Intensive Mothering Ideology Research Articles

#adaywithMamaJen: An Analysis of Visual Self-Representation of Motherhood on Instagram

Motherhood is culturally expected and requires women to conform to societal ideology, creating 'good mothers' ideals and media commercialization. With the growing number of social media influencers, especially on Instagram, the study aims to examine the meaning of the visual self-representation shown by the Instagram account of Jennifer Bachdim (JB) and connects to the roles of motherhood portrayed by the account. The account showcases JB's work as a mother, entrepreneur, and influencer in beauty and wellness. The study applied but was not limited to, Machin & Mayr’s multimodal critical discourse analysis and Rettberg’s self-representation theory to analyze JB’s selected reels. The results indicate that JB's selected reels represent her notion of being 'busy' as a mother of four children, entrepreneur, and influencer; yet the representation that JB builds negates the presence of helping hands in her family life. Also, JB creates a self-representation of motherhood to attract attention and followers, influencing and reshaping the media's image of successful mothers, and reinforcing intensive mothering ideology. In the selected reels, JB shapes an image closely associated with her motherhood roles. Consequently, the increasing number of followers subsequently contributes to her expanding business deals.

Vegan labor: the intensification of family foodwork at the intersection of dietary and gender norms

ABSTRACT Drawing from a case study of child veganism in Switzerland, I bring together parenting culture studies and food studies to ask how veganism relates to the ideology of intensive mothering. Describing five kinds of “vegan labor” – extra foodwork that vegan parents attributed to their vegan lifestyle –, I find that adopting an alternative diet intensifies parental commitment in a gendered way. Discussing these findings against the backdrop of the Swiss culture of nutrition and gender regime, I underline how examining alternative diets can further our understanding of parenting culture, gender roles, and foodwork. Intensive mothering relates to the local culture of nutrition and the meanings attached to specific diets; coupled with socioeconomic privilege, it can also serve as a resource to mitigate social scrutiny and judgment.

Shouldering the burden: Intensive mothering and autism

AbstractObjectiveThe objective of this study was to identify the degree to which intensive mothering ideology corresponds to the perspectives and roles of mothers of young adults with autism.BackgroundPrevious research suggests that intensive mothering ideology shapes the perspectives and roles of mothers in general. However, few studies have examined how the ideology specifically relates to mothers of young adults with autism. Research is needed to understand the roles that mothers of young adults with autism assume within the context of intensive mothering.MethodIn‐depth interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of 19 mothers of adult children with autism. Interview data were analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory approach.ResultsMothers devoted much time and effort to caring for or otherwise assisting their adult children with autism, assuming the roles of protector, advocate, and case manager. Mothers struggled to live up to the expectations of intensive mothering but, simultaneously, resented the degree to which they had to advocate and manage services for their adult children.ConclusionMothers may feel added pressure to meet the needs of adult children with autism. Many are susceptible to self‐blame and internalizing others' negative judgments of their parenting abilities, but some view themselves as good mothers based on the challenges they have overcome.ImplicationsService providers can adopt a family‐based approach to services for adults with autism and their families. Policymakers could explore opportunities to make the adult service system more attentive to the needs of caregivers.

Negotiating good motherhood: Foodwork, emotion work, and downscaling

AbstractObjectiveThis study examined how lower‐income mothers engage in emotion work in order to feel like good mothers within broader contexts of stigmatization, economic insecurity, and precarity.BackgroundDespite the pervasiveness of the intensive mothering ideology, research shows that lower‐income mothers in the United States also routinely diverge from the ideology's norms due to structural and cultural factors. In doing so, these mothers simultaneously work to reframe and negotiate what it means to be a good mother. While scholarship reveals how mothers cognitively and behaviorally carry out this work, less attention has been paid to how mothers perform this work on an emotional level.MethodDrawing on in‐depth interviews with 33 lower‐income mothers in the San Francisco Bay Area, this study investigated, through the lens of maternal foodwork, how mothers work on their emotions to feel like good mothers. Data were analyzed abductively.ResultsMothers worked on their emotions as part of an effort to negotiate what good mothering looks like and to feel like good mothers as they performed maternal foodwork. To do so, mothers engaged in the gendered and classed emotion work strategy of downscaling. Downscaling involved working to inhibit negative emotions and evoke positive ones. Downscaling was facilitated by three key approaches: reflecting on harder times, redefining good foodwork, and leveraging social comparison.ConclusionDownscaling serves as a rational, effective emotion work strategy to help mothers navigate ongoing hardships, cultivate a positive maternal identity, and feel like good mothers within contexts of stigmatization, economic insecurity, and precarity.

