Outside and Inside the Arena of Othering: Notions of ‘Intensive Mothering’ Revealed through Post-Abortion Narratives

Abstract

This article explores the reproduction of the practice of ‘intensive mothering’ as theorised by Sharon Hays via the theoretical lens of Othering. Examining 20 post-abortion narratives that were shared by women living in Perth (Western Australia), I interrogate the Othering practice that distinguishes those who practise intensive mothering and those who cannot or do not, creating a line of division between the ‘good mother’ and the ‘bad mother’. While Othering tends to be examined uni-directionally, along clear boundary lines such as ethnicity and gender, I utilise the concept of the ‘arena of Othering’. I argue that the process of Othering excludes some people from participating in abortion discourse while bolstering the image of the responsible Self. By studying abortion narratives, this article contributes to both sets of literature: motherhood and Othering, making possible an interrogation of ‘intensive mothering’ and offering the alternative ‘good enough mothering’ to resist Othering.

Keywords

abortion decision-making arena of Othering good enough mothering intensive mothering narratives Othering

Introduction

This article explores the production and reproduction of the practice of ‘intensive mothering’ as theorised by Hays (1996: 46) via the theoretical lens of Othering. Through 20 post-abortion narratives that were shared by women living in Perth (Western Australia), I examine the practice of Othering as it occurs within the narratives to distinguish between those who can and do mother intensively and those who cannot or do not, creating a line of division between the ‘good mother’ and the ‘bad mother’. This line of division operates within the arena of those who are already Othered regarding gender but does not automatically follow class or ethnicity lines of division. Hence, I borrow the concept of the ‘arena of Othering’ (Krumer-Nevo, 2002), to differentiate between the kind of Othering that occurs across the gender boundary line and the kind of Othering that occurs between those who are similarly situated within that particular category. This complex process of Othering I found occurring between women allows for an examination of the simultaneous critique and reproduction of motherhood expectations that surfaced in the abortion narratives during the interviews I conducted. The concept of the ‘arena of Othering’ allows the research to move beyond a singular focus on the relationship of Woman as subordinate to the monolithic figure Man, and to include an examination of the Othering that occurs among and between women (de Beauvoir, [1949] 1988; Wilkinson and Kitzinger, 1996). By employing this ‘arena of Othering’ lens, I argue that Othering does not only follow the regular boundary lines of class and/or ethnicity, but in the context of this research, Othering has produced and reproduced the division between the ‘good mother’ and the ‘bad mother’.

Drawing on 20 narrative interviews, I present a typology of the Others, which I have organised into two large categories, arguing that each category serves a different purpose. The first category is the dangerous Other, those who may threaten the participants’ autonomy and decision-making abilities in some way. Signifying these people as Other enables the participants to silence them (Said, [1978] 2003), removing them from participation in abortion discourse. The second category contains Other women who are situated within the arena of Othering (Krumer-Nevo, 2002) and are thus Othered in regard to their perceived ability to mother appropriately. The function of these Other women is to bolster the image of the responsible Self (Clifford, 1986; Lal, 1996) regarding the abortion decision. However, this Othering process also inadvertently reproduces the gold standard model of ‘intensive mothering’. The participants did not recognise this function of Othering as oppressive, yet it also serves to reproduce as legitimate, those intensive mothering practices that have already been interpreted as oppressive (Rich, 1986). Thus, I offer the alternative model of ‘good enough mothering’ to counter the oppressive division between the ‘good mother’ and the ‘bad mother’, which in turn provides resistance to the practice of Othering between women.

Intensive Mothering

The intensive model of good mothering employs methods that are ‘child-centred, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labour intensive and financially expensive’ (Hays, 1996: 46). In this ideology, mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture and development of the ‘sacred child’, whose ever-present needs take precedence over the individual needs of their mothers. Key to this style of mothering is the availability of the mother to attend to all the needs of the child both physically and emotionally (Johnston and Swanson, 2006; Jones et al., 2008; MacKendrick, 2014). The mother is only able to justify attending to her own psychological and emotional needs through the ‘happy mother, happy child’ framework, teaching that her happiness will translate into a happy child who is then able to develop as expected (Elvin-Nowak and Thomsson, 2001; Johnston and Swanson, 2006).

