Motherhood

This volume explores the diverse contexts, meanings and experiences of mothering, and reveals how these intersect with prevailing social constructions and ideologies about `normal' or `ideal' motherhood.

The authors critically examine assumptions that not only underpin `commonsense' notions about motherhood, but are also produced and reproduced in childcare manuals and theoretical work on mothering. They show how dominant discourses about motherhood both circumscribe and conflict with the range of practices of mothers as they care for their children in real life. The impact of these contradictions are considered for women without children, for mothers who are younger or older than average, for mothers of children with disabilities. It investigates mothering girls as compared to boys, bringing up more than the single child assumed in much childcare literature, and current myths about working mothers.