In my attempt to deconstruct the meaning of motherhood, I challenge myself and the reader to unearth the cultural, social, economic, and political assumptions by which motherhood is constructed. In ancient cultures, the Great Goddess was worshiped and revered as the embodiment of the life cycle continuum: birth, death, and regeneration (Kahn, 1995). In her book Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession, Erma Bombeck writes: “‘Mother’ has always been a generic term synonymous with love, devotion, and sacrifice. . . . Immediately following birth, every new mother drags from her bed and awkwardly pulls herself up on the pedestal provided for her” (1983, pp. 2-3).
Chodorow (1978) provides an informative description of the historical changes affecting motherhood that have taken place in the preceding two centuries.
Two centuries ago, marriage, especially for women, was essentially synonymous with child-rearing. . . . Parenting lasted from the inception of a marriage to the death of the marriage partners. . . . In this earlier period, the household was the major productive unit of society. Husband and wife, with their own and/or other children, were a cooperative producing unit. . . . Women carried out productive and reproductive responsibilities, as they have in most societies and throughout history. . . .
[Over the last two centuries,] production outside the home became identified with work as such; the home was no longer viewed as a workplace. Home and workplace, once the same, are now separate.
This change in the organization of production went along with and produced a complex of far-reaching changes in the family and in women’s lives. . . . Women’s family role became centered on child care and taking care of men. This role involved more than physical labor. It was relational and personal and, in the case of both children and men, maternal. . . .” (pp. 4-5).
Perhaps the social construction of motherhood is most clearly visible when examined under the lens of patriarchy. Chodorow (1978) ascribes women’s mothering to be “a central and defining feature of the social organization of gender and is implicated in the construction and reproduction of male dominance itself” (p. 9). Traditionally, economic systems have depended upon the continued reproduction of “labor power” within the family by women’s reproduction and mothering (Chodorow, 1978). Historically, both prior to and during the years of this study, income inequalities based on gender fostered a sexual division of labor — with mothers serving as primary caretakers and fathers, primary wage-earners (Chodorow, 1978). Chodorow asserts that the “social organization of gender. . . is socially constructed, subject to historical change and development, and organized in such a way that it is systematically reproduced” (1978, p. 8).
In The American Heritage College Dictionary (3rd Ed.), the term mother is defined as “a woman who conceives, gives birth to, or raises and nurtures a child” (1993, p. 890). However, in Western society, the satisfaction of all four conditions are often implicitly assumed. As Chodorow (1978) points out, a man can “mother” a child, but a woman can not “father” a child. Chodorow asserts that “being a mother, then, is not only bearing a child – it is being a person who socializes and nurtures. It is being a primary parent or caretaker” (p. 11). Hence, in the “lived” definition, an otherwise childless woman who miscarries, aborts, delivers a stillborn, relinquishes, or adopts may not be viewed as a mother in its fullest sense. Adoptive mothers Betsy Smith, Janet Surrey, and Mary Watkins report having been asked the following questions by strangers: “Are you her ‘mother’?” “Is she yours?” “Does she call you ‘Mom’?” “She can’t be your baby. Where does she come from?” (1998, p. 194) For members of the adoption triad, the term “real” mother is emotionally loaded. Smith, Surrey, and Watkins (1998) claim that adoptive mothers may fear that without the opportunity for mother-infant bonding at birth, their relationship may be less “real.” They argue that, in spite of the evidence supporting the prenatal development of an infant’s familiarity with its biological mother and the potential effects of severing that relationship, adoptive mothers are able to develop attachment relationships with the child. Smith et al. (1998) assert that “. . . in a culture that values blood relations over others, the parents considered ‘real’ are the birth parents, despite any acts they have committed that are antithetical to ‘parenting’” (p. 206). In this context, Smith et al. have used the term “to parent” in the sense of “To act as a parent to; raise and nurture” as specified in The American Heritage College Dictionary (3rd Ed.) (1993, p. 992). An alternate use of the term “to parent” is “To cause to come into existence; originate.” Once more, we are presented with the dilemma of defining terms in the exceptional case of adoption and relinquishment. Smith et al. have demonstrated their bias and “lived experience” by choosing the term “parenting” to represent “raising and nurturing,” They advocate for the “continued development and reinforcement of nonblaming, nonjudgmental language to describe members of the adoption triangle. . . for example, birth mother, biological mother; instead of ‘real’ mother, ‘natural’ mother, or ‘abandoning’ mother. . .” (p. 212). Others, however, argue that there is no judgment intended in the term “natural” mother and that biologically the woman who gave birth to the child is in fact his/her natural mother. Birthmothers often claim that they relinquished their “parenting” rights to raise and nurture the child, but they did not relinquish their “motherhood.” Relinquishment instruments often used terminology such as the “relinquishment of parental rights.” This is evidenced in the language expressed in Washington D.C.’s relinquishment document (circa 1956-1960):
“Relinquishment of Parental Rights – Mother
I, (insert BM name here), legal mother of (insert Bname of adoptee), born at (insert city/state of birth) on (insert DOB) hereby surrender and relinquish all parental rights in the said child and do permanently relinquish and transfer the same to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, and their designated agents, under provisions of Section 6 of the Act of April 22, 1944, (58 Stat. 194) as amended by Section 5 (b) of the Act of June 8, 1954 (68 Stat. 248), with full power and authority to the said Commissioners or their designated agents to consent to the adoption of the said child.” (cited in goob@innova.net, 1997)
Terms such as birthmother, first mother, other mother, biological mother, and natural mother have been coined in order to describe a woman who conceived and gave birth to a child but did not raise and nurture the child. Motherhood is also in some cases endowed with attributes of ownership – my son, my daughter. This too can be magnified in the atypical case of relinquishment and adoption and may create an underlying competition between birthmothers and adoptive mothers. As emphasized by one birthmother,
“What we have to realize, all of us, is that children are not possessions. They don’t belong to any of us. Children are their own beings, adopted or not. At best, we can guide them. The birthparents have guided them into the world, the adoptive ones guide them through childhood. But we do not own them. We are not in competition for deeds or titles. We are united in love.” (Jones, 1993, p. 283).
