She's From a `Good Family'

Abstract

In this article, the author explores the performances and practices of motherhood and childhood as they materialize in a private elementary school setting in Ottawa, Canada. The author analyses the ways the ideology of intensive mothering and the intensification of children's lives intersect and inform one another in this setting. She argues that these mutually reinforcing conceptualizations are maintained through surveillance and mother blame that result in narrowing possibilities for the lives of both women and children rather than creating spaces of childhood and motherhood envisaged in a capacious and mutually productive way.

Status Safeguarding: Mothers' Work to Secure Children's Place in the Social Hierarchy

“…Mothers in the U.S. spend more time with children than similarly situated Canadians (Ramey and Ramey 2010), perhaps monitoring their time and activities more intensely due to the increased competition of a stratified higher education system that has infiltrated downward into the lives of secondary and even primary students (Ramey and Ramey 2010). Caputo (2007) finds that mothers in Canada also are confined by the boundaries of an intensive mothering ideology and prescribed definitions of "good mothering," but they have greater social supports compared to mothers in the United States. The level of the wage penalty may also matter in redirecting mothers' economic efforts toward social reproduction in the family: cross-nationally, mothers in over 60 percent of developed countries, especially Canada, the United States, the UK, Ireland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg earn at least 30 percent less than childless women, experiencing a significant motherhood wage penalty (Budig, Misra, and Boeckmann 2012).…”

What makes a good mother? Two decades of research reflecting social norms of motherhood

“…In public spaces, this norm is reflected in mothers' attempts to control their public mothering, as they expect to be observed, surveilled, assessed, supervised, and even policed by others. These attempts may, for example, occur when mothers attend children's playgroups (Collett, 2005 ); when they are involved in children's leisure, outdoor, and sports activities (Clark & Dumas, 2020 ; Clement & Waitt, 2017 ; Trussell & Shaw, 2012 ); or when they are involved in their children's school education (Caputo, 2007 ). Mothers are expected to know which behaviors are endorsed in which public site, and how to adapt their mothering accordingly (Grant et al, 2018 ; Henze‐Pedersen & Järvinen, 2021 ; Ponsford, 2011 ).…”