Good Mother Research Articles

"It Took Away the Joy:" First American Mothers' Experiences with Postpartum Depression.

Postpartum depression (PPD) is a devastating mental illness associated with adverse health outcomes for mother, child, and family. Higher PPD prevalence in First American women suggests a racial/ethnic disparity, yet little is known about how PPD is experienced from their perspective. To 1) describe First American women's PPD experiences and the meanings they ascribe to those experiences and 2) describe the cultural knowledge, influences, and practices during the perinatal period. This phenomenological study used a community-based participatory research approach. Criterion and snowball sampling captured First American women who had PPD now or in the past (N = 8). Interviews used a semistructured guide and thematic analysis followed. Mean age was 30.25 years. Most women were multigravidas (n = 7) and rated themselves as "very" (n = 4) or "mostly" (n = 3) Native American. Women were mostly of low socioeconomic status and had a history of depression (n = 7) and/or a history of prenatal depression (n = 6). Themes: 1) stressors that contributed to PPD; 2) how PPD made me feel; 3) what made my PPD better; 4) heritage-centered practices; 5) support through PPD; 6) how I felt after PPD; and 7) am I a good mother? This study provides a better understanding of some First American women's PPD experiences that facilitates judgment of the importance of PPD within a cultural context. Clinicians need to create culturally appropriate responses to First American women's PPD needs.

Imposing Values and Enforcing Gender through Knowledge: Epistemic Oppression with the Morning-after Pill's Drug Label

AbstractAmong feminist philosophers, there are two lines of argument that sexist values are illegitimate in science, focusing on epistemic or ethical problems. This article supports a third framework, elucidating how value-laden science can enable epistemic oppression. My analysis demonstrates how purported knowledge laden with sexist values can compromise epistemic autonomy and contribute to paternalism and misogyny. I exemplify these epistemic wrongs with a case study of the morning-after pill (emergency contraception) during its 2006 switch to over-the-counter availability and its new drug label from the US Food and Drug Administration that it “may prevent implantation.” Antiabortion science advisers created this label to protect zygotes based on debated value judgments that were later concealed. This zygote-centric knowledge enabled them to shape potential users by instructing “good mothers” that they ought to protect zygotes and punishing “bad mothers” by refusing their requests for the drug. Therefore, I argue that the sexist values and gender norms of antiabortionists that prioritize zygotic health are illegitimate in this context because they cause epistemic injustices and perpetuate epistemic oppression. Furthermore, I advocate against blanket protections for the “right to conscience” and “religious freedom” of healthcare providers because they reinforce the epistemic oppression of women, especially those on the margins.Content Warning: This article discusses sexual assault and refusals to provide contraception to patients, including survivors.

ПОВСЯКДЕННЯ ГІМНАЗИСТОК НАВЧАЛЬНИХ ЗАКЛАДІВ КИЄВА ДРУГОЇ ПОЛОВИНИ ХІХ – ПОЧАТКУ ХХ СТОЛІТТЯ

This article is based on published scientific research and such sources as memoirs of students, reports of women gymnasium, the documents of archives, the newspapers. The article deals with the everyday life of the women departmental gymnasium students of the Russian Empire in the XIX century. This topic is not fully disclosed in the scientific literature because the main focus is on the gymnasium’s history, purposes, and patrons. The women gymnasium of Funduklei was the first women gymnasium for girls in all social groups. According to modern standards, it could be compared to an educational complex: a boarding house (a prototype dormitory) for girls from other cities who studied at the gymnasium and Podilsk department. Analyzing the list of the disciplines at the women gymnasium, we solved that the gymnasium program was focused on the study of humanities. Authorities tried to raise the girls as good wives and mothers. The class ladies kept an eye on their students. The girls from other cities had to live either with relatives or with «guardians», who must be reliable, and only after the approval of the chief supervisor. Their addresses were sent to their class teacher. If their address was changed, the students had to inform them within three days. In private boarding houses for girls, there were also supervisors and their rules: payment for accommodation in time, obedience to the head. The appearance of the students was regulated. The uniform of the schoolgirls was a long dress and hat, which had to be neat, modest and unpretentious. There were holidays three times a year, but not long. The women gymnasium organized the literary meetings for each student’s age group separately, the «evenings» and children’s holidays. The teachers organized excursions for students. The educational complex graduated many students such as Sofiia Rusova (Lindfors), Natalia Polonska-Vasylenko (Menshova), Anna Ahmatova (Gorenko), Kateryna Desnytska, Kseniia Derzhynska.

