Scenarios of nonmaternal practices of Russian mothers

Abstract

The article is part of a research project dedicated to the specifics of modern motherhood in the context of the transformation of the gender order. The main goal is to study and describe the scenarios of motherhood that are relevant for the Russian society in the focus of non-maternal practices. Based on the assumption that the conservatism of the social system most affects the rhythm of women's lives after the birth of children, the authors use the concept of "non-maternal practices of mothers", defining it as a set of actions of women during maternity leave aimed at meeting social, economic, psychological needs. On the basis of the results of applied research (online survey, N=146; study of Russian-speaking profiles of young mothers, N=720), possible scenarios of non-maternal practices were formulated: professionally oriented, educational, entrepreneurial, activist, self-promotion, leisure and risky. The choice of research optics is due to the fact that a significant part of maternal activities are implemented in the online space, which makes it possible to overcome the social isolation of this period. It is shown that the thematic field of the modern maternal community is formed not only around specific child-parent topics, but also serves as a way for mothers to integrate into social and economic processes. Most scenarios are based on women's desire for communication, self-realization and earnings, which is understandable in terms of gender analysis and economic realities. The riskiness of the digital environment is associated with the vulnerability of mothers to Internet fraud and the formation of Internet addiction. The main result of the study is to fix the fact of non-maternity practices of mothers, identify possible scenarios for their implementation and describe options for the application of the data obtained to optimize the system of social protection of motherhood.