Motherhood

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Motherhood

It is tempting, especially in terms of feminist discourse, to define “motherhood” as a unifying, universal vocation that women can look to and through for a common ground on which to stand and understand each other. After all, as Naomi Lowinksy has stated, “Women are the carriers of the species, the entry way to life. Although a woman may choose not to have children or be unable to do so, every woman is born of woman. Every woman alive is connected to all the women before her through the roots of her particular family and culture” (2000, p. 230). This oft-assumed connection, however, can be lost or severed because of each woman’s particular family and cultural roots and the interlocking structures of class and race that work together to create different definitions, ideas, stereotypes, and experiences of motherhood.

Every day, Americans are confronted by normative constructions of “ideal motherhood.” The socioeconomic culture in the United States benefits and adheres to majority rule: White is right. Because the privileged American position is wealthy, white, and male, those in that position (or those who benefit from someone in that position) define the ideal American mother. Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels, in their 2004 book, The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women, examine the constraints placed on even the most privileged (which they acknowledge) of American mothers, the middle- to upper-class white woman of the early twenty-first century. Through the media, and as a result of the progress that women, especially white women, have made in America via the women’s movement (or because of the backlash against this movement), women are being coerced into believing “the new momism”: that is, “that motherhood is eternally fulfilling and rewarding, that it is always the best and most important thing that you do, that there is only a narrowly prescribed way to do it right, and that if you don’t love each and every second of it there’s something really wrong with you” (Douglas and Michaels, p. 4). That white women especially are bombarded with such an idealization of motherhood in the first place is indicative of their recognition as normative mothers. As such, they are supposed to embody American expectations of motherhood and women: Have a career, but do not neglect your children, while looking good, consuming, and protecting your children from a seemingly endless number of internal and external threats. This stress is aggravated not only by the so-called mommy wars, which pit working (white) mothers against stay-at-home (white) mothers, but also by the pitting of white, ideal, supposedly capable mothers against unfit mothers—that is, women of color.

Whereas middle- to upper-class white women are ushered into fertility clinics when they have difficulty conceiving, women of color are still often scorned for having children, viewed by society as indiscriminate breeders. Patricia Hill Collins, in her 1994 essay, “Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood,” analyzes how race affects women’s expectations and experiences of motherhood. Collins recognizes that “racial domination and economic exploitation profoundly shape the mothering context not only for racial ethnic women in the United States but for all women” (p. 56). Often, even feminist analysis of motherhood is done through a middle-class, white perspective: That is, women’s experiences with motherhood are defined via a family with a male head of household—a nuclear family in which the father brings home the bacon, the mother/wife cooks it, and then Father and children eat it together while Mom hovers over them expectantly, anticipating needs for drink refills and napkins.

Experience for women of color mothers (and many white mothers) may be vastly different, as men may play an altogether different role in their lives, “since work and family have rarely functioned as dichotomous spheres for women of color” (Collins 1994, p. 58). To hold not only their own families, but entire communities together, mothers of color often work not just in the home, but outside it, in economically fragile positions, in contrast to ideals of stay-at-home motherhood.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN MOTHERS

Collins examines how survival itself is a prominent theme in the lives of mothers of color. Whereas “physical survival is assumed for children who are white and middle class … racial ethnic children’s lives have long been held in low regard. African-American children face a mortality rate twice that for white infants … [and] one-half who survive infancy live in poverty” (p. 61). These grim statistics, however, are counteracted by the power and respect that can accompany motherhood for African-American women. “In a racist culture that deems black children inferior, unworthy, and unlovable, maternal love of black children is an act of resistance; in loving her children the mother instills in them a loved sense of self and high self-esteem, enabling them to defy and subvert racist discourses that naturalize racial inferiority and commodify blacks as other and object” (O’Reilly 2000, p. 151). The logic may follow, then, that if “motherhood is the pinnacle of womanhood,” African-American women will strive to reach that pinnacle (O’Reilly, p. 150). In the process, African-American mothers may be sensationalized, served up by the media as “the hideous counter-examples good mothers were meant to revile … and were disproportionately featured as failed mothers in news stories about ‘crack babies,’ single, teen mothers, and welfare mothers” (Douglas and Michaels 2004, p. 20). What the news does not feature is the strength African-American women may draw from their communities, their children, and each other. “Many African-American women receive respect and recognition within their local communities for innovative and practical approaches to mothering not only their own biological children, but also the children in their extended family networks and in the community overall” (Collins 1994, p. 67). In spite of, or in response to, cultural standards of motherhood, African Americans can empower themselves through ways of mothering that do not fit the ideal.

