review: The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood

Sociologist Sharon Hays’ 1996 book, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood, developed the theory that ‘intensive mothering’ - that is, mothering that is ‘child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labour-intensive and financially expensive’ (p 8 and throughout) - is the dominant ideology that governs motherhood in the late twentieth (and also early 21st) centuries. Hays argues that this ideology puts mothers and mothering in direct opposition to the dominant ideology of the marketplace, where ‘rational actors’ competitively pursue their own self-interest in order to maximise both efficiency and profit. Working mothers particularly, Hays argues, are therefore caught in a contradictory double-bind as to how best to balance two seemingly irreconcilable sets of pressures.

What this means is that ‘while the contemporary ideal of intensive mothering involves the subordination of women, it also involves their opposition to the logic which subordinates them ... In pursuing a moral concern to establish lasting human connection grounded in unremunerated obligations and commitments, modern-day mothers, to varying degrees, participate in this implicit rejection of the ethos of rationalized market society.’ (p 18) I think this is a really interesting premise: the logic of capitalism creating within itself the ground for its own opposition (and, perhaps, dismantling?). While articulating the opposition in this way, however, Hays falls short of calling for a transformative politics based on the rejection of the logic of the marketplace. Instead, she focusses on how the ideology of intensive mothering developed, and how mothers themselves continue to perpetuate it, whether they are consciously aware of doing so or not.

The book is structured with three main parts: on overview of historical shifts in parenting and mothering, focussing particularly on the split between the private and public sphere in the 19th century, that led to the development of the ideology of intensive mothering; a review and critique of the work of three leading (i.e. best-selling) childcare experts, Dr Benjamin Spock, T. Berry Brazelton and Penelope Leach, and their role in further defining intensive mothering; and, finally, an analysis of the responses of 38 mothers from a variety of backgrounds to a semi-structured interview questionnaire prepared by Hays and appended at the back of the book. There were some limitations in each approach, which Hays does acknowledge: an overview can only cover historical generalities (and by focussing on the creation of the domestic sphere, it explicitly privileges the experience of white, middle-class women); not everyone buys or reads childcare manuals, and even those who do might take their advice with a grain of salt; and a sample of 38 mothers no matter how diverse is small and, on some variables, one or two individuals would be representing the experiences of whole groups. The mothers also appear to have come from one particular area of the US (San Diego, California), so there is lack of regional and national diversity. Bearing these caveats in mind, however, there are still enough recurring tropes in what Hays uncovers to lend weight to her theory of ‘intensive mothering’ as a cultural contradiction.

I think Hays is largely right in her description of intensive mothering as a contemporary child-rearing ideal, anecdotally evidenced by the differences contemporary parents and grandparents see in their approaches to child-rearing. I’m not sure, however, that her analysis of the cultural contradiction between motherhood and the marketplace is sophisticated enough: it seems too binary, and doesn’t account for other sites of resistance to dominant capitalist narratives, nor work that is not driven primarily by profit. It also ignores the role of mothers as producers and consumers: even if they are full-time stay-at-home mothers, women are also participating in and upholding the capitalist economy. This role has been articulated in both popular books such as Buy Baby Buy and more academic analysis by Marxist feminist critics such as Maria Mies.

Despite these limitations, some of her analysis of mothers’ responses resonated with me. For example, in analysing the responses of working mothers she found that many of them felt that working was not only financially necessary but also justified in terms of ‘making them better mothers’. I was struck by this because I have also described returning to work in this way, not consciously because I wanted to justify myself nor conform to dominant ideals of motherhood, but because I felt it to be true. I think I have personally benefitted from having spent time with other adults and using my other skills, just as I think my daughter has benefitted from spending time with other children in a caring environment, and we all benefitted from the experience and advice of her various carers. 

There’s obviously no knowing whether this is objectively true or not, since we don’t have a parallel experience with which to compare it. Hays in her analysis of this rationale does not judge or criticise the mothers who make this claim. But, interestingly, it does add weight to her theory that even mothers who return to work while their children are young offer reasons for their decision that conform to the ideology of intensive mothering, at least as much as they do to the need to pay the bills. This highlights the point that ideology is not necessarily true or false, or even good or bad; rather it shapes the ways in which we think about things and the ways we describe them and we inhabit them as if they were true. Even those who actively oppose dominant ideologies are still shaping their experience with reference to them, albeit in a negative way.

