Download or read book Intensive Mothering The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood written by Linda Rose Ennis and published by Demeter Press. This book was released on 2014-12-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Sharon Hays’ landmark book, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood, this collection will revisit Hays’ concept of “intensive mothering” as a continuing, yet controversial representation of modern motherhood. In Hays’ original work, she spoke of “intensive mothering” as primarily being conducted by mothers, centered on children’s needs with methods informed by experts, which are labourintensive and costly simply because children are entitled to this maternal investment. While respecting the important need for connection between mother and baby that is prevalent in the teachings of Attachment Theory, this collection raises into question whether an over-investment of mothers in their children’s lives is as effective a mode of parenting, as being conveyed by representations of modern motherhood. In a world where independence is encouraged, why are we still engaging in “intensive motherhood?”
Download or read book The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood written by Sharon Hays and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Working mothers today confront not only conflicting demands on their time and energy but also conflicting ideas about how they are to behave: they must be nurturing and unselfish while engaged in child rearing but competitive and ambitious at work. As more and more women enter the workplace, it would seem reasonable for society to make mothering a simpler and more efficient task. Instead, Sharon Hays points out in this original and provocative book, an ideology of "intensive mothering" has developed that only exacerbates the tensions working mothers face. Drawing on ideas about mothering since the Middle Ages, on contemporary childrearing manuals, and on in-depth interviews with mothers from a range of social classes, Hays traces the evolution of the ideology of intensive mothering--an ideology that holds the individual mother primarily responsible for child rearing and dictates that the process is to be child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive. Hays argues that these ideas about appropriate mothering stem from a fundamental ambivalence about a system based solely on the competitive pursuit of individual interests. In attempting to deal with our deep uneasiness about self-interest, we have imposed unrealistic and unremunerated obligations and commitments on mothering, making it into an opposing force, a primary field on which this cultural ambivalence is played out.
Download or read book Taking the Village Online written by Lorin Basden Arnold and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributing authors in this anthology address diverse topics in mothering and social media, including framing of stepmothers in online forums, mothering in the digital diaspora, the construction of the "bad mother" on Twitter, immersive gaming and parenting classes, virtual mother outlaws, alternative mothering websites, feminist parenting, and more. While the works are primarily rooted in critical and feminist perspectives, a variety of methodologies and approaches to studying mothering and social media are represented in this text, and encourage a robust and thoughtful examination of the role of interactive media in the maternal experience. Lorin Basden Arnold, Ph.D. is a family communication and gender scholar. Her recent scholarly work has primarily related to understandings and enactments of motherhood.
Download or read book Militant Lactivism written by Charlotte Faircloth and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following networks of mothers in London and Paris, the author profiles the narratives of women who breastfeed their children to full term, typically a period of several years, as part of an 'attachment parenting' philosophy. These mothers talk about their decision to continue breastfeeding as 'the natural thing to do': 'evolutionarily appropriate', 'scientifically best' and 'what feels right in their hearts'. Through a theoretical focus on knowledge claims and accountability, the author frames these accounts within a wider context of 'intensive parenting', arguing that parenting practices – infant feeding in particular – have become a highly moralized affair for mothers, practices which they feel are a critical aspect of their 'identity work'. The book investigates why, how and with what implications some of these mothers describe themselves as 'militant lactivists' and reflects on wider parenting culture in the UK and France. Discussing gender, feminism and activism, this study contributes to kinship and family studies by exploring how relatedness is enacted in conjunction to constructions of the self.
Download or read book Modern Motherhood and Women s Dual Identities written by Petra Bueskens and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do women in contemporary western societies experience contradiction between their autonomous and maternal selves? What are the origins of this contradiction and the associated ‘double shift’ that result in widespread calls to either ‘lean in’ or ‘opt out’? How are some mothers subverting these contradictions and finding meaningful ways of reconciling their autonomous and maternal selves? In Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities, Petra Bueskens argues that western modernisation consigned women to the home and released them from it in historically unprecedented, yet interconnected, ways. Her ground-breaking formulation is that western women are free as ‘individuals’ and constrained as mothers, with the twist that it is the former that produces the latter. Bueskens’ theoretical contribution consists of the identification and analysis of modern women’s duality, drawing on political philosophy, feminist theory and sociology tracking the changing nature of discourses of women, freedom and motherhood across three centuries. While the current literature points to the pervasiveness of contradiction and double-shifts for mothers, very little attention has been paid to how (some) women are subverting contradiction and ‘rewriting the sexual contract’. Bridging this gap, Bueskens’ interviews ten ‘revolving mothers’ to reveal how periodic absence, exceeding the standard work-day, disrupts the default position assigned to mothers in the home, and in turn disrupts the gendered dynamics of household work. A provocative and original work, Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities will appeal to graduate students and researchers interested in fields such as Women and Gender Studies, Sociology of Motherhood and Social and Political Theory.
Download or read book Egg Freezing Fertility and Reproductive Choice written by Kylie Baldwin and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online. This book explores the experiences of some of the pioneering users of social egg freezing technology in the UK and the USA.
