motherhood

motherhood A term encompassing the practical realities and social significance of being a mother. The nature of sociological interest in mothering (the process) and motherhood (the condition) has varied over time. Prior to the 1970s, the focus was either on having children as a demographic event (where women rather than men were typically the unit of analysis), or on child-rearing. In both cases the child was the centre of attention, whether as a numerical addition to the population, or as a potential adult member of society. On the one hand, patterns of fertility were examined: the age of childbearing, the spacing of births, family size, contraceptive use, illegitimacy, and so forth. On the other hand, the concern was with the impact of the mother's (and to a lesser extent the father's) behaviour on the child, and hence on the subsequent adult. Sociological analyses drew on anthropologists' influential cross-cultural studies of child-training and psychologists' analyses of child development (in both cases the Freudian legacy was strong). Sociological work located child-rearing within the broader framework of the process of socialization—a process occurring at all stages of life and involving a range of agents, not just parents, in which individuals are trained to accept the prevailing social norms. Given the marked empirical differences in maternal and paternal roles, research on childhood socialization inevitably showed some awareness of gender differences, but tended simply to take them for granted. Indeed, macro-theoretical analyses, like that of Talcott Parsons, asserted the functional necessity in advanced industrial societies of women's role in child-care within the home.

The feminist movements of the 1970s had a marked impact on the sociological study of motherhood, critically questioning the parental division of labour, although empirical studies showed and continue to show that the bulk of parenting is carried out by women. One consequence of this attention to gender differentiation was an interest in fatherhood. Feminism also equally importantly shifted the attention from the mother as a producer and creator of children to the mother herself. In the first place, the experience of being a mother has been placed centre-stage. Second, the impact and significance of motherhood on women's position in society and on the gender division of labour has been addressed by a range of feminist theorists. Women's experience of both having and rearing children, the significance of motherhood to women's identity, and the cultural pressures to have children have all been explored in a range of empirical studies, most notably those of Ann Oakley. Many of these studies have challenged the common assumption that women have some instinctive desire to have children and to care for them, and have also examined the dissatisfactions and frustrations of being a mother, especially if one is confined to the home. Not surprisingly, some feminist theorists have suggested that it is the biological fact of childbearing that is the key source of women's oppression, a view developed most fully in Nancy Chodorow's The Reproduction of Mothering (1978). However, such claims have been hotly contested, and feminists' views on the significance and value of motherhood in women's lives are a matter of vigorous debate. See also MATERNAL DEPRIVATION.