Motherhood’s Normativity

Abstract

The normative dimensions of contemporary motherhood are the subject of much interest in academic and journalistic writing, as well as featuring in novels, films and other products of popular culture, on the subject in the UK and US (e.g. Blair-Loy 2003; Dieckmann 2009; Engle 2010; Enright 2004; Pearson 2002; Stone 2007; Warner 2006). It would seem that motherhood is an important arena of contestation over contemporary normative orders, and the justifications those orders depend on (Spencer 1970). Much of the academic literature on the character and dynamics of contemporary motherhood assumes that it is compromised by the extension of ever-increasing expertise over its norms and practices.

… it is impossible to actually do mothering as if it did not matter.

(Lewis 2001: 68)

I can’t think of anybody I know who’s a bad mother.

(Anita¹, interview, March 2011)