Silenced Motherhood(s): Forbidden Motherings in the Early Childhood Classroom

Abstract

What is the role of mothering in the early childhood classroom? Given the focus of the field of “professionalization” and “scientific” practices, how might the role of maternal nurturance be woven into our understandings of pedagogies? This paper addresses the disempowerment experienced by an early childhood practitioner when maternal subjectivities and practices are framed as oppositional to the “professionalization” of the field. Through narrative research as a teacher-scholar, I explore my own experiences around my role as “not-mother” in the classroom, looking critically at the interwovenness of mothering and teaching in classroom relationships and communities. Through this narrative examination, I explore the role of maternal relationships in early childhood, in conversation with my practices of mothering as the teacher-not-mother. Through narrative inquiry and analysis, I attempt to make visible the forbidden subjectivities of the not-mother, and her centrality to meaningful early childhood pedagogy.

Influence of socio-economic status on the nutrition status of born to young mothers in Transmara west Narok County, Kenya.

“…Adolescent pregnancy accounts for 28 per cent among women aged between 20 to 24 years who give birth before the age of 18 years in Sub-Saharan Africa (Edilberto, n.d.). The increase in child marriages is more common in areas with low socioeconomic status leading to an increase in adolescent births (Campbell, et al, 2013).…”