Stories From Mother Runners: A Case Study and Narrative Analysis of Facilitators for Competitive Running

Despite the focus on motherhood and sport participation in recent years, the motherhood and recreational sport participation nexus is not well understood. Using an instrumental case study, we explored running facilitators for competitive recreational mother runners to advance research using a novel theory (i.e., narrative inquiry). We used a dialogical narrative analysis to identify a key theme of “good mother runners: negotiating freedom and constraint.” Findings are presented using a storyteller approach in the form of three portrait characters who each tell a story of facilitators grounded in a “relational narrative” that provided freedom to run in the context of good motherhood. The features of the relational narrative are shown in three nonfiction vignettes: Susan’s story, “Running is what we do”; Tracy’s story, “Running isn’t just for me, it’s for them”; and Kay’s story, “Just go with it.” Interpretive reflections of the stories using narrative theory are offered. We conclude with practical recommendations and future research directions for mothers’ competitive running participation.

Assessment and Inventory of Capas National Shrine Forest Reservation Located at Camp O'donnell, Capas, Tarlac

The study was conducted from January to March 2021 at Capas National Shrine, Camp O'Donnell Capas, Tarlac, to identify the quantity, measure the extent, condition and select possible good mother trees from the ten percent (10%) intensity of trees of the thirty-five (35) hectares mini forest. The sampling area was 3.5 hectares, and it was divided into seven plots measuring 100mx50m or 0.5 hectares. The study area has 163 estimated trees per plot and 326 estimated trees per hectare. All the poles and standard trees within the sampling area were evaluated. Trees with a diameter at breast height of 30cm to 76cm and a total height of 15 meters above were considered good mother trees. The mean height and diameter at breast height of the mother trees were 16.69 meters and 33.64 cm. Phenotypic characteristics were assessed, including the tree height, tree diameter, stem straightness, stem forking, stem circularity, and tree health as indicated in the Selection Criteria of the Disposition or the DENR Administrative Order No. 2010-11. Out of 1142 trees characterized by mahogany, narra, and eucalyptus, only 55 mother trees of mahogany and one mother tree of eucalyptus were able to pass the DENR Administrative Order 2010-11. Unfortunately, narra trees did not pass the criteria to be considered mother trees. The identified good mother trees of mahogany were dominant in plots number 3 and 6.

Repairing the M(other) and the Self Through the Creation of Art: Reading Hilda Doolittle’s HERmione in parallel with Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges through Kleinian Lenses

Hilda Doolittle, known as H.D., began to write prose fiction to surmount her traumas and see the way ahead again. H.D. composed varied autobiographical prose, among which her Madrigal Cycle Novels; Asphodel, HERmione, Paint it Today, and Bid me To live hold a pivotal place. Within the scope of this article, I will analyse HERmione in conjunction with Ravel’s opera L'Enfant et les Sortilèges which became the main subject of Melanie Klein’s paper on ‘infantile anxiety-situations reflected in a work of art and in the creative impulse’. Reading these two writings in tandem will help to clarify the connections that I draw between Klein’s ‘reparation’ concept and H.D.’s writing. The paper, read before the British Psychoanalytic Society in 1929, both elaborates upon Klein’s analysis regarding art production and introduces the term ‘reparation’ for the first time. Klein starts her analysis with Ravel’s opera, which focuses merely on the destructive fantasies of a six-year-old boy. Throughout the paper, Klein emphasises the significance of the reparation process in the handling of destructive fantasies and reads it within the good and bad mother dichotomy. Reading these two works together will shed insight into how- and why- did H.D. feel compelled to create this particular prose, as well as how similar destructive fantasies affected H.D.’s life and decisions paving the way to her being a writer. HERmione, though composed seven years after Asphodel, is a prelude to Asphodel and tells the story of H.D.’s years in Pennsylvania. This altered chronology indicates that there are emotional reasons for H.D. writing out of chronological order. There may be both editorial and psychoanalytical explanations for her choice to write about her adolescent years, 1906–1911, in particular, after writing on her war trauma and stillbirth, which happened around 1915. In this article, I endeavour not only to explain such explicit choices for a deconstructed chronologic linearity, a prominent feature of modernist forms, within a Kleinian psychoanalytic framework but also to analyse how the writing process contributed to H.D.’s own ‘reparation’ process.

