{"id":323,"date":"2014-11-26T06:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-11-26T06:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/?p=323"},"modified":"2014-11-24T21:59:11","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T21:59:11","slug":"motherhood-mystique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2014\/11\/26\/motherhood-mystique\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of the \u201cMotherhood Mystique\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I think back on the Feminine Mystique<\/em>, I am reminded of my favorite childhood television show, \u201cBewitched,\u201d which featured a beleaguered housewife and witch, Samantha Stevens. As partner in her husband Darrin\u2019s \u201ctwo-person career,\u201d holding a job of her own was out of the question. She was on call to whip up fabulous meals for Darrin\u2019s boss and his clients at a moment\u2019s notice \u2013 yet she wasn\u2019t even supposed to use her superpowers to add a tasty dessert. She spent her days cooking, cleaning and helping her husband\u2019s career, all the while proudly avoiding magical shortcuts. She had the requisite two children, but they mostly sat in the background, being supervised by a witchy relative or their babysitter, Esmeralda.In the 1950s and early 1960s, a woman\u2019s first priority, even if she had superpowers, was to catch and keep a man. She caught him by being beautiful; she kept him by being adoring and submissive. Whatever powers she might possess, be they brains, creativity, or levitation, had to be suppressed as an unforgiveable threat to the male ego. Keeping a happy marriage was her primary aim; a clean house came second; and well-adjusted children, third.<\/p>\n

<\/div> Today women\u2019s work outside of the home is often necessary and desirable. But we are a long way from the gender equity Friedan advocated. A new \u201cMotherhood Mystique\u201d has replaced the Feminine Mystique, and that motherhood mystique has reversed the priorities of its predecessor. Where the marital relationship was the core of the family unit in the 1950s and 1960s, today the mother-child bond is primary. Not only must the middle-class mother ensure her child gets into the right schools and has all the right extra-curricular activities, she must remain that child\u2019s primary attachment figure regardless of whether she works outside the home or not. Her priorities are children, career, spouse and household, in that order. That does not spell liberation. \u00a0A new \u201cMotherhood Mystique\u201d has replaced the Feminine Mystique, and that motherhood mystique has reversed the priorities of its predecessor. <\/span><\/p>\n

The ideology undergirding the postwar \u201cfeminine mystique\u201d was the Freudian psychoanalytic construct of \u201cnormal\u201d femininity, with its emphasis on female passivity. Psychiatrists ratcheted up women\u2019s guilt by warning that if they did not put their husband\u2019s needs first they would ruin him as a breadwinner, undermine his masculinity, and make themselves neurotic. Today many developmental psychologists ratchet up women\u2019s guilt by wrongly claiming that if they work outside the home or put their children in day care between the supposedly magical years of one and three their children will end up with attachment disorders or behavioral problems. Yet research shows that the quality<\/em> of childcare<\/a>, both by mothers and others, matters more than who provides care.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>
Image from Jude Freeman via Flickr Creative Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today\u2019s working moms need not feel guilty. They actually spend more time interacting with their children than their mid-twentieth century stay-at-home counterparts. Galinsky\u2019s interview-based research for Ask the Children:The Breakthrough Study that Reveals How to Succeed at Work and Parenting<\/em><\/a> shows that today\u2019s children that are happiest when their mothers feel less stressed and guilty, not when their mothers spent more time with them. Here, too working mothers<\/a> score high marks, experiencing greater well-being better health, and fewer episodes of depression than contemporary at-home moms.<\/p>\n

Friedan argued that the feminine mystique put inordinate pressure on marriage to fulfill women\u2019s emotional and intellectual lives, undermining marital happiness. Today, the motherhood mystique similarly overburdens parent-child relationships and expectations. Rather than enjoy the time freed up by the presence of childcare providers, working mothers too often feel threatened by providers\u2019 strong bonds with children. Mothers consequently cut back on time in community engagement, time with friends, time with their husbands, and time for themselves. The motherhood mystique also creates guilt and anxiety within mothers and \u201cmompetitions\u201d between them.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the \u201cmotherhood mystique\u201d keeps so focused on our private<\/em> problems that we lack the energy to push for public <\/em>solutions that would benefit all: family-friendly workplaces, paid family leave, and funding for excellent childcare and pre-school. Perhaps we could ask Samantha to twitch her nose.<\/p>\n

\n

Cameron Macdonald<\/span> is in the department of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of\u00a0Shadow Mothers: Nannies, Au Pairs, and the Micropolitics of Mothering<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I think back on the Feminine Mystique, I am reminded of my favorite childhood television show, \u201cBewitched,\u201d which featured a beleaguered housewife and witch, Samantha Stevens. As partner in her husband Darrin\u2019s \u201ctwo-person career,\u201d holding a job of her own was out of the question. She was on call to whip up fabulous meals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2005,"featured_media":324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,55,3109,14936],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-gender","tag-motherhood","tag-work-life-balance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2014\/11\/2559609667_c38b7c5a75_z.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}