The ‘intensive mothering’ ideology reflects back on the mother, creating a prototype of the ‘good mother’, the existence of which presupposes the existence of the ‘bad mother’ (Green, 2015). According to Liamputtong (2006: 41), the ‘good mother’ achieves three things:

Caring for the child’s physical and emotional needs.

Teaching the child appropriate cultural and social norms.

Facilitating success for the child.

Thus, the ‘good mother’ as primary caregiver anticipates and adjusts to every need of the child, continually creating a good life for the child (Choi et al., 2005; Johnston and Swanson, 2006). The ‘good mother’ is available to perform appropriate duties, such as being available to volunteer at school and attend parent–teacher interviews (Garey, 1995). Conversely, those who transgress these expectations or are unable to fulfil these expectations are assumed to be low income, irresponsible and selfish (Becker, 2019), thus constituting the ‘bad mother’.

Historically, the ‘good mother’ has often been conflated with the white, middle-class, coupled mother (Mackenzie, 2023). This has led to earlier policies such as taking newborns away from the unwed mother and placing them in families (Higgins, 2011) and policies that limited access to contraception to married women who already had children (Moore, 2005; Silies, 2015). Further, settler nations such as Australia and the USA have used institutional policies such as abortions and forced sterilisations for women of colour (Ross and Solinger, 2017), and relocating Indigenous children into white families or missions (Jacobs, 2009), reinforcing the growth of the white nation (Moore, 2005).

Previous research has argued that women have internalised this framework of ‘intensive mothering’, largely accepting the standard set for good mothering (Carroll and Yeadon-Lee, 2022; Collins, 2019; Johnston and Swanson, 2006; Jones et al., 2008; Kukla, 2008; Maushart, 1997; Vincent et al., 2010). The requirements of child-centred mothering have become ubiquitous and common sense, so that it appears natural for mothers to mother intensively, and the practice is rarely questioned and examined. The invisibility of the ‘intensive mothering’ allows women to measure and pass judgement on those who seemingly fall beneath the standard (Johnston and Swanson, 2006; Lupton, 2014; Vincent et al., 2010). Further, those who lack the necessary resources to mother intensively, such as financial stability and/or relationship stability, have also internalised the model and they adopt certain practices in order to be seen as a good mother, despite their material limitations. This article examines the reproduction of the ‘good mother’ prototype through the practice of Othering those who do not meet the standard.

The Other

The process of Othering refers to the process of creating boundaries between Us and Them, Self and Other (Jacob et al., 2021), through the identification of unacceptable or negative difference (Lal, 1996). The most obvious of these lines of difference are those that occur between boundaries of race, class, gender and/or age. These differences are construed along lines of visible difference, accompanied by stereotypical characteristics that serve to justify the ensuing exclusionary practices (Canales, 2000). Naming and identifying the Other, allows the Self to construct and maintain itself through the process of rejecting that which is not-Self (Clifford, 1986), thus maintaining the safety of the accepted social order (Scheper-Hughes, 1992).

Said’s ([1978] 2003) work, Orientalism, added an examination of the exercise of power within the relationship between Self and Other. Said argued that the objectification of the Other creates an unchanging, monolithic perception and representation of the Other, placing the Self in a position of power to name, identify and describe the Other. Conversely, the Other lacks the authority to self-represent or to contribute self-knowledge to the acceptable discourse (Ashcroft and Ahluwalia, 2008). This relationship of power continually shapes the relationship with the Other, privileging those who have the power to name, exclude and/or silence the Other (Ramazanoglu and Holland, 2002).