A Child’s Hidden Struggles: Self-Efficacy and Painful Feelings in the Years following Parental Separation

ABSTRACT The current study examined the influence of post-separation co-parental conflict on participants’ self-efficacy and current distress, through the Cooperative-Competitive Parental Conflict Model. Participants were a community sample of 77 people who experienced parental separation as a child. Cooperative co-parenting was positively associated with good fathering, good mothering, and negatively associated with blaming father/mother for the separation, loss, and abandonment, and seeing life through the separation. Low self-efficacy, blaming mother, and acceptance of the separation predicted participant’s current distress. The findings highlight the impact of post-separation co-parental conflict on children’s self-efficacy and current distress.

„…ki találhat bölcs asszonyt?” Némi betekintés a 16–17. századi papnék műveltségébe

Abstract. “Who Can Find a Wise Woman?” Some Insights into the Education of the Wives of 16th-17th-Century Calvinist Priests. The paper examines the literacy of pastors’ wives during the 16th-17th centuries. For a long time, the opportunity for women to acquire literacy was only the privilege of the upper social strata, but literacy was not widespread among them either. This trend came to an end in the 17th century, for which period we also found examples of the literacy of urban citizens. The daughters of the lower social strata were prepared primarily to be good wives, housewives, and good mothers in the family, especially next to their mothers. Examining the preachers’ wives as a well-defined social group is a problem due to the scarcity of resources. In most cases, we know nothing but the name of the preacher’s wife, and we do not have information about their origins and families; if we do, however, then their social situation and the occupation of their parents provide a basis for research into their education. The conclusion of the research is that even if they did not receive a formal education, the 16th-17th-century Calvinist pastors’ wives were educated women. In many cases, this knowledge – primarily wisdom, life experience, and piety – and the virtues necessary for the roles of housewife, mother, and wife were the main aspects of choice for their husband. Keywords: pastor’s wife, Protestantism, literacy, 16th-17th century

Skating through pregnancy and motherhood: A narrative analysis of digital stories of elite figure skating expectant mothers

ObjectivesAlthough research on elite sport and motherhood is growing, more research is needed to understand the narratives that shape their identities and lives. We sought to build on sport psychology research centralizing the media as naturalistic data resources to explore elite athlete mother identity in cultural context. The specific aim was to explore how elite athlete identities are portrayed during pregnancy on Instagram. DesignTwo high profile elite figure skating expectant mothers’ (i.e., Meagan Duhamel and Aljona Savchenko) Instagram posts were the focus of a dialogical narrative analysis (DNA) grounded in relativist narrative inquiry. Two research questions were explored: 1. how do expectant athlete mothers portray themselves in big and small stories, and 2. what are the implications (e.g., psychosocial, behavioural) of identity meanings portrayed in digital stories? ResultsDNA of 122 posts (n = 82 for Duhamel, n = 40 for Savchenko) identified a key big story: (re)configuring ideal pregnancy. Four small stories fed into fluid meanings of ‘ideal pregnancy’ and ways of ‘doing pregnancy’ linked to self-identity portrayals: documenting the growing life, baby bumps on display, Olympic dreams/journeys and living the good life through leisure. Consumerism was shown to thread small stories. These findings show contradictions of motherhood meanings and body ideals (e.g., feminine, athletic) vs realities (e.g., tired, sore), linked to actions (e.g., skating during pregnancy, promoting products or athlete brand), in good mother and biomedical narratives. ConclusionsA big and small story approach grounded in narrative inquiry holds value to learn more about the digital landscape’s role in shaping athlete expectant mother self-identities. Future research exploring social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) may expand intertextual understanding of athlete mothers' identities and lives.

