Motherhood and the Gendered Labor of Homeschooling

Abstract

Chapter 6 tackles the question of why homeschooling is so overwhelmingly seen as women’s work. The chapter begins with a discussion of the varying explanations mothers gave for why they are the ones who take on most of the labor associated with homeschooling. The author then argues that these explanations are all best understood in the context of the ideology of intensive mothering and the neoliberal mandate that mothers exercise managerial control over their children’s lives—or be held accountable if they do not. These motherhood ideologies work together to constrain mothers’ actions to their own family, because they feel that any work they may want to undertake to make social change at a larger level would mean sacrificing the well-being of their own children. In other words, the author argues that the demands of neoliberal mothering depoliticize these women.