The Double Edge of Legitimacy: How Women with Disabilities Interpret Good Mothering

Abstract

Modern ideologies of “good mothering” demand the resources and family configurations primarily available to privileged mothers, and mothers with disabilities are among those women who have been regarded as unsuitable for the responsibilities demanded of mothers in advanced industrial societies. Although less often explored than dynamics of race and class, mothers with disabilities are among those women who have been regarded as unsuitable for the responsibilities demanded of mothers in advanced industrial societies. Through interviews and focus groups conducted with mothers who have sensory and/or physical disabilities, we examine how women with disabilities interpret their identities as mothers in relation to modern ideals of good mothering. We find that motherhood offered some participants a path to feminine legitimacy often denied women with disabilities. Yet, because they are simultaneously regarded as less-than-ideal mothers, participants engaged in interpretive strategies including upholding and expanding dominant standards of good mothering, as well as reframing and rejecting elements of this mothering logic. We also find that, like women of color, these mothers engaged in culturework, performing identity work to strengthen their children’s social justice perspectives on disability and other forms of inequality.

What makes a good mother? Two decades of research reflecting social norms of motherhood

“…First, we recognize that social norms are potentially contradictory, dissonant, and open to change; that they are context‐specific, historically and socially variable, fluid, and diverse (Daly, 2016; Morris et al, 2015; Pfau‐Effinger, 2005; Xenitidou & Edmonds, 2014). Definitions of what practices are expected and desirable may vary greatly across historic time periods and cultural and social class locations (Collins, 1994; Frederick et al, 2019; Glenn et al, 1994). Practices are also regarded as fluid and flexible (Carroll & Yeadon‐Lee, 2021; Finch, 2007; Morgan, 2020).…”

“…Second, and in close alignment with the contingency of norms and behavior, we conceive of mothering as being shaped by intersecting categories that create structures of domination, power, and social inequities (Collins, 1994(Collins, , 2015Few-Demo & Allen, 2020;Frederick et al, 2019). Some scholars and feminist theorists have questioned whether a gendered focus and separate conceptualizations of fathering and mothering might maintain gendered power relations (Doucet, 2006;Fagan et al, 2014;Schmidt, 2018;Schmidt, Rieder, & Zartler, 2019;Schmidt, Zartler, & Vogl, 2019), and have argued that despite the significant neoliberal transformations, these power hierarchies remain potent between women and men, within and between families, and still need to be considered.…”

“…The diversity in mothers' responses to social norms of motherhood is related to intersectional inequalities that constrain a mother's scope for adhering to all norms and for making choices, depending on, for example, family status, economic and educational resources, class, race or ethnic background, or her bodily abilities. Some mothers then respond with alternative practices, feelings, and strategies (Collins, 2021 ; Constantinou et al, 2021 ; Frederick et al, 2019 ; Guendouzi, 2006 ; Sullivan, 2015 ; Sutherland, 2010 ; Taylor & Wallace, 2012 ).…”