Download or read book Impossible Parenting written by Olivia Scobie and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2020-10-31 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A roadmap for parents who want to feel less pressure and more joy during the intense early years of childrearing. Why is it that research suggests people who don’t have kids are happier than people who do? Olivia Scobie provides practical solutions for parents who find themselves pushing beyond their capacity to meet impossible standards, and challenges parents to shift their thinking from child centred to family centred. By naming today’s unrealistic parenting expectations as impossible from the get-go, Impossible Parenting creates the space to acknowledge harmful expectations for new parents and begins a conversation that focuses on healing and doing the best one can with the resources available.
Download or read book Do Babies Matter written by Mary Ann Mason and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-13 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new generation of scholars differs in many ways from its predecessor of just a few decades ago. Academia once consisted largely of men in traditional single-earner families. Today, men and women fill the doctoral student ranks in nearly equal numbers and most will experience both the benefits and challenges of living in dual-income households. This generation also has new expectations and values, notably the desire for flexibility and balance between careers and other life goals. However, changes to the structure and culture of academia have not kept pace with young scholars’ desires for work-family balance. Do Babies Matter? is the first comprehensive examination of the relationship between family formation and the academic careers of men and women. The book begins with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, moves on to early and mid-career years, and ends with retirement. Individual chapters examine graduate school, how recent PhD recipients get into the academic game, the tenure process, and life after tenure. The authors explore the family sacrifices women often have to make to get ahead in academia and consider how gender and family interact to affect promotion to full professor, salaries, and retirement. Concrete strategies are suggested for transforming the university into a family-friendly environment at every career stage. The book draws on over a decade of research using unprecedented data resources, including the Survey of Doctorate Recipients, a nationally representative panel survey of PhDs in America, and multiple surveys of faculty and graduate students at the ten-campus University of California system..
Download or read book Modern Motherhood written by Jodi Vandenberg-Daves and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-26 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did mothers transform from parents of secondary importance in the colonies to having their multiple and complex roles connected to the well-being of the nation? In the first comprehensive history of motherhood in the United States, Jodi Vandenberg-Daves explores how tensions over the maternal role have been part and parcel of the development of American society. Modern Motherhood travels through redefinitions of motherhood over time, as mothers encountered a growing cadre of medical and psychological experts, increased their labor force participation, gained the right to vote, agitated for more resources to perform their maternal duties, and demonstrated their vast resourcefulness in providing for and nurturing their families. Navigating rigid gender role prescriptions and a crescendo of mother-blame by the middle of the twentieth century, mothers continued to innovate new ways to combine labor force participation and domestic responsibilities. By the 1960s, they were poised to challenge male expertise, in areas ranging from welfare and abortion rights to childbirth practices and the confinement of women to maternal roles. In the twenty-first century, Americans continue to struggle with maternal contradictions, as we pit an idealized role for mothers in children’s development against the social and economic realities of privatized caregiving, a paltry public policy structure, and mothers’ extensive employment outside the home. Building on decades of scholarship and spanning a wide range of topics, Vandenberg-Daves tells an inclusive tale of African American, Native American, Asian American, working class, rural, and other hitherto ignored families, exploring sources ranging from sermons, medical advice, diaries and letters to the speeches of impassioned maternal activists. Chapter topics include: inventing a new role for mothers; contradictions of moral motherhood; medicalizing the maternal body; science, expertise, and advice to mothers; uplifting and controlling mothers; modern reproduction; mothers’ resilience and adaptation; the middle-class wife and mother; mother power and mother angst; and mothers’ changing lives and continuous caregiving. While the discussion has been part of all eras of American history, the discussion of the meaning of modern motherhood is far from over.
Download or read book The Reproduction of Mothering written by Nancy Chodorow and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1999-11-02 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text had a major impact on both feminists and psychoanalysts when it was first published, and it continues to shape the thinking of analysts and feminists today.
Download or read book Music of Motherhood History Healing Activism written by Rose M Joy and published by Demeter Press. This book was released on 2017-12-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mothering and music are complex and universal events, the structure and function of each show remarkable variability across social domains and different cultures. Al- though motherhood studies and studies in music are each recognized as important areas of research, the blending of the two topics is a recent innovation. The chapters in this collection bring together artists and scholars in conversations about the multiple profound relationships that exist between music and mothering. The discussions are varied and exciting. Several of the chapters revolve around the challenges of mothering partnered with a musical career; others look at the affordances that music offers to mothers and children; and some of the chapters examine the ways in which music inspires social and political change, as well as acknowledging the rise of the mom rock phenomenon.
