Chapter Two Lessons mothers learn
Abstract
Looking back on the process of becoming a mother, women come to understand the visions they had – of motherhood as a bed of roses, of birth as agony or ecstasy, of pregnancy as a flowering or a burden. After the event, these images are brought sharply into focus by the contrast medium of reality, which exposes the outline of what was, too often, a romantic dream. More than a third of women said they found becoming a mother a difficult experience. Eight out of ten said it had been different from what they had expected. The same proportion thought the pictures of pregnancy, birth and motherhood conveyed in antenatal literature, women’s magazines and the media in general were too romantic, painting an over-optimistic portrait of happy mothers and fathers, quiet contented babies, and neat and shining homes that bore little resemblance to the chaos, disruption and confusion of first-time motherhood.
What’s romantic about changing that nappy down there? What’s romantic about it? I think people should be told about the hard life it is to be a mother. It’s not easy to be a mother. I don’t think it is, I think it’s very difficult. It takes all your energy out of you. The responsibility and the work: because you are kept going. If that child cries at three o’clock, you have got to get up and feed it if it continues to cry, haven’t you? Isn’t that a responsibility? Well you can’t dial nine nine nine and tell them to come, the baby’s crying: you’ve got to do it.
Abstract
Looking back on the process of becoming a mother, women come to understand the visions they had – of motherhood as a bed of roses, of birth as agony or ecstasy, of pregnancy as a flowering or a burden. After the event, these images are brought sharply into focus by the contrast medium of reality, which exposes the outline of what was, too often, a romantic dream. More than a third of women said they found becoming a mother a difficult experience. Eight out of ten said it had been different from what they had expected. The same proportion thought the pictures of pregnancy, birth and motherhood conveyed in antenatal literature, women’s magazines and the media in general were too romantic, painting an over-optimistic portrait of happy mothers and fathers, quiet contented babies, and neat and shining homes that bore little resemblance to the chaos, disruption and confusion of first-time motherhood.
What’s romantic about changing that nappy down there? What’s romantic about it? I think people should be told about the hard life it is to be a mother. It’s not easy to be a mother. I don’t think it is, I think it’s very difficult. It takes all your energy out of you. The responsibility and the work: because you are kept going. If that child cries at three o’clock, you have got to get up and feed it if it continues to cry, haven’t you? Isn’t that a responsibility? Well you can’t dial nine nine nine and tell them to come, the baby’s crying: you’ve got to do it.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Sources of extracts iv
- Foreword by Germaine Greer vi
- Preface ix
-
Sex and gender
- Introduction 2
- The difference between sex and gender 7
- Genes and gender 13
- A kind of person 21
- Childhood lessons 31
- Science, gender and women’s liberation 41
-
Housework and family life
- Introduction 54
- On studying housework 59
- Images of housework 63
- Work conditions 75
- Standards and routines 87
- Marriage and the division of labour 93
- Helping with baby 103
- Housework in history and culture 109
-
Childbirth, motherhood and medicine
- Introduction 118
- The agony and the ecstasy 123
- Lessons mothers learn 139
- Medical maternity cases 151
- Mistakes and mystiques of motherhood 179
-
Doing social science
- Introduction 184
- The invisible woman: sexism in sociology 189
- Reflections thirty years on 207
- On being interviewed 211
- Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms? 217
- Who’s afraid of the randomized controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and ‘good’ research practice 233
- Paradigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory 245
- General bibliography 251
- Bibliography of work by Ann Oakley 281
- Ann Oakley: further reading 285
- Index 295
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Sources of extracts iv
- Foreword by Germaine Greer vi
- Preface ix
-
Sex and gender
- Introduction 2
- The difference between sex and gender 7
- Genes and gender 13
- A kind of person 21
- Childhood lessons 31
- Science, gender and women’s liberation 41
-
Housework and family life
- Introduction 54
- On studying housework 59
- Images of housework 63
- Work conditions 75
- Standards and routines 87
- Marriage and the division of labour 93
- Helping with baby 103
- Housework in history and culture 109
-
Childbirth, motherhood and medicine
- Introduction 118
- The agony and the ecstasy 123
- Lessons mothers learn 139
- Medical maternity cases 151
- Mistakes and mystiques of motherhood 179
-
Doing social science
- Introduction 184
- The invisible woman: sexism in sociology 189
- Reflections thirty years on 207
- On being interviewed 211
- Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms? 217
- Who’s afraid of the randomized controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and ‘good’ research practice 233
- Paradigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory 245
- General bibliography 251
- Bibliography of work by Ann Oakley 281
- Ann Oakley: further reading 285
- Index 295
