OBJECTIVE This study sought to understand the tasks and activities involved in the caring and nurturing work of mothering, a common and important occupation for many women. METHOD In-depth, semistructured individual interviews were conducted with 40 mothers: 20 mothers of preschool-age children and 20 mothers of young adults. In addition, participants completed a questionnaire describing the ...

Studies of intensive mothering suggest that fulfilling societal expectations of the “good mother” diminishes maternal psychological well-being; however, studies tend to focus on young mothers. We examine the association between intensive mothering and psychological well-being using a sample of mothers in midlife (n = 1,388) drawn from the 2004-2006 National Survey of Midlife Development in the ...

This article is concerned with the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on Filipina transnational mothers’ experience of motherhood, their practices of mothering and, ultimately, their identities as mothers. Drawing on ethnographic research with Filipina migrants in the UK as part of a wider study of Filipino transnational families, this article observes that, despite the...

Prior research linking family structure with parenting often confounds the effects of family structure with the effects of family instability. In this analysis, I use data from the Fragile Families Study (N= 3107) to answer two main questions: (a) Are there differences in maternal stress and mothering behaviors across stably married, cohabiting, visiting, and single-mother families? and (b) Doe...

The article brings together the fields of mad studies (LeFrancois et al.), matricentric feminism (O’Reilly, Matricentric Feminism) and critical disability (Goodley, “Dis/entangling Critical Disability Studies”). aim is to expose challenge “relations ruling” (Smith 79) that both produce discipline “mad mothers disabled children.” analysis begins by exploring un/commonalities emerging histories t...

Drawing upon the concept of culture as a “tool kit” from which social actors draw pragmatically, this paper explores the relationship between cultural definitions of good mothering and breastfeeding among middle-class, urban Chinese women. We argue that an emerging culture of “intensive mothering” that focuses on infant feeding is taking shape among privileged urban women. Based upon interviews...

ing from these five main categories, we found that “mothering is overwhelming” is the core experience of PPD symptoms for low-income women. The demands of parenting small children, along with mothers’ ambivalence, isolation, juggling, and real-life worries, converged to produce an understanding of PPD as feeling overwhelmed by both the material and emotional demands of mothering in the context ...