Download or read book A Womb of Her Own written by Ellen L.K. Toronto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gender and body-based distinctions continue to be a defining component of women’s identities, both in psychoanalytic treatment and in life. Although females have made progress in many areas, their status within the human community has remained unstable and subject to societal whim. A Womb of Her Own brings together a distinguished group of contributors to explore, from a psychoanalytic perspective, the ways in which women’s sexual and reproductive capabilities, and their bodies, are regarded as societal and patriarchal property, not as the possession of individual women. It further examines how women have been viewed as the "other" and thus become the focus of mistreatment such as rape, sexual slavery, restriction of reproduction rights, and ongoing societal repression. Postmodern gender theories have greatly enhanced understanding of the fluidity of gender and freed women from repressive stereotypes, but attention has shifted prematurely from the power differential that continues to exist between men and women. Before the male/female binary is transcended, the limitations imposed upon women by the still prevailing patriarchal order must be addressed. To this end, A Womb of Her Own addresses issues such as the prevalence of rape culture and its historical roots; the relationship of the LGBT movement to feminism; current sexual practices such as sexting and tattooing and their meaning to women; reproductive issues including infertility; adoption; postpartum depression and the actual experience of birthing—all from the perspectives of women. The book also explores the cultural definitions of motherhood, and how such definitions set exacting standards both for the acceptable face of motherhood and for women generally. While women’s unique anatomy and biology have historically contributed to their oppression in a patriarchal society, it is the exploration and illumination of these capabilities from their own perspective that will allow women to claim and control them as their own. Covering a broad, topical range of contemporary subjects, A Womb of Her Own will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as scholars and students of gender and women’s studies.
Download or read book Parenting Culture Studies written by Ellie Lee and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-12-26 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in its second edition, Parenting Culture Studies seeks to understand how parenting is taken as a particular mode of childrearing that reflects broader social trends. Ten years after the initial volume's groundbreaking publication, the authors once again closely examine how the main aspects of parenting have been established, explored, and critically evaluated. Chapters revisit phenomena such as intensive parenting and politics around parenting, as well as controversial issues including policing pregnant women's bodies and parental determinism. In addition to updates throughout the volume, including those addressing literature that has built from the book’s original publication, the book features a new third part discussing parents dealing with risk assessment, school closures, contradictory care arrangements, and vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Download or read book Normative Motherhood written by Andrea O'Reilly and published by Demeter Press. This book was released on 2023-03-23 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A central aim of motherhood studies is to examine and theorize normative motherhood. Where does it come from? What are its defining features and demands? How does it work as a regulatory discourse and practice across differences of age, class, race, ability, sexuality, and region? What is the impact of normative motherhood on women' s lives? What does an intersectional analysis of normative motherhood reveal? How is normative motherhood reflected and enacted in public policy, workplace practices, family arrangements and so on? How is normative motherhood represented and resisted in literature, art, photography, and film? How do or may women resist normative motherhood? This collection explores these questions of normative motherhood under three interrelated topics: Regulations, Representations, and Reclamations.
Download or read book Taking the Village Online Mothers Motherhood and Social Media written by Basden Lorin Arnold and published by Demeter Press. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of social media has changed how we understand and enact relationships across our lives, including motherhood. The meanings and practices of mothering have been significantly impacted by the availability of communities found via forums, blogs, and sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as internet resources that function to inform maternal experience and self-concept (ex. motherhood websites, Pinterest, or YouTube). The village that now contributes to the mothering experience has grown exponentially, granting mothers access to interactional partners and knowledge never before available. This volume of works explores the impact of social media forms on our cultural understandings of motherhood and the ways that we communicate about the experience and practice of mothering.
Download or read book Mothering Community and Friendship written by Essah Díaz and published by Demeter Press. This book was released on 2022-04-04 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mothers, Community, and Friendship is an anthology that explores the complexities of mothering/motherhood, communities, and friendship from across interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives. The chapters in this text not only examine how communities and friendship shape and influence the various spectrums of motherhood, but also analyze how communities and friendship are necessary for mothers. Through personal, reflective, critical essays, and ethnographies, this collection situates the ways mothers are connected to communities and how these relationships forms, such as in mothering groups and maternal friendships. By calling attention to these central and current topics, Mothers, Community, and Friendship represents how communities and friendship become means of empowerment for mothers.
Download or read book In M other Words written by Andrea O'Reilly and published by Demeter Press. This book was released on 2024-04-30 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Andrea O'Reilly is internationally recognized as the founder of Motherhood Studies (2006) and its subfield Maternal Theory (2007), and creator of the concept of Matricentric Feminism, a feminism for and about mothers (2016) and Matricritics, a literary theory and practice for a reading of mother-focused texts (2021). With this collection O'Reilly continues the conversation on the meaning and nature of motherhood initiated by Adrienne Rich in Of Woman Born close to fifty years ago. In In (M)other Words, O'Reilly shares 25 of her chapters and articles published between 2009-2024 to examine the oppressive and empowering dimensions of mothering and to explore motherhood as institution, experience, subjectivity, and empowerment. The collection considers the central themes and theories of motherhood studies including normative motherhood, feminist mothering, maternal regret, matricentric pedagogy, young mothers, academic motherhood, matricentric feminism, matricritics, motherhood and feminism, the motherhood memoir, the twenty-first-century motherhood movement, mothers and daughters, mothers and sons, pandemic mothering, and the motherline.
