. |
The Career Woman and the Mother
How then do you reconcile modern day feminism with modern day motherhood in the working mother? After all, SAHMs (Stay at Home Moms) are no longer the norm. According to Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels (2004), you just take the rose-colored idea of motherhood and add career. That is, in The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women, Douglas and Michaels argue that rather than critically assessing Ideal Motherhood, modern day motherhood describes a mother as someone who remains completely devoted to her child and concurrently retains a successful career (4-5). However, tensions arise for the mother from the inherent contradiction of the expectation of constant support for the child while simultaneously living her own life. How can a mother always be there for the child and still have time for her own life? This “new momism”, as Douglas and Michaels call it, is promoted through the media as the modern day answer to the SAHM. It depicts mothers who are more than housewives. These “new moms” have the child, get their attractive pre-pregnancy bodies back soon after birth, and go back to the workplace with renewed focus, somehow balancing child and career. And the experience is still positive and wholly fulfilling.
As such, motherhood discourse does not allow for dissent to the dominant conceptualization of Ideal Motherhood, nor for the articulation of any negative experiences of motherhood.
As such, motherhood discourse does not allow for dissent to the dominant conceptualization of Ideal Motherhood, nor for the articulation of any negative experiences of motherhood.