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Mothering with Neuroscience in a Neoliberal Age: Child Disorders and Embodied Brains

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Bodies, Boundaries and Vulnerabilities

Part of the book series: Crossroads of Knowledge ((CROKNOW))

Abstract

The chapter examines the proliferating use of neuroscientific discourse to frame child development through qualitative data from two sources: narratives from mothers of children with invisible social-emotional-behavioral or brain disabilities (such as ADHD) and recent best-selling parenting advice literature – suggesting the phenomenon must be understood in the context of neoliberal privatization. With a critical perspective on the naturalization of invisible child disorders and the inequalities to which they tend to give rise, it is suggested that the explosion of neuroscientific discourse results from the increasing prevalence of such disorders within the neoliberal context in which mothers are held accountable to take personal responsibility to prevent or offset them. These mothers do not represent an exception but are rather becoming the new norm for what is increasingly expected of all “good” mothers, the task of taking personal responsibility for their children’s brains. Further, the authors argue that anxieties are intensified by, and exclusive maternal responsibility used to veil, the lack of public responsibility for economic change and the likelihood of precarious futures for children facing a shrinking middle class and a Walmart economy. In this sense, the new discursive focus on the child’s embodied brain and mothers’ building such brain power may evidence a reconfigured ideal of the child who will build the nation’s future productivity in an innovation and information-based economy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See, for example, Kerber 1980 on the USA, Koven and Michel 1993; Yalom 1997 for comparative work on the USA and Europe, and the work of Yuval-Davis for a global perspective (1997, 1989).

  2. 2.

    Blum conducted lengthy in-depth interviews with 48 diverse mothers raising children with “invisible special needs” between 2002 and 2008 (described in more detail in Blum 2007, 2011, 2015).

  3. 3.

    Diagnostic or clinical uncertainty was found by Rafalovich in in-depth interviews with practitioners (2005). There are no blood tests, brain scans, or other clear biomarkers for these disabilities, with most assessed by some combination of clinical interviews and questionnaires filled out by parents and teachers.

  4. 4.

    On flaws, overclaiming of what we know, see, e.g., Gazzaniga 2011, Who’s in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain, an account by a neuroscientist. Also Lehrer 2008, “Of Course I love you and I have the brain scan to prove it: We’re looking for too much in brain scans” Boston Globe, Aug 17, K-1; and Fine 2010, Delusions of Gender: How our Minds, Society, and Neuroscience Create Difference. Some of this literature is also summarized by Thornton, who places great causal weight on the impact of the visual imagery itself (2011).

  5. 5.

    This is based on the Amazon.com best-seller list for parenting titles. While this list, constructed hourly, carries methodological limitations, it is the only best-seller list available that separately indexes parenting titles. (The New York Times now only indexes all advice/self-help literature together, though What to Expect when You’re Expecting is frequently near the top.) Our analysis was therefore based on periodic checking for books that consistently appeared on the Amazon.com top 100 parenting books in the latter six months of 2011 (actually the list includes less than 100 titles because each format, hardback, paperback, e-book, audio book, etc. is counted separately).

  6. 6.

    Also, on the teenage brain: Newman, Judith. 2010. “Inside the Teenage Brain.” Parade Magazine November 28. (Retrieved June 2011: http://www.parade.com/news/2010/11/28-inside-the-teenage-brain.html).

  7. 7.

    This postindustrial economic transformation in the USA was well underway and only deepened by the current recession, as much prior to 2008, the nation’s largest employer had already shifted from auto-manufacturing giant General Motors to big-box discount-retailer Walmart. Our New Economy is also characterized by the rise of job contingency, the erosion of the stable employment contract, unrelenting attacks on organized labor, and with the increasingly rapid circulation of global capital, the increased movement of jobs offshore. Yearly reports from economists Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto provide important information on the shrinkage of good jobs (2007), and for sociological analysis and synthesis prior to the 2008 banking crisis, see Smith 2001. Journalist Rosin provides an interesting gendered account (2012).

  8. 8.

    Indeed, this topic deserves research and ethnographic attention of its own, including, as one reviewer astutely observed, an analysis of how fathers might be represented as distinct from “parents” in popular advice.

  9. 9.

    Summarized in Home 2002; also Gray 2003, Scott 2010.

  10. 10.

    That is, none depicted “nurture,” bad parenting, or psychosocial factors alone as causing their children’s troubles, as would have been typical in the mid-twentieth century (see Blum 2007, 2015).

  11. 11.

    This might have referred to a number of similar titles though we could find no precise match.

  12. 12.

    Several other mothers, like Jenny Tedeschi, blamed themselves for passing on heritable brain disorders to their children. One highly educated single mother lamented: “I don’t feel guilty except for the genes we each gave him” [Kay Raso]. Another [Lenore Savage] enrolled her son in a medical research study to better understand (in her words) the inherited “predisposition” for “neurobiological disorder” among “children of parents with affective disorders.” But Jenny’s words, “… go for genetic counseling” indicate another way in which popular notions of high-tech medicine may go far beyond actual capabilities as there are no known genetic markers for the high incidence brain disabilities as say for Down’s syndrome.

