The Impossibility of “Natural Parenting” for Modern Mothers. On Social Structure And The Formation Of Habit.

I wrote “The Impossibility of “Natural Parenting” for Modern Mothers. On Social Structure And The. Formation Of Habit” for the Journal for the Association for Research on Mothering, vol. 3, no. 1, 2001. It was my first published piece and examines the difficulties inherent in mothering, especially attachment parenting, in the context of modern social structure with its sequestration of women to the private sphere and emphasis on individual fulfillment.  I wrote this from a complex place having been very involved in attachment parenting my first daughter, yet critical of the difficulties – nay impossibilities – this imposed. I remain both critical and respectful of attachment parenting (which may not be apparent from the article or its subsequent uses).

This article was selected for re-printing in Andrea O’Reilly (ed.) Mother Matters: Motherhood as Discourse and Practice (2004). In addition, it has been cited, written about and reviewed in many places.  See:

Joan B. Wolf, Is Breast Best? Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood, New York University Press, New York, 2011.

Ivana Brown, A Sociological Analysis of Maternal Ambivalence: Class and Race Differences Among New Mothers, PhD Thesis, Rutgers University, 2011.

Martha McCaughey, “Got Milk?: Breastfeeding as an ‘Incurably Informed’ Feminist STS Scholar“, Science as Culture,vol. 19, no. 1, 2010, pp. 79-100.

Ruth Cain, ” A View You Won’t Get Anywhere Else’’? Depressed Mothers, Public Regulation and ‘Private’ Narrative” Feminist Legal Studies, vol. 17, 2009, pp. 123-143.