Particularly in her analysis of the mothers’ interviews, Hays explores how intensive mothering figures in the so-called ‘mommy wars’. She concludes that, no matter which part of this spectrum mothers find themselves on, the ideology of intensive mothering serves the interests of men, the middle-class, and white people (oddly, ‘patriarchy’ or a similar systemic term doesn’t seem to be used much in the book).

Hays is much briefer when it comes to offering solutions to the ways in which the ideology of intensive mothering supports patriarchy and gender inequality. She calls for a second revolution to succeed the ‘stalled revolution’ of second-wave feminism, one which would transform relationships, workplaces, and the wider society. This would not only involve more equal parenting, but also childcare solutions that do not out-source the ‘problem’ to poorly-paid women of colour, further perpetuating social inequalities.  Instead, she argues ‘our best hope for easing women’s burden remains increased public power for women, higher public status for those involved in caregiving, and greater paternal participation in child-rearing.’ (pp 176-77) These inter-related steps, she believes, are likely to result in improved child-rearing policies such as subsidized child-care, job-sharing, flexi-time and parental leave.  Hays acknowledges that these changes are likely to take a long time, and will not completely resolve the tension between the home and the marketplace. Nonetheless, she believes that they will help share the burden equally between men and women.

The fact that this book is now nearly 20 years old and, in the US in particular, change in these areas has been glacial is somewhat depressing and a sign of how much work there still is to do. But even in countries with generous parental leave and flexible work policies, as well as subsidised childcare, it is still primarily women who do most of the childcare, and suffer the kind of motherhood penalties that writers such as Ann Crittenden have identified, albeit to a lesser extent than women in less enlightened countries. Policy changes, then, are only part of the solution; cultural change remains a much more difficult challenge.

we can work it out

I’m counting down the days that I have left at work before I go on parental leave (24 to go!) Both that and the thought of the different kind of labour which awaits me got me thinking about the nature of work, specifically the role it plays in people’s lives.

In previous posts, I have been bothered by the focus on the career / motherhood question that appears to be heavily slanted towards elite women. In this post, I will be guilty of a certain narrowness of frame of reference too, as I am going to talk about the role of work for me: someone who has the luxury of choosing what kind of work I might do, even if I'm not compelled to become a CEO or political leader.

Before reflecting further on my own working life, I do want to draw attention to some recent research on the inequalities among working women. A 2013 British Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) study found that the gap between women who have a university degree or professional qualification and those in low or unskilled work was a whopping 198 per cent (for those born in 1958) narrowing to 80 per cent (for those born in 1970). By comparison, the gap between professional men and men in low or unskilled work was just 45 per cent (for those  born in 1958) rising to 61 per cent (for those born in 1970).

Dalia Ben-Galim, the associate director of IPPR, comments "many of the advances for women at the top have masked inequality at the bottom. The ‘break-the-glass-ceiling’ approach that simply promotes ‘women in the boardroom’ has not been as successful in changing family friendly working culture or providing opportunities for other women to advance. Women are still concentrated in low-paid and often part-time work. Women with lower qualifications and those who have children at a younger age are finding it harder to secure good jobs and opportunities at work." 

Work, then, is a feminist issue, and comprehends so much more than the fantastical notion of ‘having it all’.  I believe a feminist approach to work should be about changing the paradigm of what work is like: transforming working environments so that women are not unfairly penalised for having had limited educational opportunities, for becoming - or not becoming - mothers, for not wanting to work round the clock or conform to old-school leadership models (a particular pet peeve of mine: bullying bosses are bad news whether they are male or female). I believe this transformation would enrich the lives of male workers too.

When I was young and naive, I remember saying to a co-worker that she shouldn’t work past the hours she was paid for - she routinely worked an extra hour or so at the end of the day so, as she put, ‘she could feel she was on top of the job’ - because it meant our employer was ‘stealing from her’ i.e. by working extra for nothing, the company was taking a free-ride on her labour. Needless to say, I don’t think she appreciated my two cents.  But in my way, I was alluding to something that much greater minds than me have traversed at much greater length: as a worker, rather than employer, the thing that you have to ‘sell’ is your labour power (regardless of whether it is physical labour or intellectual labour).  An employer ‘buys’ your labour power, but, even among the well-recompensed, at a much lower cost than what he/she/they will profit from it. This is (very) basically how power operates within capitalism.

The job I was doing at the time I gave my well-meaning but not well-received advice, was not something at which I planned to make a career. I was on a working holiday in London, so the work I was doing had a larger function: to pay my living costs, yes, but also to help me enjoy my ‘OE’. While I didn’t slack off, ambition was definitely not the driver of my working-life at the time. For my colleague, however, work helped her provide for her family, and she wanted to progress as far as she could with it, even if it meant putting in some unpaid overtime.  However unconsciously, she calculated that the extra effort would pay off for her in long-run. 

