THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997 TAG: 9612310064
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY ELIZA WILLIAMS HOOVER
LENGTH: 70 lines
IN ``THE CULTURAL Contradictions of Motherhood,'' Sharon Hays, an assistant professor of sociology and women's studies at the University of Virginia, clearly articulates why mothers in our culture feel such an enormous burden of responsibility, and often guilt, associated with raising children.
It has to do with how we define ``appropriate mothering.''
Our society, she finds, ``advises mothers to expend a tremendous amount of time, energy and money in raising their children.'' Appropriate mothering is expected to be ``child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive and financially expensive.''
Hays arrives at this concept after examining the history and development of child-rearing; looking at popular child-rearing books; and talking to mothers themselves.
When more than half of all mothers with young children are working outside of the home, she questions the concept's validity. She further asks why mothers are expected to be so unselfish, putting their children's needs above their own, when in all other areas of society, the pursuit of self-interested gain is accepted behavior. Her inquiry leads to what Hays calls the ``cultural contradictions of motherhood.''
Hays believes mothers bear such burdensome responsibility because they are our society's hope for a kinder, gentler world. They are the ones called upon to resist, or at least counterbalance, the dog-eat-dog, competitive ethic of the market-place.
Mothers are our ``last best defense against what many people see as the impoverishment of social ties, communal obligations and unremunerated commitments,'' Hays writes.
There is no question that women are still primarily responsible for parenting. But their dual role of mother and paid worker mostly benefits men, Hays notes, inasmuch as it limits the number of women who can successfully compete in the workplace. Society as a whole, of course, gains from the unpaid work of mothers in raising future generations. Hays believes that until men, who continue to control economic and political power, become equally involved in parenting, problems associated with childcare and with women's dual responsibilities will not be resolved.
Hays conducted interviews with a number of mothers: middle-class and poor women; stay-at-home mothers and mothers who work outside the home. Regardless of their economic status, Hays found that they all aspired to the same model of labor-intensive, child-centered mothering, which is the same model that she found advocated by the most popular child-rearing books. Class distinctions only make a difference in whether the mothers are able to put into practice their beliefs about mothering, not in what they believe.
``Cultural Contradictions'' is somewhat of a mixed presentation - somewhere between a readable description of culturally defined mothering as it exists in the United States today, and an academic thesis. In its dual focus, it actually reflects women's ambivalence.
Hays is often repetitious and defensive, particularly in her insistence that the reader recognize motherhood as a social construct, not God-given or ``natural.'' And her characterization of the business-world ethic as cutthroat would be more convincing if she did not completely ignore the evidence, albeit small, that our culture's ambivalence may also have some impact.
But overall, ``The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood'' is provocative and adds to the general understanding of some difficult, and prevalent, issues. MEMO: Eliza Williams Hoover, an attorney, mediator and writer, lives on
the Eastern Shore of Virginia. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
``The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood''
Author: Sharon Hays
Publication: Yale University Press. 252 pp.
Price: $25