Parenting agendas: An empirical study of intensive mothering and infant cognitive development

Abstract

Abstract:Intensive parenting debates reflect the critical importance of a child's early years, and parents' roles in determining later developmental outcomes. Mothers are usually assigned primary responsibility for facilitating their infants' cognitive development through adequate and appropriate sensory stimulation. Drawing on Foucault's technologies of the self we explore how new mothers shape their mothering practices in order to provide appropriately stimulating interactions. Using findings from 64 interviews (31 women were interviewed twice, 2 women were interviewed only once) we identify three main positions whereby mothers function in relation to their infants' development; mother as committed facilitator, creative provider and careful/caring monitor. We consider the perceived normative nature of these positions and the impact they can have on middle-class women's subjectivities as new mothers. Our study of parental agendas and infant cognitive development suggests that a continued focus on the mother's role within early infant development reflects and upholds ideologies of child-centred, intensive mothering, which risks precluding 'alternative' maternal subjectivities and promotes conservative feminine identities.

Neuro-Enhancement Practices across the Lifecourse: Exploring the Roles of Relationality and Individualism

“…This pervasive sense of responsibility was matched by guilt regarding inevitable failures to meet the demanding standards of constant intensive, stimulating one-on-one interaction with one's child. Similar research in a British context suggests that some mothers experience the provision of intensive cognitive stimulation as a mandatory part of the maternal identity (Budds et al, 2016). The mothers interviewed in this study invested great importance in their role as a facilitator of their child's cognitive development.…”

“…For example, mothers equated brief disengagement from their infants with neglect and condemned their self-adjudicated failure to live up to the demands of being a "good mother. " Budds et al (2016) suggest that lay interpretations of the enhancement agenda function to reinforce the gendered division of labor and tighten the bonds linking women's identity to the domestic sphere.…”

Intensive mothering in hard times: Foucauldian ethical self-formation and cruel optimism

“…Such intensified consumption has been linked with the pressure to display 'good' mothering in everyday mundane practices (Cairns et al, 2013;Henderson et al, 2010;Nguyen et al, 2017;Harman and Cappellini, 2015), showing that certain consumption practices and items demonstrate 'good' mothering. Budds et al (2017) show how new mothers in England monitor themselves in relation to intensive mothering practices believed to optimize infants' cognitive development. Such mothers were found to experience guilt and worry when they felt they were not matching up to the ideal of constantly entertaining and stimulating their children.…”

“…The aforementioned studies have emphasized mechanisms of surveillance in current motherhood, often making analogies with Foucault's work. For example, Budds et al (2017) note how mothers' narratives often reflect 'the expectations placed upon women to engage in a technology of the self -to act upon themselves and shape their subjectivities and practices in accordance with contemporary norms and expectations of motherhood' (p. 347). As Foucault (1975) argues, the Panopticon creates docile bodies which have internalized disciplinary practices act as if they are constantly under surveillance even when they are not.…”

Back on the career path : a qualitative study of employment transitions for women who take a career break and their re-entry experiences

“…What types of policy changes would it take to make it easier for women to take time off to raise their children as well as to return to work after having children? Finally, from a societal perspective, research could explore what the impact of the construct of intensive mothering is having on women's decision to leave the workforce as well as the amount of time they are at home as this phenomena seems to grow stronger each year (Budds, Hogg, Banister, & Dixon, 2017).…”