Woman as Other

Although the book, The Second Sex by de Beauvoir ([1949] 1988) preceded the publication of Said’s Orientalism, gendered Othering can be considered as a subset of the process of Othering outlined above. Through her examination of the relationship between males and females, de Beauvoir concluded that biological differences do not in themselves condemn women to playing the subordinate role of the Other, yet women are irreversibly constituted as Other. Her explanation leans on the duality of western thinking that produces binaries such as male/female, men/women, Self/Other, which relegates ‘women’ to the category of the Other in order to support the view of the male Self. Braidotti (1991: 159) adds that as Other, the woman is necessary to uphold the ‘prestige’ of the male Self.

The critique of this constitution of Woman as Other has been foundational to various feminist writings. Scott (2006) argued that it is essentially the refusal of these hierarchical relations between men and women that structure the history of feminist thought. At its core, it is the refusal of the universal construction of all women as inferior (Braidotti, 1991; Ortner, 1972; Rowbotham et al., 2006), binding all women together in a common subjugated experience (Curthoys, 2000; Evans, 1997), while men are then portrayed as ‘the enemy’ (hooks, 2014). This constitution creates a clear boundary between Self and the dangerous Other.

While the process of Othering is a productive lens through which to examine many areas of difference and disadvantage, the process of Othering tends to be examined uni-directionally. The concept allows for an examination of the Othering practices of the dominant or mainstream group towards the marginalised and/or vulnerable group with the nature of the mainstream group differing according to the lines of difference under examination. In the context of this study, the categories of both men and religious opponents are often constructed as the dominant or powerful group. While not mainstream, with a growing number of people nominating ‘no religion’ on the Australian census data¹ (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021), religious opponents are nonetheless considered powerful (Warhurst and Merrill, 1982) and Othered similarly to men within the context of abortion decision-making.

However, a uni-directional focus on the process of Othering that tends to follow these perceived lines of dominant and marginalised, obscures the Othering that potentially occurs within the marginalised group, in this case, women with an abortion experience. I have therefore employed the concept of the arena of Othering, in which participants interact and engage within the established relationships of power, providing room for an examination of Othering between and among those who may already be marginalised (Krumer-Nevo, 2002). While men and religious opponents are placed outside the arena of Othering, within this arena, the participants point to other women to manage their own image of the responsible Self by dis-identifying with the unacceptable Other. I argue that within this arena of Othering, the primary boundary line runs along notions of the ‘good mother’ and the ‘bad mother’, rather than aforementioned lines of gender, class or ethnicity.

Post-Abortion Narratives: The Project

In this study, Post-Abortion Narratives, I sought participants over the age of 18 who had experienced a legal² abortion within the last 10 years in Perth, Western Australia. The project was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Australia. The goal of the project was to understand the navigation towards an abortion decision within the social and political context in which the participants were situated. I sought to examine the extent to which the participant’s own expectations for women and their understandings of acceptable motherhood shaped and informed their abortion decision. By employing a narrative approach to both interviewing and analysis, I was able to interrogate those issues that the participant found important.

Recruitment

For this research project, recruitment for interview participants began in February 2020 via local newspapers and social media. Thirty-eight people responded but some were ineligible, so the final cohort consisted of 20 women who engaged in one face-to-face interview. With the disruption caused by COVID-19 in March 2020, some interviews were conducted online and have been reported elsewhere (’t Hart, 2023). I imposed few criteria on my sample but employed purposive sampling, aiming to generate as diverse a sample as possible (Bryman et al., 2022; Punch, 2006). My attempts at snowball sampling (Bryman et al., 2022; Stone, 2007; Vogt et al., 2012) proved largely unsuccessful, contributing only one participant. This means that the participants were disconnected from one another, and I am confident that my sample does not largely represent the views of one group of women.

Participants

The participants ranged in age at interview from 24–45 and in age at abortion from 18–43. Geographically, they were recruited from the Greater Perth Area, from both higher and lower socio-economic areas. Although there was diversity in age, socio-economic status, occupation, marital status, size of family, there was less diversity in cultural background. There were several participants from the UK, one from Singapore, one Australian Indigenous and one New Zealand Indigenous participant, and one who had a Burmese background. There were no participants from a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) community or with a refugee background. Instead, the remainder of the participants identified as White Australians. Further, all participants were in heterosexual relationships. These two aspects are significant limitations such that this study cannot speak to the experiences of CALD women or those in non-heterosexual relationships. Rather, these limitations speak to justify targeted recruitment practices for studies into the unique experiences of diverse participants.