NATIVE AMERICAN MOTHERS

The struggle for power can be a common one for women of color, as they “are concerned with the power and powerlessness within an array of social institutions that frame their lives” (Collins 1994, p. 64). Native American women (like African-American women and other women of color) traditionally relied on extended family formations to help raise children and maintain their power. However, as Mary Crow Dog describes in her 1990 autobiography, Lakota Woman, the white government of the United States worked to dissolve such family arrangements in order to promote nuclear family formation, which depleted women’s autonomy. Government controls over and influence on Native American life have had serious impacts on how women have been able to mother. One way in which this can clearly be seen is through implementation of forced sterilizations of Native American women. Crow Dog’s account reveals that her mother was sterilized without her permission after the birth of Crow Dog’s youngest sister, “which was common at the time, and up to just a few years ago, so that it is hardly worth mentioning. In the opinion of some people, the fewer Indians there are, the better” (p. 9). Her sister was also sterilized after the birth of her first and only son, who died within a few hours of his birth. For Crow Dog, the attempted extermination of her people made her own motherhood more triumphant.

Sterilization was not the only form of powerlessness Native American women faced. For years, children were taken from their families and put into white (often religious) boarding schools, where attempts were made to strip them of their culture. Not only does the separation of child from mother create feelings of powerlessness for the mother, but, as Collins points out, “In contrast to middle-class white children, whose experiences affirm their mothers’ middle-class values, culture, and authority, children [of women of color] typically receive an education that derogates their mothers’ perspective” (p. 66). However, as Collins further explains, “A culture that sees the connectedness between the earth and human survival, and that sees motherhood symbolic of the earth itself holds motherhood as an institution in high regard” (p. 72). It is this view of motherhood, and firm connections to their culture, that can empower Native American women in their motherhood.

LATINA AND ASIAN-AMERICAN MOTHERS

Ideals of motherhood for Latina and Asian-American women are convoluted by American’s mixed feelings about immigration. White Americans may view Latinas and Asian-American women as outsiders even when they are native citizens. On the other hand, Latina’s mothering abilities are valued not only in their own communities, but by families who employ Latinas as nannies. When immigration is discouraged or actively fought against, as is often the case for Latin Americans, the message sent to these women is often “we don’t want you; we certainly don’t want your children.” This sentiment can be seen not only through media, but also through various welfare reforms. As Lisa C. Ikemoto asserts in her 1999 essay, “Lessons from the Titanic: Start with the People in Steerage, Women and Children First”: “Since employers use gender, race, ethnicity, and immigration status to structure the labor sectors, and since welfare reform is part of a larger economic restructuring that has a disproportionately negative impact on women… . [I]mmigrant Latinas and Asian women are among those who are taking the heaviest blows” (p. 159). While the media may focus on welfare abuse, immigrant women must negotiate ways in which to obtain work and help support their families. For Latina women, this may include a redefinition of conventional motherhood. Though traditionally motherhood has been emphasized in relation to the home, and therefore separate from employment and embodied in cultural figures such as the Virgin de Guadelupe, the economy may demand that mothers work for pay (Hondagneu-Soptela, Avila 1997, p. 551). Transnational mothers who must leave their children in their home country to work, often as domestics, for better pay in America, may define themselves as better mothers than the mothers they work for who can afford to pay for in-home care for their children while they pursue their own careers. Latinas’ experiences and definitions of motherhood may vary widely depending upon their own economic condition and their necessity to alter their ideas of “good-motherhood” to include their own position.

