IT TAKES A VILLAGE . . .
Mothering in a time of crisis and anxiety is a society-wide job, new Concordia research shows
Interviews with new and expectant moms suggest being a “good mother” increasingly involves pressure to address social and environmental crises
Raising a child is never easy. But crises like climate change, social unrest, financial collapse and pandemics are adding pressures on new and expectant mothers to serve as sources of comfort for society as a whole, according to a new Concordia study.
Writing in the Journal of Gender Studies, the researchers argue that a relentless tide of anxiety-inducing headlines is fueling what they call “maternal responsibilization.” As local and national governments retreat from addressing complex structural issues like gender-based violence, institutional racism and widening income inequality, mothers are expected to pick up the slack.
Maternal figures are absorbing messages from policy discourse, social media and experts that frame individual parenting choices as solutions to these problems, the researchers say. This layering of responsibility creates additional expectations for mothers, even as they worry about the day-to-day needs of their children.
In practice, this impacts mothers’ parenting decisions, such as choosing the right diapers, providing only organic food, following proper recycling habits or adopting anti-oppressive parenting practices.
“The policy frameworks in place align with a neoliberal approach to governing that avoids tackling structural issues,” says lead author Stephanie Paterson, a professor in the Department of Political Science.
“Those issues have been offloaded onto individuals. At a more granular level, mothers are still typically seen as largely responsible for societies.”
From context to expectation to action
The researchers conducted four interviews over two years with 33 first-time mothers in Montreal and Toronto, from the final trimester of pregnancy through 18 months post-partum. All participants were cisgender women in heterosexual relationships, but they represented a range of educational, income and national origin backgrounds. More than 40 per cent identified as members of racialized communities.
The authors asked open-ended questions about the participants’ transition to motherhood. Topics included what motherhood meant to them, when and how they decided to become a mother, what being the mother of a boy or girl meant to them, among others.
“These interviews were done between 2016 and 2018, so around the time of the Jian Ghomeshi trial, the Ferguson, Missouri riots, the allegations of police abuse against Indigenous women in Val D’Or, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission — these big events that were finding their way into the mother’s stories. But it wasn’t just about context. They were telling us what they were doing in light of that.”
To many of the mothers, their roles seemed to have expanded beyond caregiving to include nurturing and shielding their children from harms related to social injustice and climate change. Being a “good mother” became intertwined with addressing social ills. This concept shaped choices like avoiding air travel, following plant-based diets, resisting gendered norms and actively teaching their children about diversity.
“Like many of us, mothers are faced with a perpetual state of insecurity through almost constant crisis messaging,” says co-author Shannon Hebblethwaite, a professor in the Department of Applied Human Sciences.
“Adding to the pressures of motherhood, they also face generational expectations to raise children in ways that address social and environmental injustices in which governments have been unable or unwilling to invest.”
The authors note that assigning mothers moral authority to drive social movements is not a new phenomenon. But they suggest families deserve more care during times of perceived crisis.
“When we are looking for solutions, we have to be careful about who is doing the work,” Paterson says. “Offering more and better support can only reduce the mental load mothers carry.”
Lindsay Larios from the University of Manitoba and Dawn Trussell, Jennifer Mooradian and Lisa Petty from Brock University contributed research.
This study was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Read the cited article: “Maternal responsibilization in times of crisis: transition to motherhood and collective anxiety in Canada”
Journal
Journal of Gender Studies
Method of Research
Content analysis
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Maternal responsibilization in times of crisis: transition to motherhood and collective anxiety in Canada
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