Motherhood identity
Prior CA/MCA research speaks to our interest in motherhood from
differing vantages and includes studies where motherhood identity is the
focal interest, and research that takes a broader interest in gender.
Stokoe’s (2003a) MCA analysis of neighbour disputes examines three
gendered categories that are emergent in the data: Mothers, Single Women
and Sluts. The analysis reveals how, when responding to complaints,
members orient to mundane assumptions of ‘good motherhood’. For example,
in responding to concerns about noise, members “reconstruct their noise
as normative for ‘good’ mothers and children” (Stokoe, 2003a, p. 325).
Interestingly, the category ‘good mother’ is not only invoked by members
who claim category incumbency, Stokoe (2003a) also reports how
activities that are routinely linked to the category of ‘good mother’
are held up by complainants as activities that some mothers donot undertake. Thus, absent activities also become accountable
matters. Stokoe highlights that when a disjunction exists between the
category ‘good mother’ and a set of activities, including absent
activities, which are not aligned with the category, then a category
puzzle emerges which invites alternative membership categorisation.
Pointing to the fluidity of membership categories and the multiplicity
of available MCDs, including the MCD ‘moral types of female’, Stokoe
(2003a, p. 327) presents the puzzle as “So, what kind of ‘mother’ could
be associated with these sorts of activities?” [and the solution]
“In this alternative categorization of a ‘mother’, a ‘bad’ mother
identity is inferred.” Stokoe’s (2003a) study both emphasises
motherhood as a moral category, and highlights how new or more
delineated categories, such as ‘bad mother’ emerge within the
context-driven trajectory of the talk.
Elsewhere, in analysis of an interaction between a counsellor and a
mother of a child diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder, Austin and Fitzgerald (2007) consider category resistance,
exploring how the mother pre-empts her possible categorisation as a ‘bad
mother’ and instead works up her parenting behaviours as befitting
‘ordinary motherhood’. As the speaker maps her own experiences of
motherhood onto this ‘ordinary mother’ category, she presents her
specific behaviours as aligning with category norms. Austin and
Fitzgerald’s (2007) study of category resistance again emphasises
members’ sensitivity to motherhood as a moral issue, and demonstrates
the locally emergent nature of membership categories, revealing how
speakers orient to motherhood as a movable concern in the talk.
Flinkfeld (2017) explores how motherhood identity is occasioned during
work-based ‘sick leave’ meetings in Sweden and reveals motherhood as an
interactional resource with variable outcomes. On some occasions,
mundane notions of ‘good motherhood’, (e.g putting children first),
provides a resource for members who are resisting a return to work,
whilst on other occasions, claiming some level of conflict between the
demands of motherhood and those of the workplace leaves mothers
vulnerable to challenges, either regarding their parenting ability, or
their commitment to the workplace. Thus, what might stand as ‘good
motherhood’ from one vantage becomes an accountable matter from another.
In keeping with prior studies, Flinkfeldt’s (2017) research stresses
that motherhood is “flexibly assembled or ‘done’ in situated ways and
to particular ends” (p. 190), and further points to the importance of
context.
Mackenzie’s (2017, 2018a, 2018b) research examining Mumsnet discourse,
highlights a significant ‘child-centric’ narrative, and the routine
enactment of ‘gendered parenthood’ producing “feminine mothers and, by
extension, masculine fathers” (Mackenzie, 2017; p. 305). Mackenzie
(2018a) reflects that, whilst some subversion of traditional motherhood
narratives does occur in these contemporary discursive environments, it
remains difficult for members to move beyond the normatively gendered
boundaries of motherhood whilst maintaining their status as ‘good
mothers’.
Alongside Mackenzie (2017, 2018a, 2018b), contemporary motherhood
studies feature a growing body of interdisciplinary work which focusses
on motherhood discourses online. This work variously explores how
members go about the business of doing motherhood in environments
including open-forum sites such as Mumsnet (Kinloch and Jaworska, 2021),
online blogs (Coffey-Glover 2020; Ringrow, 2020), and in more private
interpersonal contexts including messaging services such as Whatsapp
(Lyons, 2020). Mackenzie and Zhao (2021) highlight that one significant
feature of online motherhood interactions is the (re)production of
knowledge and expertise.
Lyons’ (2020) analysis of an NCT (UK National Childbirth Trust) group’s
WhatsApp interactions reveals how ‘expertise’ becomes a moveable feast,
shifting between the experiential contribution made by members, and
merging experience with information from more traditional expert sources
as members co-construct their child-focused knowledge. Other studies
that similarly identify the significance of experiential expertise
within motherhood online discourse include
Hanell and Salö’s (2017) analysis
of a Swedish online discussion forum that reveals how members’
experience comes to stand as forms of knowledge, available for others to
draw upon and use. Elsewhere, Holland’s (2019) study of lesbian couples’
online journals detailing interactions with professional medical
expertise around reproductive health and transitions to parenthood
reveals the emergence of what Holland (2019, p.60) describes as
“(experiential) queer-mother knowledge” which affords “a valid and
valued counterpart to medical knowledge”. Lastly, Zaslow’s (2012)
exploration of mothers’ discussions in online health communities reveals
members’ strong commitment to the value of experiential and instinctive
knowledge. Zaslow (2012, p. 1360-61) describes an underlying belief
amongst this community whereby
“maternal knowledge is instinctual and that mothers need only to follow
their ‘mommy intuition’ if they want to find the most cogent answers to
their questions about diagnoses, parenting, schooling, and treatment
options”
Prior literature emphasises two inter-related features of motherhood:
Firstly, motherhood is a fundamentally moral category with members
routinely enacting the ‘right’ way to do and be a ‘good
mother’; secondly, motherhood is vested with a particular kind of
expertise which provides interactional and rhetorical resource for
members. Whilst there is always scope to construct and do motherhood
differently, when mundane norms of ‘good motherhood’ are contravened,
these become accountable matters, and new or more delineated membership
categories such as ‘bad mother’ potentially emerge.