The “Struggling Good Mother:” The Role of Marginalization, Trauma, and Interpersonal Violence in Incarcerated Women’s Mothering Experiences and Goals

Abstract

Feminists anthropologists have long fought against idealized discourses of the “good” mother based on traditional, White, middle-class, heterosexual values. Extensive participant-observation, in-depth interviews with twenty-one mothers and focus groups with a total of sixty-four mothers incarcerated in a large, urban county jail in North Carolina revealed marginalized women’s pathways to incarceration via trauma (particularly physical/sexual violence beginning in childhood) and its sequela (e.g., substance abuse, sex work, abusive partners) within a context of scarce resources. This research sought to illuminate how such events have shaped women’s motherhood experiences, definitions of “good” mothers, self-definitions as mothers, and motherhood goals. Incarcerated mothers in this study both accepted and resisted hegemonic discourses of “good” mothering by simultaneously retaining and redefining motherhood in adverse circumstances in ways that can be best understood through the model of motherhood that I label the “struggling good mother.” Specific service and policy recommendations are offered that address ways to ameliorate the structural inequalities that prevent marginalized women’s ability to access basic resources needed to break the seemingly endless cycle of trauma, its consequences, and incarceration in the lives of incarcerated mothers and their children.