A lucid, probing examination of our culture's contradictory and
troubled relationship to motherhood - and how it affects mothers.
Hays (Sociology and Women's Studies/Univ. of Virginia) interviewed
38 mothers from various class backgrounds. Some stayed at home,
some worked; all had young children. She found that all, despite
their differences, subscribed to what Hays calls the "ideology of
intensive mothering" - the belief that mothers (not fathers) should
spend an enormous amount of time, physical and emotional energy,
and money raising children. She critically examines the advice of
three best-selling authors of books on childrearing - T. Berry
Brazelton, Benjamin Spock, and Penelope Leach - and finds that they
have adopted the ideology as well. Hays provides some helpful
social context, convincingly demonstrating that no one idea about
mothers and children is inherently "natural." In the past, she
points out, children have been expendable or even demonized as
bearers of original sin, not worthy of much time or emotional
energy, while even today, in many cultures, raising children is the
responsibility of several women and older children, not just the
birth mother. Hays points out that the ideology is problematic
because it perpetuates a "double shift" life for working women, as
well as the assumption that men are incompetent at parenting and
superior in the professional world - which encourages the
subordination of women. It also places mothers in constant conflict
with the rest of society's ostensible priorities - wealth and
individual fulfillment. But she also argues perceptively that part
of the reason the ideology is successful and necessary is that in
placing a high value on love and self-sacrifice, it offers an
alternative to selfish, materialistic market values. A thoughtful
analysis of the paradoxes that surround mothering. Hays is
sensitive to the emotional issues involved - and equally astute in
perceiving their sociopolitical context. (Kirkus Reviews)
Working mothers today confront not only conflicting demands on
their time and energy but also conflicting ideas about how they are
to behave: they must be nurturing and unselfish while engaged in
child rearing but competitive and ambitious at work. As more and
more women enter the workplace, it would seem reasonable for
society to make mothering a simpler and more efficient task.
Instead, Sharon Hays points out in this original and provocative
book, an ideology of "intensive mothering" has developed that only
exacerbates the tensions working mothers face. Drawing on ideas
about mothering since the Middle Ages, on contemporary
child-rearing manuals, and on in-depth interviews with mothers from
a range of social classes, Hays traces the evolution of the
ideology of intensive mothering - an ideology that holds the
individual mother primarily responsible for child rearing and
dictates that the process is to be child-centered, expert-guided,
emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive.
Hays argues that these ideas about appropriate mothering stem from
a fundamental ambivalence about a system based solely on the
competitive pursuit of individual interests. In attempting to deal
with our deep uneasiness about self-interest, we have imposed
unrealistic and unremunerated obligations and commitments on
mothering, making it into an opposing force, a primary field on
which this cultural ambivalence is played out.
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