When I grew up and started working in more career-oriented jobs, I became much less sanguine about my work-life balance without really thinking about it. This was complicated by the fact that my chosen career involved ‘flexible’ work that didn’t always require being in an office. Many aspects of it were enjoyable, challenging and rewarding, so much so that it didn’t ‘feel’ like work. Suddenly, work seeped into evenings and weekends. After some soul-searching about whether the trade-off was worth the increasing lack of a personal life, I decided to leave the career path that I was on. 

Since I left that career path, I have been fortunate to engage in work I felt was both socially important and personally satisfying. However, I still hadn’t quite learned all I needed to about work-life balance. One particularly demanding job resulted in a serious overuse injury that can still flare up during particularly stressful working periods. 

In this post, however, I want to reflect a little on how pregnancy has affected my attitude towards work. 

During my first pregnancy, I worked full-time. I didn’t often work evenings or weekends (learned my lesson there, but I did make the odd exception) but I certainly worked about 110% during the day to make sure that I didn’t work evenings and weekends. The primary reason for that was not ambition, but passion: most of the work I was doing was not only challenging and enjoyable, but had a sense of making a difference too. Indeed, just before I realised I was pregnant, I put my utter exhaustion down to over-work. My manager encouraged me to use some of my stock-piled annual leave. It was a few days later that I took a pregnancy test and discovered there might be another reason for the way I was feeling...

That first time, being pregnant led me to ease up a little at work. I knew from previous experience that stress and over-work can have physiological consequences and it was now important that I not only not inflict them on myself, but also on my growing foetus. Again, I did not slack off, but I started saying ‘no’ to more things, asking higher-ups to prioritise what they wanted me to do in the time available, making sure I had at least a 30-minute lunch-break every day and didn’t just eat at my desk and so on.  

The sky didn’t fall in. As far as I can tell, no-one thought any the less of my ability to do my job. And I saved myself some unnecessary stress. Being pregnant gave me the incentive to be more protective of my self at work, to set boundaries and realise what a healthier attitude to work could have been all along.

This time around, I am in a slightly different position. I work three days a week in paid employment, and try to avoid saying that ‘I don’t work’ the other days (because, census-takers, it most certainly is work). Once I was back at my job, and especially before a job-share partner was found to share the full-time role with me, it took me a while to realise that I wasn’t a full-time worker anymore and adjust my work-habits accordingly. Early on, I even made arrangements to come in for an ‘important’ meeting on one of my non-work days. Watching the clock with increasing anxiety as I listened to others witter on, I made that the first and last time I worked outside my nominated three- day week.

Because when you work part-time and come in for a meeting on a non-work day or take some work home ‘just so it gets done’ (how my former colleague would smile at me now!), you could - and should - be being compensated for it. After the first time this happened, I realised what my younger self already knew: I might earn brownie points for dedication, but I certainly wasn’t earning any money. The person I was cheating was myself, and - if I continued to do this - my family.  I agree with Guardian columnist Zoe Williams' exhortation that women part-time workers should not be apologetic for the fact they work part-time and should, instead, lobby hard for their own interests.

There has been a further twist in my working life while pregnant this time round. Through the whole course of my current pregnancy - and well-beforehand too - my organisation has been going through a review process that is, next week, to culminate in the final announcement of a re-structure that will mean some people will lose their jobs. A substantial portion of those who don’t will, however, have their positions ‘disestablished’ and will then go through a process of being ‘reassigned’, ‘redeployed’ or made ‘redundant’. It’s a salutary reminder that whilst one may be working to pay the bills, to do something meaningful, to achieve work-life-balance, or even to try and ‘have it all’, those in positions of power ultimately have the ability to determine whether you work at all. 

In some respects, assuming that I keep my job, being pregnant at this time gives me a kind of ‘get out of jail free card’. By that I mean, I will shortly be taking just over a year’s leave from what is likely to be an unhappy, uncertain and difficult time for my colleagues. When I return to work, the blood will have been spilled and - hopefully - cleaned up, and I will be able to assess whether I want to stay there or look elsewhere for a job. Of course, I am not suggesting that looking after a new-born baby is not work or that it’s an easy option. But, in my current work environment, it does give me just that: another option. Score another point for the value of work-life balance.

But work-life balance for an individual doesn’t solve the collective problem of inequalities at work: working that out requires a major transformation of all our working environments.