Interviews

At the beginning of the interview, I explained the aims of the study, the consent form was signed and the participant chose a name for the purposes of the study.³ I also gave the participant an outline for the structure of the ensuing interview. Following this introduction, the participant was invited to share her narrative of her abortion experience, in her own way (Patton, 2015). Key moments in that narrative were generally finding out that she was pregnant, the partner’s reaction to the news of a pregnancy (including those participants who were not in a current relationship with the partner),⁴ navigating the decision to terminate the pregnancy and the process of accessing the abortion. Interspersed within the narrative were evaluative comments on other matters such as the quality of her relationship with the partner, the nature of the support received from friends and/or family and opinions about other mothers.

Data Analysis

The initial transcript of the interview was generated by Otter.ai, which was checked for accuracy against the audio recording (Adu, 2019). The participants were not invited to check the transcripts, but member checking was conducted during the interview with phrases such as ‘If I hear you correctly. . .’ The first 13 interviews were coded using codes that were largely drawn directly from the data, also known as In Vivo coding (Adu, 2019). Then, as my theoretical understandings and framework became clearer, I was able to rearrange my codes to incorporate my theoretical framework. The result was a mix of codes, some inductively shaped by In Vivo coding and others deductively informed by theoretical constructs.⁵

Within the Arena of Othering: Research Findings

The Poor Woman

The construction of the ‘good mother’ as one who is available to respond to her child’s physical and emotional needs rarely questions the related construction of the perceived needs of the child. Rather, childrearing manuals reflect the belief in the legitimacy of the child’s needs (Åström, 2015) and the centrality of the child within the family (Hays, 1996; Wall, 2001), valued and at the same time vulnerable, needing constant protection, surveillance and nurture (Lupton, 2011). Jones et al. (2008) found that many American mothers believe that children deserve to be nurtured in a stable family and financially secure environment, positioned to be the recipient of ‘intensive mothering’ practices. Hence, low-income women are often perceived as unable to perform ‘intensive mothering’ and thus unable to protect their child(ren) from potential harm (Lupton, 2011; Vincent et al., 2010). These assumptions of who can and should mother, were reflected in some of the participants’ narratives through descriptions of those who should not mother. Particularly those who were more resourced exercised the power to name and exclude those who presumably had less financial stability from the ‘good mother’ paradigm (Ramazanoglu, 1989):

You know when I see like mums who look obviously jobless, alcoholic, smoke, you know, pushing a pram and smoking, then you just feel ‘why even bother popping?’

Because when I look at them, I’m like, what are they thinking? Why? . . . if you’re gonna bring a child to the world, surely you want to be doing your best.. for him or her. (Liz)

Louise also felt that motherhood in poverty should not occur:

I do feel terrible, saying, but you know, the fact that you can be as poor you can be, on you know, bones of your ass poor sort of thing, and not be able to provide for a kid and yet because you are lucky enough to be able to fall pregnant naturally, you get to have this child that is then brought into this environment where it’s not gonna thrive, it’s likely not going to have a very good life . . . and why? Why would you intentionally do that to a being, you know?

I wish everybody took the amount of time that we did to make that decision. I wish that people took more advantage of the facilities that are on offer if they do accidentally fall pregnant rather than just going, ‘Oh, I can do it. I get you know, I’ll get Centrelink⁶ to pay me this, and I’ll get this and my mum will look after the kid’, and all that sort of stuff. I think it’s really unfortunate. And I’m aware that probably makes me sound like a bit of a fascist (laugh).

Both Liz and Louise live in higher socio-economic areas of Perth, both were married and full-time employed in relatively higher-status jobs. While Louise expressed some guilt about her opinions, both participants did not interrogate their opinions or seek to correct them.