Constructions of good mothering during lockdown learning

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic and the ideology of intensive mothering through analysis of posts on lockdown learning in an online mothering community. It is argued that although the school closures seemed to constitute an endorsement and normalisation of intensive mothering ideology [Hays (1996). The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven: Yale University Press] by the machinery of government, and increased the pressure upon many women, some mothers resisted these expectations in this online forum. The online community served as a space in which intensive mothering expectations were articulated [Lehner-Mear (2020). “Good Mother, Bad Mother? Maternal Identities and Cyber-Agency in the Primary School Homework Debate.” Gender and Education 33 (3): 285–305] but also offered an arena for cyber-agency, enabling women to express negative emotions, and normalising the rejection of expert constructions of mothering.

Conceptual contours of migration studies in and from Asia

Conceptual contours of migration studies in and from Asia

클라인적 관점에서 읽은 『제인 에어』

This paper explores how the protagonist, Jane Eyre, forms her identity through maternal connections with other characters within the novel. Jane’s maternal experience can be analysed through Melanie Klein’s theory of maternity. Klein argues that an infant in the “paranoid-schizoid position”(during the first three months of life) splits its mother into both a good mother and a bad mother. When the infant deems the mother to be a persecutor, then it tries to control or harm the mother by projecting its own negative feelings towards her. Klein defines this process as “projective identification.” Jane’s hatred and aggression towards her bad mother, Mrs Reed, resembles Klein’s “projective identification.” According to Klein, the infant in the “depressive position”(after the paranoid-schizoid position) feels guilt and anxiety for the damage inflicted on its mother in the previous position, The infant goes through a mourning process for the loss of its positive object, and restores its mother as “a good and complete object.” At this moment of restoration, the infant successfully overcomes its own depressive position. In this novel, Jane experiences feelings of guilt for doing harm to her bad mother figure, and the normal mourning process then helps her to successfully overcome her depressive position. After restoring Rochester as an object of love and gratitude, Jane comes back to him, whom she sees as a prototype of her own lost mother.

SEXIST LANGUAGE SHOWING GENDER STEREOTYPES AS DEPICTED IN EFL TEXTBOOKS

One of the most prominent ways to shape children and adolescents’ mindset is through learning formally at school. EFL textbooks have an important role for students to learn English, but they will also unconsciously learn about gender stereotypes. These gender stereotypes include the belief that women’s role is limited to being a housewife, a good mother to her children, and an obedient woman for her husband. For men, their role is more to the wider part of society, which includes being a breadwinner and more successful in career. The object of this study is BSE English textbooks from grade X-XII. This paper will analyse sexist languages shown in the EFL textbooks using Mills (1995) theory and gender stereotypes using Arliss’ (1991) theory. This research is considered as descriptive qualitative research. The result shows that there are three types of sexist languages: fragmentation, presupposition and inference, and generic nouns. The second research formulation indicates that there are three gender stereotypes, namely stereotypes on traits, roles, and behavior.

