•Mumsnet Talk pages contained discourses of maternal regret from 2008 on.•Digital media allow women to break the taboo of regretting motherhood.•Expressions of regret as instances of after-the-fact ...agency.•Mothers mourn their previous child-free lives.•Responses to posts portray maternal regret as temporary or deficient.
One of the main criteria of being a “good mother” is evaluating motherhood as worthwhile and fulfilling. Yet in recent years there has been increased debate regarding women who regret having had children and who question the utilitarian rhetoric of childbirth and parenting. However, there is as yet little research into such counter-discourses of maternity and femininity in online environments. This study addresses this research gap by examining expressions of maternal regret in the Talk fora of Mumsnet, a UK-based parenting website. Focusing on stance-taking, it examines how women attempt to deal with regret and to create a sense of self between the binaries of good/bad mother discourses. The study contributes to an appreciation of the diversity of experiences of motherhood and the emotions and cognition that accompany them – ranging from mourning for one’s previous life through guilt to acceptance – and highlights how digitally mediated communication functions as an arena in which women can break the taboo of maternal regret.
Introduction
Multiple authors have criticized the lack of attention that classical theoretical models have paid to motherhood as a milestone of great influence on the psychic structure of women. ...However other models have developed theories that take into account factors such as: motherhood implies “dying as a daughter” or the oscillations between the “desire of the mother” and the “desire of the woman”.
Objectives
This case report aims to describe a case of severe difficulties achieving maternal function.
Methods
Case report and literature review.
Results
A 27 years old woman, born in Ethiopia. The patient reported history of childhood trauma (intrafamiliar sexual abuse, child neglect). Depressed mood and pasive autolytic ideation since childhood. The patient was adopted when she was 11 years old and moved to Spain. The pacient had difficulties with bonding with her adoptive family. At the age of 24, she got pregnant “to have my own family and not being alone.” During pregnancy, she begins to present poorly structured paranoid ideation. After birth, the patient began to present autolytic ideation, dissociative symptoms and suicide attempts.
Conclusions
For the patient, her desire to be a mother, marked from the beginning by the phantom of appropriation, later led to rejecting it. Various factors could affect: her motherhood resignified the relationship with her family of origin, as well as having imagined that her daughter would complete her lack: the birth could have underlined her traumatic history, marking the bond with her daughter by indifference and the lack of libidinal investiture.
Disclosure
No significant relationships.
This paper illustrates economic challenges on motherhood, womanhood, children, and the issue of GBV. It has become evident in numerous families that societal role of mothers has shifted immensely. As ...a result, many scholars decided to study the various components of motherhood. Hence, the objective of this paper is to comprehend motherhood in society and its acceptance in the domestic domain. Becoming a mother was not the mother’s decision, it was a response to sociocultural pressure that held women accountable pertaining to children. Women had distinct motherhood experiences, but it is kept secret from the family and society. The issue of GBV cause mothers to face immense pressure in a morally acceptable motherhood society. Therefore, mothers have a very negative perception of motherhood, particularly in a highly demanding patriarchal society.
As almost all aspects of our lives, motherhood in the 21st century also is influenced and transformed by new media. Parents, especially mothers, use the Facebook, Instagram and even Twitter (X) as ...digital diaries, as stages for performing an ideal mother’s role, or even “safe spaces” to gain support and the feeling of empowerment. Recent research of motherhood discourses and mothering practices in social media has mainly focused on the evidence of mediation and mediatization. However, limited attention has been brought to examining Twitter in context of mothering. Therefore, this paper focuses on the narratives of a particular cluster of Latvian-speaking mothers on Twitter who use Twitter as a platform for exchanging informational, emotional and physical support, forming a “portable” community. The case study consists of a narrative analysis of 11 in-depth semi-structured interviews with mothers and a thematic analysis of 1111 tweets, gathered from 9 other public Twitter accounts (covering a period of 2 weeks), that have been identified by interviewees as part of this particular Twitter-bubble. The paper provides an insight into the narratives of women, voicing their motherhood struggles and victories in the “safe space” of Twitter’s “bubble” of new Latvian mothers, illuminating also a unique and unlikely use for an asymmetric and decentralized social media platform.
Neste artigo, objetivou-se analisar como se dão a permanência e o progresso de universitárias grávidas ou com filhos(as) menores de idade na Graduação. Participaram desta pesquisa, 131 mulheres, das ...quais 90,1% já possuíam filhos(as), 50,4% não precisaram interromper a Graduação devido à gravidez, e 45% se autodeclararam pardas. As participantes responderam de forma online à Escala de Apoio Social, à Escala de Motivação Acadêmica, à Escala de Identidade Profissional de Macleod Clark e a um questionário demográfico. Os resultados foram analisados no software SPSS (versão 21) e indicaram correlações entre a motivação acadêmica, a identidade profissional e o apoio social. A desmotivação se correlacionou negativamente com a identidade profissional e o apoio social. Foram encontradas diferenças de média para o apoio social e fatores da motivação em função do suporte familiar e paterno e de responsabilidade doméstica. Concluiu-se que esses construtos são importantes na construção de uma carreira satisfatória para essas estudantes.
The play Top Girls (1982) is certainly one of the most significant, most performed and most studied plays of modern British theatre. Generally, the interpretations of this piece are based on feminist ...theory and refer to such issues as the conflict between radical and liberal feminism, which is also mentioned and commented on in this paper. However, our focus lies on the interrelations between patriarchy and capitalism, as well as limited options for women within these two oppressive systems. In order to achieve our goal and present the ways in which, in the words of Zillah Eisenstein, the capitalist patriarchy work, apart from her study, we will refer to the works of Linda Gordon, Nancy Chodorow, Heidi Hartmann and Eva Figes. Our purpose is to show that women’s social status and their life standard cannot and should not be identified with the relatively rare success of individual women - such as Marlen who is the protagonist of the play or Margaret Thatcher who is presented as her role model – who had to embrace traditional male and capitalist values of competitiveness and selfishness in order to achieve their suspicious success. In this paper, we wanted to point out that unless women in power show understanding and empathy to other, less privileged, women, their leading positions and their top girls status do not imply female empowerment and cannot be taken as a feminist victory.
Los estudios sobre la maternidad en prisión develan una especial tipicidad meritoria de nuevas epistemologías sociales que rebasen el abordaje jurídico y el ámbito penitenciario. El artículo tiene el ...objetivo de valorar el ejercicio de la maternidad de las mujeres privadas de libertad desde una perspectiva sociológica y jurídica que permita su redimensionamiento hacia un adecuado enfoque de género y una efectiva protección del interés superior del menor, a partir de las experiencias prácticas, políticas públicas e institucionales del sistema penitenciario cubano. A tales fines se define la maternidad desde las dimensiones biológica y sociocultural, entendida como hecho jurídico. Se analiza la protección internacional específica desde las Reglas Mandela y las Reglas de Bangkok. Se caracteriza el contexto cubano y el correlativo español, en tanto ambos comparten la triple estigmatización femenina y ameritan reflexionar sobre la función social de las cárceles en el tratamiento de la maternidad y la infancia encarceladas.