  13. 13.

    Koplewicz, Harold. 1997. Three Rivers Press.

  14. 14.

    Social scientists such as David Karp (2001), Claudia Malacrida (2003), and Ilina Singh (2004) have all asked whether the “brain blame” explanations and the rise of biological psychiatry relieve Freudian notions of “mother blame” (see discussion in Blum 2007, 2015).

  15. 15.

    And if you had any doubt of the scientific basis: “‘Brain Rules,’” the author underscores, “are what I call the things we know for sure about how the early-childhood brain works. Each one is quarried from the larger seams of behavioral psychology, cellular biology, and molecular biology. Each was selected for its ability to assist newly minted moms and dads in the daunting task of caring for a helpless little human” (Medina 2010, 2, our emphasis).

  16. 16.

    Author Medina here invokes a set of largely spurious correlations demonstrated by family sociologists to be actually caused by the poverty and financial strain faced by so many US single mothers rather than by divorce itself (see, for example, Rutter 2009).

  17. 17.

    CVS is a large US chain of retail pharmacies relying heavily on a low-skill, part-time workforce.

  18. 18.

    See http://www.centreforum.org/assets/pubs/parenting-matters.pdf, accessed Jan 2012.

  19. 19.

    See www.brainbuildinginprogress.org, accessed 10/21/11.

  20. 20.

    Davi Johnson Thornton chronicles this US discursive shift, which she labels the “baby-brain movement” in detail; yet she ignores any gender analysis or the effects on norms of intensive motherhood (Thornton 2011, 88–110).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Northeastern University, Boston, USA

    Linda M. Blum & Estye R. Fenton

Authors
  1. Linda M. Blum
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  2. Estye R. Fenton
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Correspondence to Linda M. Blum .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Lisa Folkmarson Käll

Appendix

Appendix

List of titles from the Amazon.com Top 100 Parenting Books, those consistently appearing in periodic checking, latter half of 2011, which in whole or substantial part employed neuroscientific discourse:

  • Aamodt, S., & Wang, S. (2011). Welcome to your child’s brain: How the mind grows from conception to college.

  • Au, S., & Stavinhoa, P. (2007). Stress-free potty training: A commonsense guide to finding the right approach for your child.

  • Bronson, P., & Merryman, A. (2009). NurtureShock: New thinking about children.

  • Chapman, G., & Campbell, R. (1997). The five love languages of children.

  • Eisenberg, A., Murkoff, H. E., & Hathaway, S. E. (1988). What to expect when you’re expecting, (1st ed).

  • Eisenberg, A., Murkoff, H. E., & Hathaway, S. E. (1991). What to expect when you’re expecting, (2nd ed).

  • Ekman, P. (2007). Emotions revealed, second edition: Recognizing faces and feelings to improve communication and emotional life.

  • Ferber, R. (2006). Solve your child’s sleep problems: New, revised, and expanded edition.

  • Fields, D., & Brown, A. (2011). Toddler 411: Clear answers and smart advice for your toddler.

  • Furhman, J. (2006). Disease-proof your child: Feeding kids right.

  • Galinsky, E. (2010). Mind in the making: The seven essential life skills every child needs.

  • Hogg, T., & Blau, M. (2006). The baby whisperer solves all your problems: Sleeping, feeding, and behavior – Beyond the basics from infancy through toddlerhood.

  • Jana, L., & Shu, J. (2010). Heading home with your newborn: From birth to reality.

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  • Karp, H. (2008). The happiest toddler on the block: How to eliminate tantrums and raise a patient, respectful, and cooperative one- to four-year-old.

  • Lapine, M. C. (2007). The sneaky chef: Simple strategies for hiding healthy foods in kids’ favorite meal.

  • Louv, R. (2008). Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder.

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  • Meeker, M. (2007). Strong fathers, strong daughters: 10 secrets every father should know.

  • Murkoff, H. (2011). What to expect the second year: From 12 to 24 months.

  • Murkoff, H., Eisenberg, A., & Hathaway, S. (2002). What to expect when you’re expecting (3rd ed).

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  • Sears, W., & Sears, M. (2003). The baby book: Everything you need to know about your baby from birth to age two.

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  • Weissinger, D., West, D., & Pitman, T. (2010). The womanly art of breastfeeding. La Leche League International.

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Blum, L.M., Fenton, E.R. (2016). Mothering with Neuroscience in a Neoliberal Age: Child Disorders and Embodied Brains. In: Käll, L. (eds) Bodies, Boundaries and Vulnerabilities. Crossroads of Knowledge. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22494-7_6

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