On the other hand, Rachel was living in a lower socio-economic area, did not complete her university education and was precariously self-employed. She was fully aware of the classist opinions of single mothers such as herself, and pushed back on the stereotype of the lazy, welfare mum (Carroll and Yeadon-Lee, 2022; Chodorow, 1999). She took pains to define herself outside of the Othering process she was usually subjected to (Krumer-Nevo, 2002) establishing herself as someone who also contributes to society (Mackenzie, 2023):

I’ve always felt there’s a stigma against single mums. I’ve experienced it during dating. So I’ve had, like, [my] ex-partner’s parents, and even my partner’s parents have said, ‘She just wants your money’ kind of thing. Whereas I’ve lived alone for almost six years. I’ve always funded myself. I haven’t needed anyone else to support me and yet they still go, ‘She just wants your money. Be careful’ kind of thing. It’s very frustrating [. . .] I run my own household. Why would I need anything?

At the same time, Rachel also gestured towards other mothers who do seem to fit the image of the ‘welfare mum’. Her practice of Othering did not follow visible class boundary lines, rather, it reinforced the division between the ‘good mother’ and the ‘bad mother’, a division that supersedes the more usual class lines:

I do know mums like that. [Where] I was living, my children were at [local Primary School], so that’s a low socio-economic area. And there were some mums that were very much like that. You could kind of go, ‘Come on, like, you don’t even walk your children to school and you live across the road. Like it’s not hard to do. You just stand at the door and watch them cross the road kind of thing. Just get up and do something. Start a business, go to work, do something.’

Rachel could resist the classed stigma around single or unsupported motherhood by actively displaying ‘good mothering’ (Carroll and Yeadon-Lee, 2022; Wenham, 2016). She chose to prioritise the needs of her children, performing tasks such as hospital bedside sits and dropping the children off at school (Garey, 1995; Johnston and Swanson, 2006). At the same time, she applied the same standard of internalised mothering practices to other women. While extending the practice of Othering onto other women helps to maintain the image of the responsible Self, this also reproduces the ‘intensive mothering’ paradigm and does little to dislodge it from social norms and expectations.

The Young, Teenage Woman

Leanne was just 18 when she became pregnant and accessed an abortion. She hated the experience and decided she was never going to do that again. When she became pregnant again, still at the age of 18, she felt that she had no choice but to carry the pregnancy to term. Becoming a teen mum herself, Leanne rejected both the image of the teen mum and the idea of embodying the image of the teen mum. She was aware and critical of media depictions of the teen mum and the general low opinion of the teen mum in society. She was also critical of the different treatment she felt she received at the hospital when she was a single teen mum for her first baby and married for her second:

One big deciding factor for me was I didn’t want to be . . . I didn’t want to be a single teen mum, cos that’s so shit. It’s not . . . because well, I had [oldest] as a teenager. But, you know, all those shitty shows and the way that people portray teen mums is just shit, and I just refuse to be. And also ended up being one. But I refuse to be just a single teen mum. People just assume that teenagers can’t raise babies and be decent people, which is not true. But that’s a big thing. I think ‘Teen Mum’, but like I used to watch Teen Mums all the time when I was 18. And seeing all them, I was like, ‘what on earth?’ . . . it was so much drama, so much drama. Like baby, daddy issues and money issues. And their kids always look feral.

In both of these categories, poor women and young women are deemed unsuited for motherhood, for reasons of class and age (Beynon-Jones, 2013), underlining the trope that ‘good mothering’ equals ‘intensive mothering’. However, this kind of mothering is best suited to middle-class, stable, usually two-parent families, where one parent is the full-time breadwinner and one parent is the full-time caregiver. This model excludes those who lack financial means, or who are too young and lack stability or relationship support. Media studies have shown the link made in the media between young, teenage mothers and ‘problematic parenting’, indicating the perceived inappropriateness of teenage motherhood (Wenham, 2016). Thus, implicit reference to the gold standard of mothering continues to surface through almost all studies on mothering into the present, also surfacing in studies on abortion decision-making such as this project, as a way for women to explain why abortion is preferable to keeping the pregnancy. Unless one is able to provide for the child in all of these ways, it is considered best for the child and more responsible of the woman to terminate the pregnancy (Becker, 2019; Biggs et al., 2013; Jones et al., 2008; Williams and Shames, 2004).

