Abstract
Part of a 10 year Anniversary issue this short paper reflects on a 30 year period in the UK where young motherhood moves from being a respectable working class practice into the ‘problem’ of teenage pregnancy, subsequently ‘solved’ and replaced by new categories of concern. Working with her own field notes generated as part of a sociological study of teenage sexuality carried out in Manchester in 1989, the author engages with awkwardness and resistance in the texts and reflects on the ambivalent place of motherhood in the feminist narratives of empowerment that shaped the enquiry.
Highlights
I write this from the perspective of 2019 and a sociological career of over thirty years that has involved thinking about the female biography and the changing configuration of sex, marriage and birth within it
I am at the life stage where I am finding it interesting and valuable to look back
My current project 1involves revisiting the archive of my first piece of professional research – a feminist enquiry into young women’ssexual practice and cultures between 1988-90
Summary
I say something about the cultural and moral framing of motherhood and how this changes, shaped by welfare, policy and contraceptive regimes and the creative agency of women who live through dynamic and uneven conditions. I write this from the perspective of 2019 and a sociological career of over thirty years that has involved thinking about the female biography and the changing configuration of sex, marriage and birth within it.
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