MOTHER MANDATE

Mother Mandate

Mother Mandate

Introduction

In contemporary western societies, motherhood remains as a strong sociological, cultural and familial ideal. However, this motherhood mandate can put many mothers struggling in being 'a good mother, and a good wife' on one hand, and a good employee and a career oriented women on the other. Motherhood ideals leave little room for a woman's personal and career goals. The motherhood mandate issues a command to females of all ages instructing them that 'motherhood demands selfless devotion to children and a subordination of one's own life to the needs of children and family' (Lindsey 2011). This study seeks to amend the way we talk about mothering and fathering as it is important to look not just at women and mother, but at men who take on mothering traits and characteristics, embodying the nurturance of motherhood, and stepping into the role of functional primary parent.

Discussion

The modern nuclear family (mother-father-child) has an asymmetric structure of parenthood, in which a woman experiences the "motherhood" and the man experiences “fatherhood.” According to the prevailing social norms, men and women are differently involved in the family and reproduction. Women's roles are determined by society as a family and are mainly restricted in the areas of domestic life. In line with this, men's roles are determined largely outside of the family (www.trinity.edu). Their stereotypical role remains anything except that of being a primary child nurturer. Consequently, the perception of motherhood is largely attributed as a female phenomenon; a phenomenon that makes child bearing and child rearing as a single-parent responsibility.

Perceptions and representations of motherhood vary according to age (teenagers, young or adult women), place of origin (city outskirts, the provinces, Bordering countries), and socialization environments (city slums, temporary settlements, squatter houses, tenement hotels).

In social development, people have made stereotypical representations of motherhood. Most commonly, motherhood is attributed to the existence of a maternity based on instinct, regarded as something innate in women (www.motherhood-cafe.com). 

Far from having this essential character, motherhood is culturally and contextually constructed. Without doubt, this makes a general and legitimate sense of being a mother. Moreover, critical historical theories have been postulated numerous general or universal standards of how a good mother should be designed in accordance with the Western family patterns, modern and middle class. This is what Rousseau and Freud did: they emphasized on the concept on the mother's sense of self-denial and sacrifice, characterizing them as "normal" for woman.

Classical psychoanalytic theory suggests that the child unconsciously identifies with the parent of the same sex: a boy - with his father, the girl - with her mother. Thus, the process of securing gender roles is largely "natural." This made it obvious that the first condition of a good parenting is the ability to adapt to the needs of the child. In contrast, however, it is put forward that a poor mother was "incapable or unworthy."

The term mother continues to be given primacy over the term father. Mothering often designates primary care, nurturing and life-giving potential, provided by the ...