Maternal Practices and Identities: Temporal-Spatial Distribution

Abstract

The article presents the analysis of maternal identities through the prism of the temporal-spatial distribution of everyday maternal practices. Markers are described by which women determine maternal identities, factors of their construction, patterns of the «ideal mother» and the spatio-temporal distribution of everyday motherhood practices in the context of women's determination of their maternal role. Theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of motherhood are analyzed, in particular, the possibilities of applying the activity-structural approach to the analysis of maternal identities and the relevance of the concepts of «care landscape», «ghettoization of motherhood», «temporal poverty» in the context of modern everyday motherhood practices. The application of the structural-activity concept allowed to analyze the daily practices of motherhood in time and space, and, accordingly, to identify the basic conditions for structuring the practices of motherhood of women with different family and work statuses. The paper emphasizes that maternal identities are not rigidly defined and provide opportunities to choose from a fairly wide range of cultural patterns, acting as a result of individual life projects. One of the main contradictions today is the contradiction between, on the one hand, the requirements of the labor market, the processes of individualization that lead to active involvement of mothers in employment and, on the other hand, the spread of «intensive» and «responsible» child-centered motherhood in modern parental culture. These practices are becoming more intense in terms of the time, attention, and effort that mothers put into caring for their children. The article concludes that such «intensive motherhood» acts as a substitute, compensatory mechanism for the functioning of the institution of fatherhood in an unsatisfactory (imperfect) socio-economic environment, as well as traditional for our society gender bias in favor of women in family responsibilities and parental functions.