Historical construction
In L'Amour en plus, Elisabeth Badinter pointed to the many children of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French urban families sent to wet nurses, arguing that maternal love is not a universal instinct but a value stressed from the late eighteenth century. Industrialization's split between male wage work and female domesticity reinforced the ideology.
Intensive mothering
Sociologist Sharon Hays described a child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing and costly style of parenting that became the standard of the good mother.
Effects
- Guilt and a double burden for working mothers
- Fathers sidelined from care
- Identity loss when children leave, as in empty nest syndrome
Alternatives
Shared parenting, paternity leave and public childcare spread care across society.
References
- Badinter, E. (1980). L'Amour en plus: Histoire de l'amour maternel (XVIIe-XXe siècle). Flammarion.
- Hays, S. (1996). The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. Yale University Press.
- Chodorow, N. (1978). The Reproduction of Mothering. University of California Press.
- Rich, A. (1976). Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Norton.