Smith et al. (1998) refer to the “multiplicity of mothering” as those situations where more than one mother parents a child, as seen in lesbian families or extended families. In other cultures, language exists to describe such relationships, e.g., African American “blood mothers” and “other mothers” and Latino “madres de sangre (blood mothers) and madres de crianza (childrearing mothers)”. Having multiple siblings, we are able to refer to all as brothers and sisters. We have no need to differentiate other than by name, or sometimes birth order, when necessary. However, in the case of relinquishment and adoption, there appears to be a need to distinguish between the two mothering roles, as evidenced by distinctions found in language. Discussing the “confusion about status” in the post-reunion relationship, Gediman and Brown (1991) assert:
“The problem of what to call whom also reflects the anomaly of the post-reunion relationship, which is often described as both a yes and no at the same time. ‘I’m his mother but not his mother,’ one says. ‘My daughter who’s not my daughter,’ another puts it. ‘I won’t be her Mom but she is forever my daughter,’ according to someone else. Strictly speaking, such sentences don’t make any sense, but somehow because of the circumstances, they do.” (p. 154)
Additional insights into motherhood may be found in identifying some of the psychological and social reasons for wanting children. Hoffman and Hoffman found the following reasons why people wanted children:
“Becoming a parent marks the official passage into adulthood.
A child is seen as an extension of the self, and having a child is a way to give birth to the unborn self.
A child is seen as an heir apparent, someone to carry on the family line and traditions, and to insure social status.
A child can realize the parents’ dreams, and also can have a childhood full of the opportunities and love that the parents feel they have been deprived of during their own childhoods. Women especially may look upon having a child as a way of showing up their own mothers in the job of mothering: ‘I’m sure not going to raise my children the way my mother raised me.’
Having children is the morally and socially correct thing to do, and pressure from friends, family and the larger culture cause parents to feel they must procreate to be accepted.
Becoming parents may provide people with the illusion of having control over their own lives. They may feel powerful in comparison to the helpless child who is so dependent upon them. Or they may believe that the child will save their faltering marital relationship.
Economic utility: Children can help out with the family business, and also can be counted on to take care of the parents in old age.
Having a child is seen as a way for the parents to celebrate their love, and raising children is seen as one of life’s major challenges. Child rearing is yet another area in which success-oriented parents can excel and prove their worth.” (Sanford & Donovan, 1984, pp. 32-33)
Each of these reasons may become threads in the fabric of motherhood and add additional layers of meaning. Our understanding of motherhood is further enlightened by exploring what it means to be childless. Sanford and Donovan (1984) describe the social stigma that may accompany childlessness. Childless women may be characterized as “deficient, aberrant and even pathetic” and pitiable (p. 148). They may be seen as “immature, selfish, unable to give to others” (p. 149). Women who desire to become pregnant and are infertile may suffer greater social stigma (Sanford & Donovan, 1984). Sanford and Donovan further state that “a woman who does not have children must prove herself exceptional in achievement in order to compensate for her failure to be a ‘real’ woman” (p. 149).
Cultural, social, economic, and political changes within the last fifty years have dramatically influenced the role of mothering. Surrogate parenting, whereby a surrogate mother can be artificially inseminated for the purpose of carrying and relinquishing the child to a childless couple, further challenges our cognitive schemata that shapes, makes sense of, and gives meaning to “motherhood.” Multiple mothering and single parenting likewise challenge our staid assumptions. The recent rise in reunions of birthmothers and adoptees (and its media coverage) has implicitly made apparent the disparities in the meaning of motherhood as it applies to adoptive mothers and birthmothers. The next section addresses the historical underpinnings of adoption as a social institution.
