Deconstructing the Dichotomy of Good and Bad Mothers

As an aspiring, educated and privileged woman, I would like to work and get financially independent, and I hope many other young adults would relate to this notion of financial independence as an important tool for developing self-concept and elevating self-esteem. However, I often found this dichotomy of “Good” and “Bad” mothers unpleasant, and have been curious about which one I might identify with in the future. Starting with a clear description of what exactly I meant when I said, “Good Mother”- the preferred picture, the socially prescribed and accepted norm of a loving and caring mother, the one who is “selfless”- serving the children and family wholeheartedly but is often taken for granted. On the other hand, a “Bad mother can be understood as one who is misconstrued, again socially labelled (and sometimes by other women) as someone who isn’t “selfless” but has a self. She manages both the home and family and restricts authority over her life. I hope I was able to provide a less debatable picture of the same, or at the very least, the attempt should be recognized.

Goodwin & Huppatz (2001) quite boldly address the social construction of motherhood as Good or Bad in the Australian context. They stated that this can be attributed to the continued pressure put upon women to conform with ideals like love and compassion, the standard by which they are judged and those by which they are forced to judge themselves. Here it is important to quote a few precious lines from the same article:

“Not all women give birth, not all women who give birth rear children, not all women who rear children give birth to them, not all families assign the role of child-rearing to women, not all child-bearers are in families, the nuclear heterosexual family is not natural and so on (Goodwin & Huppatz, 2001 p.4)

Another interesting and relatively anonymous forum of maternal discussion is present online, on discussion platforms and in chat rooms. Pederson (2016) took the UK parenting discussion website Mumsnet as his domain which offered the concept of good and bad mothering. The findings of the study highlighted the presence of a standard of good mothering, which is often negotiable with changing times. Another interesting finding from the same study was the expansion of this dichotomy to “good-enough mother’s” suggesting a more liberal stance.

Talking about the Indian context, Kakkar, S & Kakkar, K (2007) provides a rather elaborate picture of how Indian women (often the privileged) strive for clerical and operations jobs with restricted promotions. The other fraction of professionally qualified women often opt for teaching and research to not suffer on grounds of “ ideal” womanhood and “good motherhood”. He also points out the fact that younger generations do have elevated self-esteem as compared to their mothers mainly because of education which they believe won’t let them suffer much even when they aren’t employed at present.

Bouncing Back like a spring, the societal norms cannot wholly just be forced, sometimes these are reinforced and that too by women themselves. A longitudinal study conducted in England found that women who are victims of domestic abuse tend to reinforce this notion of “good mothers” providing several creative ways to fulfil their children’s emotional and physical needs (Lapierre, 2010). Another pioneering study captured how the difficult living arrangement ( separated and the other one thrown out ) of women living in the UK presented them with “Bad Mother” Labels, making it difficult for them to get accepted in society (Sandra, 2008).

I would like to conclude the article with an empathetic call for smashing such constructs which have nothing to do with women and has been used as a tool for enforcing patriarchy. Let's stop such labels that attribute to prescribed societal constructs. Let's lift each other together!

References

1. Goodwin, S., & Huppatz, K. (2001). Chapter One The good mother in theory and research : an overview.

2. Kakar, S & K( 2007) THE INDIANS- Portraits of a People, penguin press https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ENFvJPftjqMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=good+bad+motherhood+indian+view&ots=AQ5diLy4L&sig=amtsQVEKIsDvDO75anaC0RCNeoU&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

3. Lapierre, S. (2010). Striving to be ‘ Good ’ Mothers : Abused Women ’ s Experiences of Mothering. 19(April), 342–357. https://doi.org/10.1002/car

4. Pederson, S. (2016). The good, the bad, and the “good enough” mother on the UK parenting forum Mumsnet. 0–31.

5. Sandra, K. (2008). Working Hard to Resist a ‘ Bad Mother ’ Label. 7(3), 363–379. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325008093707