motherhood

In the middle ages, Hays describes an idea of child rearing that was extremely hands off. Babies were not heaped with love, toys, and other luxuries. In fact, they were often ignored. This, Hays claims is due to the fear of babies “demonic properties”, which were socially constructed.(24) it was not until age 6-7 that children, now considered mature, would be more affiliated with parents. Moving on through the 17th-18th centuries showed a change. Childhood changed from a demonic period in a child’s life to a valuable period. They began to feel that children were innocent as compared to demonic. IN this period, children were afforded special clothes and toys. (25) This occurred in Europe, but not in New England, where the old ways still flourished, along with additional strict puritanical discipline. Moving into the 19th century, mothers of affluent families would often use servants to raise their children. This is similar to medieval wet nurses,, yet very different in the fact that wet nurses often did not even differentiate between children, while servants would often take very good care of children. That is, it was thought that a good nursemaid was hard to find and given priority.(36) Toward the end of the 19th century, the focus on the mother’s ability to manage their own children changed. It was believed that they must be scientifically trained by doctors, or others who “knew best.” (39) This lead to child labor laws and mandatory education. Finally, contemporary child rearing has shifted more into the “permissive era”. Instead of focusing on teaching children “scientifically”, it was though that teaching inherent goodness was more important. (45). This has moved us into the more common practices that seem second nature to us today.

Intensive mothering came about after world war II. It was a drastic change from “Rosie the Riveter”, who during the war helped the war effort in the fact that it forced mother back into the home. It encouraged women not to work, but to keep a solid household and shower children with live and affection. This seems foreign to me, not in the love and affection part, but in mothers always being around. My family, and those of my friends, had full time working mothers. So the ideals of “the feminine mystique” do not seem to apply in my case. However, the unconditional love from both mothers and fathers was never an issue as far as I knew in my own or my friends families.

Crittendon describes motherhood as getting all the lip-service in the world, but no actual respect, and I believe she does it rather convincingly. She describes the duties of maintaining a household and asserts that it is often associated with “doing nothing” Even childless women have been known to criticize mothers for not working. Crittendon herself claims she originally wrote an article defending motherhood, but it was more out of compassionate contempt. The social views of the populace claim to admire mothers, but as it is stated in the article by one mother; ”I cannot mention my 13 years of experience caring for a chronically ill child on my resume.” Just looking at pay rates for child care is enough to show how little value is placed on child rearing.(6)

According to Collins, the two types of mothering that black women tend to take are 1.) The common image, that of the controlling mother, the matriarch, and the welfare mother. As Collins points out, these are all forms of oppression and designed to keep the status quo i.e. oppression. (176) Mothers in this group encourage their children not to be creative, but the be able to work, get a job and support themselves. And 2.) The second is a style in which mothers encourage creativity, self respect, strong character and furthering education. They view this a chance for themselves to become a sort of social activist. (176 I believe that this can ALSO lead their children to become social activists, for the black community as well. I believe that it can be related to the system of power in the passage on 175 in which the black PHD (on seeing a struggling black mother) exclaims, “That is one strong sister.” He believes that this women, who is barely getting by, is a powerful mother even though the images fall into the first category of oppression. I wish her story could have been elaborated on further to see if her parenting styles also fit that mold, or moved more toward the second category.


The attitude of many mothers in Edin and Kefala’s article is one of gratitude toward their children. Many of the mother claimed that having their children saved them in the sense that it gave them a new perspective and purpose in life. In Jen’s story she says that having a child gives her a reason to go home at night and not to buy drugs or otherwise get into trouble. She also claims that staying unmarried gives her a certain economic insurance. That is, if they did get a divorce (which she deemed likely) she would be in much more trouble than if she never was married. In order to help mothers like Jen get out of poverty, they will need access to jobs that ALLOW them to do so. (22) In addition, just advocating for marriage will not help if further support is not given. As Jen pointed out, it’s a good possibility that not marrying had made her life a great deal better.