Motherhood Meanings, Practices and Ideologies

Most academic and popular texts on motherhood offer prescriptions about ideal mothering which take little account of the diverse realities of women's lives. Ths book explores the range, contexts and experiences of motherhood for women. conflict with the dominant ideologically-based social constructions. The ideology of motherhood is usually hidden under commonsense ideas about mothering, but is also reproduced in academic discourse about child development and motherhood. Dominant discourses about normal and ideal mothering are shown to circumscribe and to be in conflict with the range of practices that mothers in varying circumstances seek to employ with their children.