Regulating motherhood through markets: Filipino women’s engagement with microcredit

The Philippines is a global leader in deploying microcredit to address poverty. These programmes are usually directed at women. Research on these programmes focuses on traditional economic indicators such as loan repayment rates but neglects impacts on women’s agency and well-being, or their position in the household and relationships with their partners and children. It is taken for granted that access to microcredit leads to enhanced gender freedoms. In line with the growing body of work in feminist scholarship that critiques the instrumentalist logic of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in relation to women, this research foregrounds stories from interviews with female borrowers in Zamboanga City in Southern Philippines to provide grounded illustrations of how microcredit is reshaping relationships between women and their families, women and poverty and women and the state. Borrowers used loans to meet their family’s needs even at the cost of harassment from creditors, indebtedness, increased workloads and conflict with partners. These narratives challenge the dominant neoliberal discourse of female empowerment through access to credit by exposing how microcredit is part of a complex set of regulations around ‘good motherhood’ and consumption, where women’s moral worth is based on their willingness and ability to lift their families out of poverty.

VIEWS ON THE SYMBOLIC USE OF TWO RARE BONE FINGER DISTAFFS WITH DOG REPRESENTATION FROM HALUK PERK MUSEUM IN ISTANBUL

There are various interpretations on the functions of bone finger distaffs, which are among the important artifacts produced in the ancient world. Some scholars argue that finger distaffs were a symbol of fidelity and virtue and presented to women as wedding gifts, while others claim that in addition to their purely symbolic value, they were used by women in the house to spin the wool yarn needed for weaving besides their symbolic meaning. The Haluk Perk Museum has a rich collection of figured and non-figured finger distaffs of different materials from the Roman and Byzantine periods. There are two bone finger distaffs in the collection that attract attention with their representation of dogs depicted in different forms. In the ancient world, the dog represented loyalty, fertility, healing and purification. Remarkably, the dog was also one of the symbols of the Goddess Hecate, who is associated with witchcraft, which means that one of the other qualities attributed to the dog figure was that it bestowed protective and healing powers against evil. It is believed that the two bone finger distaffs featuring a depiction of a dog as a representation of loyalty were given to women as wedding gifts. In late antiquity, young women who had arrived at the age of marriage were expected, as part of the social roles imposed on them by society, to preserve the unity of the family and be virtuous and good wives and mothers. The finger distaffs prepared to be given to young women as wedding gifts symbolized their status as loyal wife and mother in society. On account of this symbolic value, wives kept finger distaffs for the entirety of their lives, and they were placed in their graves after their death. It is further believed that the finger distaffs featuring a dog depiction were symbols of devotion and loyalty to the spouse, as well as a symbol of fertility for women. Beyond these symbolic functions, the finger distaffs with dog depictions may also have been kept by wives to protect and heal the household from evil and diseases. Based on the depiction of the dog on two bone finger distaffs, this study focuses on dog symbolism and the relationship between the goddess Hecate and the dog in ancient times and discusses the possible symbolic functions of the finger distaffs with dog representations in the life and death of women.

The ‘good mother’ discourse in ‘success stories’ of Australian weight loss centres: a critical discourses analysis

ABSTRACT The ‘good mother’ discourse is concerned with the sociocultural construction of motherhood and is visible in many social contexts, such as the workplace, sport, family, and in particular, health-related contexts such as weight loss. This paper explores the ‘good mother’ discourse within constructs of weight created in and through engagement in Australian weight loss centres. Of the 108 success stories collected, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was applied to eighty-six (n = 86) success stories across three Australian weight loss centres (Weight Watchers, Lite n’ Easy, and Michelle Bridges’ 12 Week Body Transformation). These success stories were published on each of their weight loss centres’ websites and were accessed on Thursday 20 August 2015 for the purpose of analysis. Findings show that there was a dynamic and complex relationship between women losing weight and wanting to maintain the ‘good mother’ status. Mothers felt a strong need to justify losing weight, through benefits for their family rather than for themselves, and were ‘allowed’ (and therefore given ‘permission’) to join and participate in the weight loss centres. The process supporting the development of becoming a ‘better’ mother. Insight into these processes helps us to examine the role weight loss centres play in constructing ideals surrounding gender, motherhood, the body, and in particular for the discursive messages that shape understandings of ‘success’ and being a ‘good mother’.