Finishing the “unfinished revolution”?: College‐educated mothers' resistance to intensive mothering

AbstractIntensive mothering, a classed and gendered practice optimally performed by stay‐at‐home mothers, is a dominant parenting ideology, particularly in developed societies with wide disparities in wealth. Ironically, in these societies, women tend to be well educated and have good employment prospects that are expected to free them from domestic obligations. Facing competing expectations shaped by the institutions of work and the family, how do college‐educated mothers consider ending or limiting their participation in the workforce or holding jobs while resolving the moral dilemma of being both a worker and a mother? We compared 33 college‐educated Hong Kong mothers engaged in different professions and constructed typologies that describe how intersecting ideologies of mothering and work shape work‐family arrangements. We paid special attention to mothers with strong commitment to their work, but with different ideologies about mothering. Some espouse the ideology of intensive mothering. Their belief in gender essentialism proved exhausting for them, both at work and at home. While away from home, these mothers supervised domestic helpers from their workplaces. Other women value their professions as emblematic of their identity as the perfect mother—an integrated form of mothering, thus feeling no guilt for delegating childcare responsibilities. We argue that given the entrenched gender inequality in workplaces and men's slow progress in doing their share of domestic work, the emergence of integrated mothering both rhetorically and in practice reflects women's striving to bring the “unfinished revolution” closer to the finish line.

Mothering Ideology: A Qualitative Exploration of Mothers' Perceptions of Navigating Motherhood Pressures and Partner Relationships.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11199-022-01345-7.

Mothers’ Willingness to Sacrifice for Their Children: An Exploratory Approach

Intensive mothering ideology emphasizes mothers’ sacrifice for their children. Despite the increase in women’s social and economic participation, mothers continue to experience conflicts between career and family obligations due to the conventional idea of “good mothers.” Do all mothers prioritize their children’s needs? This study focuses on whether mothers are willing to sacrifice their happiness and whether such beliefs change over time. We explore the factors contributing to mothers’ intention to sacrifice and its change from two theoretical perspectives, rational choice model and linked lives perspective. Using the first three waves of the Panel Study on Korean Children, the findings show that almost half of all mothers are not willing to sacrifice their own happiness for their children at each wave. Both rational choice and linked lives perspectives contribute to explaining mothers’ view of sacrifice in the baseline year. The change in mothers’ view on sacrifice over time is significantly influenced by a subset of variables including their spouse’s positions on sacrifice and social exchange experience with their children (the linked lives perspective), and the emotional values that mothers place on babies (the rational choice model).

The virtual mother: Mumsnet and the emergence of new forms of ‘good mothering’ online

Whilst previous research into mothering on social media has focused on representations of intensive mothering ideology, this paper argues that social media are fundamentally changing mothering discourses for some users. The paper explores ‘good’ mothering in digital communities by considering: the legitimised expression of ambivalent emotions in digital mothering communities; the shifting relationship between private and public, with implications for new forms of maternal intimacy; the forms of surveillance engaged in, and resisted, online; and the opportunities for women to play with alternative identities. Through analysis of posts on the British mothering internet forum ‘Mumsnet’, the paper suggests the concept of virtual mothering to encapsulate the emerging ways in which mothering is performed through online spaces. Four aspects of virtual mothering discourse are explored – perfection, privacy, politics and play.

Review: How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America, by Priya Fielding-Singh

Review: <i>How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America</i>, by Priya Fielding-Singh

Negotiating co-existing subjectivities: the new maternal self in the academy

ABSTRACT The challenge of mothering while pursuing an academic career is the most significant obstacle to women’s success. However, there is a lack of research examining how being a woman who intensively mothers co-exist with her autonomous subjectivity as an academic. In this qualitative study, academic mothers adhere both to an intensive mothering ideology and the ideal worker construct reified in neo-liberalised academic culture. We argue that these women negotiate the co-existence of these subjectivities from within a ‘new’ maternal subjectivity. These academic women are not victims of the patriarchal norms of the academy or the ideological constraints of intensive mothering. Instead, they actively negotiate institutional and ideological constraints in a way that incorporates their autonomous subjectivity and their maternal subjectivity.

Emotions of burden, intensive mothering and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy

ABSTRACT Addressing mothers’ vaccine hesitancy, which is a state of indecision rather than refusal, may become critical to public health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Extant research separately examines how intensive mothering ideology and emotions interact with childhood vaccine hesitancy; however, little is known about the emotions at the intersection of motherhood and vaccine hesitancy. To address this, we seek to understand the emotions experienced by COVID-19 vaccine hesitant mothers who experience the societal pressures arising from the ideology of intensive mothering. Interviews (n = 30) were conducted with women in Australia who identify as mothers and self-report to have concerns about COVID-19 vaccination of their children. The findings suggest ‘emotions of burden’, specifically fear of being a ‘bad mother’ and anticipated guilt about failing to be a ‘good mother’, are experienced by mothers striving to meet societal expectations of intensive mothering though their vaccination decision. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of mothers’ experiences in making vaccination decisions for their children and lends further empirical support to critiques of intensive mothering ideology as well as public perceptions of vaccine hesitant mothers. Practically, public health campaigns that avoid intimations of ‘bad mothering’ and acknowledge how emotionally burdensome the COVID-19 vaccination decision can be for vaccine hesitant mothers are indicated.