The Foolish Woman

The foolish woman is one who is uneducated, especially around sexual health and contraceptive use. A common theme in the interviews was that the participant felt that she should have ‘known better’ or ‘been more responsible’. In this category, the Other woman comes very close to Self and there is considerable embarrassment about not having been more ‘sexually responsible’. Unlike Rachel, who could push back on classed stereotypes of poor, single mums and Leanne, who was able to interrogate and reject the image of the teen mum, becoming accidentally pregnant meant there was no buffer between the foolish Other and Self, no hyphen between Other and Self (Fine, 1994).

The first quote below comes from Sarah’s narrative. The background to Sarah’s words is that she was using a contraceptive coil implant, but it was not found when they did the abortion. So she had to have a follow up ultrasound to locate the coil. She said:

I had to then explain to them why I was there and I felt . . . um . . . (3 sec) for some reason I felt a bit silly. Even though it was clearly an accident that I’d got pregnant. I was taking contraception and it shouldn’t have happened. But I did feel a bit foolish.

Actually, now thinking about it, I realise why I felt foolish. Because when they did the abortion, they said, ‘Do you want us to put the implant on in your arm, so that you don’t fall pregnant again?’ And I think as a student midwife, I was, ‘That’s what you kind of did to the young girls who accidentally fell pregnant.’ You offered them an implant before they left the hospital, because that was your chance, to make sure that they didn’t come back again in nine months’ time. And I was like, ‘Yeah, but I’m not a silly little girl.’

Through her training, Sarah was aware of the tropes around young girls accidentally getting pregnant. Studies continue to show the inconsistent use of contraception by young women, particularly when switching from one method of contraception to another (Brown, 2015). It has also been shown that young women typically wait approximately one year after sexual debut before seeking medical advice on suitable contraception (Falk et al., 2001). Sarah was also aware that the time when women seek emergency contraception or have an abortion is considered a good time to reassess contraceptive methods and move to a more effective method (Bajos et al., 2006; Grzeskowiak et al., 2022). Yet, Sarah felt that she was a knowledgeable and competent woman also regarding contraceptive use. She thus resisted the image of the foolish woman that she felt was thrust on her because of her unplanned pregnancy.

Elizabeth also expressed embarrassment at becoming pregnant:

I think the fact that I’d allowed it to happen and I hadn’t been . . . (4 sec) . . . (breath in) Because I think I’d seen myself as being smart. Like I was an educated person. You know? I’d done well in high school, I’d gone to uni. The fact that it had happened was because I had, as I saw it at the time, low self-esteem. . . and then I was ashamed that I’d got myself into that situation.

I remember reading that one in three women have an abortion, or something like that. And of my closest girlfriend group, of the four of us, three of us have [had an abortion]. And we’re all smart, educated women, you know? None of us are . . . bad or anything.

Elizabeth grew up thinking that she would never have an abortion. She remembers discussing abortion with her close friend, concluding that ‘“I’d never do that”, you know, that’s awful.’ She could not identify with the ‘type’ of woman that she had imagined to need an abortion (Cockrill and Nack, 2013) and found it difficult to reconcile her notion of a ‘smart, educated’ woman, that is, someone who would not find themselves in her situation, with a ‘bad’ woman, presumably one that is uneducated and irresponsible, possibly promiscuous.

While the participant could separate herself from the first two categories of the poor woman and the young woman, within the category of the foolish woman who presumably did not take precautions against pregnancy, the separation between Self and Other becomes harder to maintain. As the role of the Other woman is to bolster the image of the responsible Self, this was more difficult to achieve in instances of contraceptive failure or non-use, resulting in significant discomfort for the participant.

