The
rhetoric of motherhood defines how we as a culture
allow ourselves to think about mothers. It also defines how mothers
are given permission by the culture to think of themselves. Sharon
Hays, in The Cultural Contradiction of Motherhood, describes
the conflicting expectations about women who mother. They are expected
to be power workers, advancing in an environment that regularly
requires more than 40 hours a week of labor. They are also expected
to be what I call Professional Mothers, fervent believers (or acting
as if they are) in what Hays has named the ideology of intensive
mothering. This type of mothering requires the mother (not
the father, or the parents as a team) to focus relentlessly on her
child’s development and growth, supervise every detail of
her child’s day, bake homemade cupcakes for preschool class
at every opportunity, responding, as Hays states “to all the child’s needs and desires, and to every stage
of the child’s emotional and intellectual development [italics
mine].” (8).
It is impossible for
anyone, even a devoted mother, to respond to another person’s
every need. It is even more impossible that this mother combine
uber-parenting with full time, productive work outside the home.
But still, as Hays states, “The same society that disseminates
an ideology urging mothers to give unselfishly of their time, money
and love on behalf of sacred children simultaneously valorizes a
set of ideas that runs directly counter to it, one emphasizing impersonal
relations between isolated individuals efficiently pursuing their
personal profit.” (97) Women who mother and work outside the
home are expected to master both ways of life. And if they “choose”
one over the other—finding full time work incompatible with
the way they want to parent their child, or stay at home life impossible
for financial, career or personal reasons—they are pitted
against each other through what the media loves to call The Mommy
Wars, as this promo for a recent Dr. Phil show so clearly states:
It’s a battle
between stay-at-home moms and working moms, with Dr. Phil in the
middle! Women on both sides of the issue are passionate about their
position…but what’s best for kids? Find out what Dr.
Phil and other experts say to parents who are struggling with this
decision. (Promo for the Nov. 10, 2003 Dr. Phil Show, Mom
vs. Mom)
Appalling in every way?
Yes. To make it worse, during the actual show, Dr. Phil led the
audience in chanting “Catfight” and “Meow”
as women disagreed with each other’s positions. Apparently
even the “straight talking” Dr. Phil can’t resist
taking a complex issue and reducing it to that old standard of feminine
triviality and male titillation, the cat fight.
What’s most interesting
to me about this way Dr. Phil tried to frame the discussion of stay
at home vs. working outside the home mother, is the statement that
two of the “experts,” described in the promo as battling
each other, felt called upon to release after the show:
While we (Heidi
and Joan) know we have some differences of opinion and perspectives
on parenting and child care policy, they are marginal to our shared
commitment to a society which recognizes the value of care-giving
and nurturing of children and others. None of us believes other
mothers are the problem. We all know the problem is the lack of
public policy and cultural support to address today's burdens on
parents.
The statement goes on
to list joint recommendations for improving the lives of all mothers,
children and families. The experts (both women), enemies at war
according to the rhetoric of the media, came together to refute
their portrayals and to call for mothers—and all of society—to
seriously and cooperatively address the real problems faced by parents
as they try to balance economics, family and individual lives.
Additionally, mothers
are told to be both an ideal worker and an ideal mother while pursing
“self growth,” reading books with a book club, keeping
the perfect Pottery Barn-replica home, and maintaining their looks
and sex appeal (but only in a wholesome way. Conventional wisdom
dictates that a mother who is truly sexy must be 1) a slut and 2)
a bad mother). Plus, as a brief look at most parenting magazines
tells us, good mothers are also white and middle class. But we won’t
get to these expectations and assumptions. There’s not enough
space. The conflict between a woman being the ideal worker and the
ideal mother is big enough.
In an examination of
motherhood ideologies portrayed through popular women’s magazines,
sociologists Deirdre Johnston and Debra Swanson uncovered some disturbing
trends. For example, although 62% of mothers work either full or
part-time, employed mothers are only shown in 12 % of women’s
magazine texts, while at-home mothers are shown 88% of the time.
At the same time, however, the study found that employed mothers
were significantly more likely to be presented as happy, busy, and
proud, whereas at-home mothers were more likely to be depicted as
confused-overwhelmed. There were no significant differences in the
depiction of working mothers and at-home mothers as guilty, tired,
or angry (27).
So, according to the
magazines, a “normal” mother is an at-home one, although
she isn’t very good at her job and needs constant help. This
image is quite insidious: as the authors point out, it doesn’t
really matter if you read the magazines or not. They are so present—in
the grocery store check out line, the doctor’s office—that
they form our cultural consciousness of who a mother is without
our necessarily subscribing to the ideology.
However they manage
the work/home balance, mothers tend to lose. Lose respect from others,
for failing to meet unrealistic standards. Lose respect from society,
who views them as incompetent. Lose connection with other women
who have a different home/work dynamic. Lose their own sense of
self whatever their lifestyle, as they try to meet what are presented
as effortless requirements and are, in actuality, unachievable standards.
Plus, as Joan K. Peters states “Having a child is such an
overwhelming experience that we retreat to the safest, most conservative
version of ourselves…By their very prescriptive nature, set
gender roles provide an easy way to forestall criticism from others
about how we parent” (91).
Through the isolation
that develops from all this loss, mothers become increasingly vulnerable
to images of motherhood, and to the experts who know exactly how
she should behave. |
