Introduction
The study of motherhood and motherhood identities remains an enduring
concern for feminist research. Mackenzie and Zhao (2021) point to
seminal scholars whose work locates and problematises motherhood as
existing within prevailing gendered, heteronormative, and biological
essentialist societal discourses. Such work seeks to deconstruct
patriarchal frameworks and reveal how expectations and experiences of
motherhood are entwined with dominant ideals of gender and womanhood
(e.g. Bem, 1993; Rich, 1986). Approaching motherhood as a discourse
invites consideration of how differing forms of doing motherhood are
variously upheld, contested and (re)produced across differing sites and
forms of discourse. Aligned with the broader concept of ‘doing gender’
(West and Zimmerman, 1987), motherhood is not a passive identity that
one simply has, rather it is actively worked-up in interaction. Aligning
with this approach, our focus is an exploration of motherhood as an
interactionally emergent discursive membership category, available as a
resource that speakers might orient to, and potentially lay claim to
during interaction.