An ideology of collective‐intensive mothering: The gendered organization of care in a babysitting cooperative

AbstractBabysitting cooperatives offer reciprocity‐based short‐term childcare for members. In practice, the babysitting cooperative (co‐op) under study has contradictory outcomes that both relieve and burden its participants. This study is based on ethnographic methods: 4 years of participant observation, 28 in‐depth interviews with 18 members and 10 spouses and an analysis of babysitting co‐op texts. This research extends the ideology of intensive mothering to include collective‐intensive mothering, a group form of intensified caregiving reproduced by the babysitting co‐op's gendered organization of care. To accomplish collective‐intensive mothering, babysitting co‐op members employ intensive mothering beliefs and practices in conjunction with other group members. What is more, co‐op members collectively intensify their mothering practices with other members' children in addition to their own. Given need for more (and better) caregiving alternatives, the lack of scholarly attention to unpaid cooperative caregiving groups, like babysitting co‐ops, is surprising. This research seeks to address this gap.

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.

Changes in Mothering Ideology After Childbirth and Maternal Mental Health in French Women

The prevailing dominant discourse about motherhood in western societies reflects a set of interconnected beliefs referred to as intensive mothering ideology. Little is known about how intensive mothering ideology changes after childbirth, and the associations between intensive mothering ideology and maternal mental health. The current study aims to explore how intensive mothering ideology may evolve after childbirth in both primiparous and multiparous women, and whether any observed changes in this ideology impact maternal mental health. French women (n = 144) completed a set of study measures during late pregnancy and then again at two months and four months postpartum, which assessed intensive mothering ideology, postpartum depression, and maternal burnout symptoms. As expected, the results indicated that intensive mothering ideology increases after childbirth. However, changes in ideology were not stronger in primiparous women compared to multiparous women. Of note, multiparous women reported stronger challenge and sacrifice beliefs. Finally, linear mixed models showed that changes in intensive mothering ideology were associated with maternal mental health in contradictory ways, while controlling for parity and unemployment. Mainly, growth in sacrificial beliefs seems to be detrimental to maternal mental health. These findings have implications for the well-being of mothers after childbirth and call for challenging the self-sacrifice beliefs that underpin intensive mothering ideology in order to promote self-care.

어머니의 집중적인 모성 이데올로기와 정신적 안녕감의 관계: 자기자비와 양육스트레스의 매개효과

본 연구는 코로나19로 어머니의 자녀 돌봄시간이 증가된 상황에서, 어머니를 자녀의 양육에 있어 가장 완벽하고 유일한 양육자로 보는 신념인 집중적인 모성 이데올로기가 어머니의 정신적 안녕감에 미치는 영향을 자기자비와 양육스트레스의 매개효과를 포함하여 살펴보고자 하였다. 이를 위해 첫째 자녀가 만 9세 이하이고, 코로나19로 인해 가정보육 경험이 있는 어머니 372명을 대상으로 자기보고식 온라인 설문조사를 실시하였다. 이후 구조방정식 모형 분석을 통해 집중적인 모성 이데올로기와 정신적 안녕감의 관계에서 자기자비와 양육스트레스의 매개효과를 살펴보고 이의 통계적 유의성을 검증하였다. 구조방정식 분석 결과, 집중적인 모성 이데올로기는 자기자비는 부적으로, 양육스트레스는 정적으로, 정신적 안녕감은 부적으로 예측하였으며, 자기자비는 양육스트레스를 부적으로, 정신적 안녕감은 정적으로 예측하였다. 또한 양육스트레스는 정신적 안녕감을 부적으로 예측하였다. 이 때 집중적인 모성 이데올로기와 정신적 안녕감의 관계에서 자기자비와 양육스트레스 각각의 매개효과가 유의했으며, 집중적인 모성 이데올로기가 자기자비와 양육스트레스를 순차적으로 거쳐 정신적 안녕감에 영향을 미치는 이중매개효과도 유의하였다. 마지막으로, 코로나19 시대 어머니의 정신적 안녕감을 효과적으로 증진시키기 위한 개입 전략을 제시하였다.