Resisting Othering

As the topic of abortion and reproductive health is a significantly polarised discussion, it is not surprising that the participants operationalise the first category of Other to signal who may and who may not contribute towards the discussion. In her examination of polarised talk on racism, Fozdar (2008) has identified the emergence of what she calls ‘duelling discourses’, antagonistic discourses that also need each other in order to be made legitimate (Ginsburg, 1989). Ross and Solinger (2017) have identified a similar phenomenon regarding the politicisation of reproductive health, arguing that those who dismiss and silence Others with different political views partake in maintaining the boundary of acceptable and non-acceptable views on reproductive health. By signalling the monolithic, dangerous (male and/or religious) Other, the women that I interviewed have also participated in this boundary watching, placing those with alternative views outside the arena of Othering.

However, inside the arena of Woman as Other, the participants also engaged in the process of Othering other women, dis-identifying with those women who for reasons such as class and/or age were considered less than ideal mothers. Within this arena, expectations of ‘intensive mothering’ are internalised so that the image of ‘the Other woman’ is regularly invoked, serving to bolster the image of the ‘good mother’. This ‘good mother’ is able to perform ‘intensive mothering’ and is able to invest all of her energy and resources in protecting and cultivating her children.

However, this practice of Othering obscures the oppressive nature of the ‘intensive mothering’ paradigm. While invisible, these expectations continue to shape decision-making processes. For not only have women internalised the ideal of the perfect mother, but they have also internalised the responsibility for achieving this goal (Chodorow and Contratto, 1982; Choi et al., 2005; Lupton, 2014). Hence, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, it is not uncommon for women to assess their situation and supports, calculating if ‘intensive mothering’ is achievable (Chae et al., 2017; Finer et al., 2005; Jones et al., 2008; Wokoma et al., 2015). If not, terminating the pregnancy presents as the better option (Becker, 2019).

Rather than inadvertently reproducing the expectation of ‘intensive mothering’, it may be more helpful to come back to what Louise expressed as being the ‘good enough mother’. Her first pregnancy and subsequent abortion was ‘about feeling this perfect mother thing’. She described an ideal mother to be: ‘Somebody who could really dedicate all their time to a kid. Spend time reading, teaching [the] kid, doing art stuff, going to the park, you know, lots of walking, lots of playdates, teaching them to swim.’ She was afraid that if she did not invest everything into raising her child that she would be doing him a ‘disservice’ and then ‘he’s going to be talking to a counsellor about [it] in 20 years’ time’. In particular, the mother–child bond was of deep concern, reflecting the ubiquitous teaching from childrearing experts that this bond is essential for ‘intensive mothering’, instilling fear that the child would suffer if this bond did not form (Green, 2015). Similar to the women in Jones et al. (2008), Louise wanted ‘to give everything to this child’, ‘overinvesting’ in the mother–child relationship (Chodorow, 1999: 217).

When Louise became pregnant the second time, ‘intentionally’ this time, she still experienced fears of inadequacy:

Not being perfect and not being a perfect mum, or doing things wrong, or not feeding the child the right food, you know, accidentally killing them. Really quite serious fears, I guess. And also fears of not bonding, of not having that close relationship with a kid.

Her son is now three years old, and she still feels the pressure of ‘this perfect mother thing’, and the desire to ‘raise this perfect’. Especially when her friends discuss their aspirations for their children, and continually examine their children’s abilities, searching for some indication of extra talent. One of her friends moved her child from one private school to another private school, trying to procure the best education with the best opportunities for her child. But Louise also refuses to follow that path, choosing instead the local public primary school, which ‘is fine’.

Louise has concluded that being a ‘perfect mum’ is:

Completely unachievable. For most people. I’m sure if you’re a billionaire and you could afford to have everybody do everything else for you, then that’s fine. But for people who have to go to work and have to do their own cleaning [and] things, it’s not possible.

Previously, Louise had been quite anxious about being a ‘good enough mum’, whereas now she feels that she is:

A bit more realistic about it and I think, you know, that’s that. And when I said good enough before that, like . . . it’s now the good enough, like, Good Enough is enough. Whereas before, it was much more like, I have to give my child everything, including me.

