Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, The Sociological Review, 65 (2), 2017, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017 by SAGE Publications Ltd at The Sociological Review page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/sor on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Parenting agendas
T2 - an empirical study of intensive mothering and infant cognitive development
AU - Budds, Kirsty
AU - Hogg, Margaret Kathleen
AU - Banister, Emma Neva
AU - Dixon, Mandy Patricia
N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, The Sociological Review, 65 (2), 2017, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017 by SAGE Publications Ltd at The Sociological Review page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/sor on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
PY - 2017/5/1
Y1 - 2017/5/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - transition to motherhood
KW - intensive mothering
KW - child development
KW - technologies of the self
U2 - 10.1177/0038026116672812
DO - 10.1177/0038026116672812
M3 - Journal article
VL - 65
SP - 336
EP - 352
JO - The Sociological Review
JF - The Sociological Review
SN - 0038-0261
IS - 2
ER -