Myths of ‘good motherhood’ and the wellbeing of mothers during the Covid-19 pandemic

BackgroundMeasures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic had major impacts on families, e.g., due to the unpredictable closing of childcare facilities and schools. Parents had to re-arrange their work, childcare and household obligations.MethodsWe conducted 17 email interviews with mothers having at least one child aged < =6 years. Topics included adjustments to the pandemic situation, views on motherhood and wellbeing. We analysed data through content analysis.ResultsWe found differing consequences on the wellbeing of the interviewees. One group articulated a deceleration of daily life and increased satisfaction due to doing more justice to their role as mother. Another group felt highly stressed and overloaded. Some expressed having shaky hands and heart palpitations, others felt mentally exhausted. The idea of not being a ‘good mother' was expressed by many, provoking guilt and self-doubt. Most interviewees referred to ideological myths of motherhood, picturing mothers as caring and sacrificial, yet well-organized managers of the family. Norms imposed on ‘working mothers' require their full effort and an ability to manage employers' demands. These conflicting norms reveal tensions between the roles mothers find themselves in, potentially leading to adverse (mental) health outcomes.ConclusionsOur analysis shows that myths of ‘good motherhood' act as a perpetuation mechanism of traditional gender roles and increase the social burden many mothers are expected to carry, adding to the challenges the global pandemic brought on families. Negative consequences on (mental) health require mitigation strategies, putting mothers at the centre of Covid-19 response policies.Key messages The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbates traditional gender roles and the multiple social burdens that mothers are expected to carry.Conflicting norms imposed on mothers reveal tensions between the different roles they find themselves in, potentially leading to adverse (mental) health outcomes.

Bringing Home la Leche: Expanding Teachers’ Maternal Roles in Rural Oaxaca

AbstractMaestra(woman teacher) is the most common occupation of Mexican women who pursue higher education. This coincides with perceptions that teaching is a public manifestation of women's prescribed responsibility for socializing children. And yet, like women teachers elsewhere, maestras who are mothers routinely struggle to juggle their household, childcare and employment responsibilities. This ethnographic study explores the extreme work‐life imbalance experienced by rural maestras in the state of Oaxaca. Because the mountainous terrain and underdeveloped infrastructure complicate commuting, maestras assigned to isolated communities may stay in these villages while their children live with other relatives. This discussion explores ways that these women's extradomestic employment that is at odds with local ideals of the “good mother” who is at home with her children may actually help reshape constructions of maternal roles and responsibilities. Analysis of mothers' narratives reveals the emotional strains of being away from their children, and speaks to the pride these dedicated teachers take in “bringing home the milk” as economic providers. Ultimately, the tensions these agentive mothers confront and negotiate in their private and professional lives underscore ways that the prioritization of the latter in gender role norms limits women's options, choices and opportunities for full empowerment.

Postnatal Depression: The Role of “Good Mother” Ideals and Maternal Shame in a Community Sample of Mothers in Australia

Postnatal Depression: The Role of “Good Mother” Ideals and Maternal Shame in a Community Sample of Mothers in Australia

‘Although I had a failed marriage, I won't be a failure as a mother’: An analysis of Vietnamese single mothers' involvement in their children's schooling

Parents' involvement in their children's schooling is well documented in sociological and educational research. However, the ways in which single mothers engage in their children's schooling is an understudied subject in the Vietnamese context. This article aims to address this gap by documenting single mothers' investments in their children's education. The findings reveal that single mothers in both rural and urban areas invest a large amount of their limited time and income on their children's education despite the heavy mental, physical and emotional toll these activities place on them. The mothers anticipate that these sacrifices will result in better educational outcomes for their children, thereby improving their social and economic status. These sacrifices are also a self-investment as the mothers anticipate that their children's education will facilitate class mobility and provide the mothers with support in old age. The findings illustrate that the parenting style of single mothers in Vietnam is heavily influenced by the dominant ideology of ‘good mothering’ which is constructed by cultural values, especially Confucian norms, as well as local government rhetoric and globalisation.