Embedding Mothering at the Heart of Politics: Mamsie, Ten Years On

Abstract

Despite an ever-greater interest in mothering over the decade since 2009, it seems clear that accounts of maternal experiences today still routinely express fears of failure and chronic frustration. I connect this with time constraints arising from the long hours of paid work most mothers are now performing, alongside ongoing welfare cuts generally and the privatisation or outsourcing of public resources – especially since 2010. This tells me that caretaking generally, and mothering in particular, can never be decisively separated from the broader political arena. On the contrary, we need to place reproductive politics, and what is now recognised as a general ‘crisis of care’, at the very heart of politics. Thus, I conclude that the only way forward is to replace the long outdated, traditional notion of the male breadwinner, now superseded by the realities of the universal breadwinner, with genuine support for a notion of the universal caregiver. This would ensure policies attempting to provide everyone with the time and resources necessary to care for their own dependent children, if they are parents, or to support others who depend on them for care, alongside possibilities for maintaining community life and engaging in the preservation of the world itself.