Commercial surrogacy in the age of intensive mothering

This study examines the navigation of intensive mothering ideology – the dominant cultural mothering schema in the US which places pressure on mothers to exclusively devote time and energy to their children, casting any other activity as problematic – within the lived experience of a unique cohort of mothers: women paid to gestate and birth babies for others. Based on in-depth interviews with US commercial surrogates, this study adds new depth to the body of research on intensive mothering by extending the arena of examination beyond work/family balance negotiations, where much of the literature is located. US surrogates understand surrogacy, which is rigorous labor, frequently takes time away from their families, and requires support from family members, not as a form of employment but as a ‘selfish pursuit,’ one they primarily engage in out of their own interests and desires. This study finds that the positive moral framework of surrogate labor as ‘altruistic self-sacrifice’ common within the US surrogacy industry and community, the fact that surrogacy is a relatively short-term ‘gig,’ and the healthy monetary compensation surrogates receive that serves as a tangible ‘thank you gift’ to families, help to buffer surrogates from full intensive mothering accountability. The experiences of US surrogates navigating mothering pressures while participating in surrogacy offer a window into how other contemporary US mothers might resist intensive mothering norms while engaging in non-familial and non-employment activities in their lives, activities such as hobbies or personal time away from family.

Validity of the Measure of Intensive Mothering Ideology (MIMI)

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to test the validity of the Measure of Intensive Mothering Ideology (MIMI), a French scale assessing beliefs about mothering and childcare. MethodThe MIMI was submitted online to Mothers/mothers-to-be (n=249) and Childless women (n=231). To test structural validity, confirmatory factor analyses were conducted in both groups. Then, to test known-groups validity, means comparisons were conducted according to parity (mothers/mothers-to-be and childless women) and employment status (full-time, part-time and housewives). It was also hypothesized that MIMI scores would be negatively correlated with education. ResultsModel fit was satisfactory for Mothers/mothers-to-be (X2/df=2.52, AGFI=.957, NFI=.937 RMR=.087) and, to a lesser extent, for Childless women (X2/df=3.31, AGFI=.948, NFI=.907, RMR=.104). In both groups, most dimensions were moderately correlated (.22–.70). As hypothesized, Mothers/mothers-to-be and Housewives had higher score than Childless women and Employed women. MIMI scores were also negatively and moderately correlated with education. ConclusionThe MIMI shows good structural validity and known-groups validity. This scale offers interesting research avenues notably regarding perinatal parental adaptation.

“Part‐Time Parent”: Mothering in the Context of Shared Physical Custody

ObjectiveThis qualitative study examined women's identities as mothers when sharing postdivorce physical custody of children.BackgroundThe increase in divorced parents sharing physical custody can create challenges, especially for women whose identity is manifested through the social position of mother. Although researchers have investigated children's outcomes in connection with shared physical custody, little is known regarding the effects of shared custody on women's identities as mothers.MethodA secondary analysis was conducted using interviews from a grounded theory study of 20 divorced women with shared physical custody arrangements.ResultsMothers resolved the cognitive dissonance they experienced upholding the competing values of being physically present for their child and supporting their child's relationship with their father by prioritizing the belief that their child should maintain relationships with both parents. The mothers found ways in which their part‐time parent role supported their mothering identity. They also experienced challenges and developed individual solutions to overcome the challenges.ConclusionThe ideology of intensive mothering may be changing, particularly for women who undergo divorce or separation. Mothers' beliefs that their children should maintain relationships with both parents overrides their desire to always be physically present for their children and decreases the time women enact their role as mothers.ImplicationsPractitioners are encouraged to guide mothers' adjustment to their custody arrangement and help them “redo” the ways they view their mother identity.

Working Mothers’ Experiences in an Intensive Mothering Culture: A Phenomenological Qualitative Study

ABSTRACT The population of working mothers has greatly increased over the past few decades, yet cultural norms and standards for women have not progressed at the same rate. Intensive mothering ideals set expectations for mothers that recruit them into inequitable parental partnerships and create challenges for their well-being, health, and relational fitness. This phenomenological study attempted to describe the experiences of 15 working mothers working in a United States cultural context that supports an intensive mothering ideology. The themes uncovered included: a) Personal Experience of Motherhood as Discrepant from “Ideal” Motherhood, b) The Juggling Act Leading to Motherhood Overload, c) Inequitable Motherhood Load and Double Standard Based on Gender, and d) Physical and Emotional Consequences of Deferring Own Needs. Implications for practice include utilizing feminist approaches with clients, working to lessen the impact of intensive mothering expectations for mothers and their families, and working to establish a more equitable parental partnership.

A phenomenological investigation into the role of intensive mothering in working mothers’ career experiences

ABSTRACT The intensive mothering ideology prescribes the right way to be a mother, limiting a mother’s opportunity to engage in paid work outside of the home. Working mothers face a magnitude of stressors and often struggle to meet the demands of their multiple roles. This phenomenological study examined the experiences of 15 working mothers to understand how they navigate their careers in a culture that place high expectations on mothers.