This kind of parenting has been described by Winnicott in 1953 as ‘good enough mothering’, which does not mean a style of parenting that is less than perfect (Jacobs, 1995; Ratnapalan and Batty, 2009). Rather, he advocates that mothers do not give everything, including themselves, to their child because even the ‘perfect mum’ cannot provide every emotional, psychological and physical need of a child (Green, 2015). While ‘intensive mothering’ can generally be achieved only by those mothers who have financial and relationship stability, who are located in two-parent homes with a full-time breadwinner and a full-time carer (Mackenzie, 2023), ‘good enough mothering’ provides a paradigm where mothering does not require the complete devotion and attention of the mother. Focusing on this style of parenting allows the focus to shift from the quality and qualifications of the mother to the support systems that are necessary for both mother and child to flourish (Aching and Granato, 2016). Rather than assuming the support of the (male) breadwinner, ‘good enough mothering’ can embrace the support of the father, the workplace and community in addressing the needs of the child. Hence, ‘good enough mothering’ can provide a way to resist the Othering processes that are currently in place not only in reference to the monolithic male Other who is located without, but also between women located within the arena of Othering, regarding their perceived ability to mother appropriately.

Conclusion

In this article, I have employed the concept of the ‘arena of Othering’ (Krumer-Nevo, 2002) to move beyond de Beauvoir’s ([1949] 1988) constitution of ‘Woman as Other’ and to examine the more subtle practice of Othering between women that at times follows class and age lines of division, but also supersedes these boundary lines by presenting the two categories of the ‘good mother’ and the ‘bad mother’.

Hence, I have provided a typology of Others that the participants invoke in their abortion narratives. The first category can be considered the dangerous Other, who for reasons of gender or religion can be excluded from participation in the abortion decision-making process. The second category contains Other women, who for various reasons such as class or age, are considered less than qualified for appropriate mothering, that is, women who are considered unable to parent according to the gold standard of ‘intensive mothering’. Within the abortion narrative, the function of Othering these kinds of women, is to bolster the image of the responsible Self during the abortion decision-making process.

However, by Othering these women, the participants also reproduce the ‘intensive mothering’ paradigm as the legitimate method of parenting, a paradigm that has been interpreted as oppressive (Hays, 1996; Rich, 1986). An unplanned pregnancy brings tacit understandings of ‘good’ mothering and the gold standard ‘intensive mothering’ to the fore. The contribution of this article is to apply the lens of Othering within the arena of Othering to understandings of ‘intensive mothering’ and to make explicit the reproduction of the expectation of ‘intensive mothering’ through the abortion decision-making process. Employing the concept of the arena of Othering, the article has been able to move past gendered Othering to examine the participants’ internalisation of the ‘intensive mothering’ paradigm. Further, this application has demonstrated that an abortion decision-making process is closely entwined with expectations of the kind of mothering that the participant hopes to perform.

Thus, I offer Louise’s struggle with the ‘intensive mothering’ expectations and her subsequent adoption of ‘good enough mothering’ as a way to resist the gold standard of ‘intensive mothering’. Embracing ‘good enough mothering’ can open the way for women to shift the focus from the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mother, the ‘responsible’ and ‘irresponsible’ woman as categories of those who should or should not mother, to a focus on the support systems necessary for both mother and child to flourish.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the support from the women who participated in this study, without whom this study would not have been possible.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: this project was supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship, distributed by the University of Western Australia. No further funding was received for the writing and publication of this article.

Ethics Approval

University of Western Australia Human Research Ethics Committee.

Approval #: RA/4/20/5912

ORCID iD

Dorinda ’t Hart

Notes

Dorinda ’t Hart is Research Associate at the University of Western Australia’s (UWA) School of Population and Global Health. She recently completed her doctoral thesis Post-abortion narratives shared by Perth women: Personal decision-making as embedded social practice in the UWA School of Social Sciences. Her research interests lie in qualitative methodology, including research ethics within sensitive research, women’s health and women’s issues.

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