Negotiating motherhood: practices and discourses

Abstract

Processes of transition to motherhood have been devoted a great deal of attention, resulting in a consistent range of research and literature. Globally, and considering the different directions and motivations of theses studies, the consequential body of research basically points out the complex and diverse character of this personal experience, whether focused in a more quantitative approach intended to isolate the variables influencing the psychosocial adjustment to this transition (Glade, Bean & Vira, 2005), or oriented towards a qualitative exploration of the individual experience of these women (see Nelson, 2003, for a review). Nevertheless the knowledge that the transition to motherhood constitutes a highly challenging task that presents several emotional, affective and social nuances, the cultural view of this life event seems to continue emphasizing the element of self-fulfilment of the feminine nature that motherhood experiences also carries. Several authors have highlighted the fact that motherhood, more than a mere biological event, constitutes a social phenomenon, loaded with inherited cultural and ideological images and lay theories that influence the experiences of any new mother (Johnston & Swanson, 2006; Letherby, 1994; Sévon, 2005; Woollett, 1991). At the realm of social discourses, seemingly a traditional idealized view of motherhood as a source of significant personal fulfilment and enjoyment of intense positive emotions prevails (Leal, 2005; Solé & Parella, 2004). This narrow vision of motherhood also carries a set of believes and stereotypes around what is socially and culturally accepted, in contemporaneous western societies, as an adequate practice of “mothering”, which are largely sustained by the myth of motherhood as a universal need and “natural” choice of women and by the expectation of a full-time mothering (Johnston & Swanson, 2006; Fursman, 2002; Solé & Parella, 2004; Oakley, 1984). In other words, it is expected that all women long for motherhood and that they become almost exclusively devoted to their children, being present to love, educate, stimulate and care for them (Fursman, 2002). Thus, the word “motherhood”, understood as a discursive construct with deep socio-cultural roots, also involves a set of behavioural and attitudinal prescriptions necessary to what is understood as a “good” mother and which, by opposition, exclude other behaviours and attitudes that become connected with a “bad” mother (Solé & Parella, 2004). Thus, these social and cultural d1iscourses around the notion of an intensive motherhood, that is presented as the major priority in women’s lives, is extensively based in the invention of the “good” motherhood, which has strong implications in the way women live this event and reassess their life projects, limiting the possibilities of their identities and discursive practices (Breheny & Stephens, 2007).