Tied to the struggle of work and defining good motherhood is the struggle to form a bridge between two (or more) cultures, to teach the children they may be separated from or working alongside that leaving one land for another does not mean abandoning one’s culture, even while the dominant American culture seeks to assimilate the children. Joonuk Huh, in her 2000 account, “Constantly Negotiating: Between My Mother and My Daughter,” explains how when she is with her Korean mother, “I wish my mother would let me be my own person instead of insisting that I be a Korean woman… . [W]hen I resume my mother role … I am confronted by my daughter’s question… . She is not happy with me for reminding her that she is Asian-American, not American” (p. 268). M. Elaine Mar reveals a similar struggle with her Chinese mother in her 1999 memoir, Paper Daughter. Working with her mother in her aunt’s home and in their family restaurant, Mar struggles with her mother’s seemingly contradictory pressures to both assimilate and remain a loyal Chinese daughter. “Many Asian-American mothers stress conformity and fitting in as a way to challenge the system” (Collins 1994, p. 71). This claim to American identity through performance, regardless of ethnicity, is one more way that women of color negotiate their roles as mothers.

The differences and similarities between motherhood for women of color and white women cannot be broken into sections, or easily summarized, and certainly not all can be included in an explanation as brief as this. For all mothers living in a system that privileges some and devalues the lives and experiences of others, motherhood cannot be viewed as a simple vocation. It must be examined through the many ways in which it is influenced by race, class, sexuality, ability, and other institutions that affect women’s lives. Through multiracial feminism, it can be further understood how race affects everyone, in every social location. Motherhood, like other women’s experiences, must be analyzed and understood with race as a crucial aspect of that understanding. Analyzing motherhood through only one lens provides a distorted and incomplete view. Only by incorporating race as one of these lenses can one hope to form a cohesive understanding of motherhood for the diverse women who define it how they may.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1994. “Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood.” In Representations of Motherhood, edited by Donna Bassin, Margaret Honey, and Meryle Mahrer Kaplan, 56–74. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Crow Dog, Mary, and Richard Erdoes. 1990. Lakota Woman. New York: Harper Perennial.

Douglas, Susan J., and Meredith W. Michaels. 2004. The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women. New York: Free Press.

Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierette, and Ernestine Avila. 1997. “I’m Here, but I’m There: The Meanings of Latina Transnational Motherhood.” Gender & Society 11 (5): 548–571.

Huh, Joonuk. 2000. “Constantly Negotiating: Between My Mother and My Daughter.” In Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment, and Transformation, edited by Andrea O’Reilly and Sharon Abbey, 267–275. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Ikemoto, Lisa C. 1999. “Lessons from the Titanic: Start with the People in Steerage, Women and Children First.” In Mother Troubles: Rethinking Contemporary Maternal Dilemmas, edited by Julia E. Hanigsberg and Sara Ruddick, 157–177. Boston: Beacon Press.

Lowinsky, Naomi. 2000. “Mother of Mothers, Daughter of Daughters: Reflections on the Motherline.” In Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment, and Transformation, edited by Andrea O’Reilly and Sharon Abbey, 227–235. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Mar, M. Elaine. 1999. Paper Daughter: A Memoir. New York: HarperCollins.

O’Reilly, Andrea. 2000. “‘I Come from a Long Line of Uppity Irate Black Women’: African-American Feminist Thought on Motherhood, the Motherline, and the Mother–Daughter Relationship.” In Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment, and Transformation, edited by Andrea O’Reilly and Sharon Abbey, 143–159. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Zinn, Maxine Baca, and Bonnie Thornton Dill. 1996. “Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism.” Feminist Studies 22 (2): 321–332.

Mary Alice Long

Encyclopedia of Race and Racism