“To Suffer in Paradise”: Feelings Mothers Share on Portuguese Facebook Sites

Abstract

Background: Motherhood is an emotional rollercoaster. This is overlooked by most literature, which tends to refer mothers’ pathological states of postpartum depression and anxiety, mainly seeking to understand their causes or predicting factors, and consequences on children’s development.Objective: In this study, we aim to observe the diversity of mothers’ emotional states, and to analyze both positive and negative feelings they disclose on specific public and closed motherhood sites on Facebook. We hypothesize that the intensive motherhood model is prevalent in Portuguese society, thus influencing the type of feelings and circumstances in which mothers disclose them.Methods: We collected posts and comments from the four most popular Portuguese Facebook motherhood sites during 2015 and, then, conducted a quantitative and content analysis to identify the expressed range of feelings concerning motherhood.Results: Mothers preferably share their positive feelings on public pages, whereas negative feelings are shared more in closed groups (CGs). Expressed positive and negative feelings were significantly different whether we look at normative or non-normative, public or closed sites.Discussion: We assume that motherhood sites on Portuguese Facebook reflect an intensive motherhood model that is normative in Portuguese society. Positive feelings toward children are promoted and openly shared in public normative sites, while negative feelings concerning motherhood are dealt with in the privacy of CGs. We propose an extensive motherhood model to overcome this duality and to allow women to pursue several different social roles simultaneously in an equally rewarding way.

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“…As a consequence, mothers who adhere to this model tend to ignore their own needs in an attempt to meet society's expectations and, therefore, are at an increased risk of becoming overwhelmed. As these mothers may always put their children first, they may experience negative feelings more often, such as anxiety, doubt, guilt, sadness, and loneliness (César et al, 2018, 2020). According to the literature, intensive mothering was conceptualized as a series of predominant attitudes among women from the middle to upper classes with a high educational level (Rizzo et al, 2013).…”

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