Abstract
First-time expectant mothers are bombarded with all manner of information about what new parenthood is like and how it should be done. These sometimes dialogic, sometimes competing scripts shape expectations but often fall short in adequately preparing mothers-to-be for what is to come. This chapter explores the disunity between pre-birth expectations and the lived bodily experience of new parenthood. Mothers report a range of emotional responses to new parenthood that often do not fit with the dominant romantic narratives that have been constructed around baby making including anxiety, anger, guilt, and grief. The chapter finds that this disconnect between expectations and experience compounds these negative emotions and also encourages women to individualise and pathologise their emotional experiences.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ahmed, S. (2010). The promise of happiness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Althusser, L. (1970). Ideology and the state apparatuses (Notes towards an investigation). In L. Althusser (1971), Lenin and philosophy and other essays (B. Brewster, Trans.). London: New Left Books.
Ang, I. (2001). On not speaking Chinese: Living between Asia and the West. London and New York: Routledge.
Arendell, T. (2000). Conceiving and investigating motherhood: The decade’s scholarship. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62, 1192–1207.
Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity (M. Ritter, Trans.). London: Sage.
Blair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing devotions: Career and family among executive women. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Choi, P., Henshaw, C., Baker, S., & Tree, J. (2005). Supermum, superwife, supereverything: Performing femininity in the transition to motherhood. Journal of Infant and Reproductive Psychology, 23, 167–180.
Christopher, K. (2012). Extensive mothering: Employed mothers’ constructions of the good mother. Gender & Society, 26(1), 73–96.
Deave, T., Johnson, D., & Ingram, J. (2008). Transition to parenthood: The needs of parents in pregnancy and early parenthood. BMC Pregnancy and Childhood, 8(1), 30. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2393-8-30.
Dennis, C., & Chung-Lee, L. (2006). Postpartum depression help-seeking barriers and maternal treatment preferences: A qualitative systematic review. Birth, 33(4), 323–331.
Dow, D. (2016). Integrated motherhood: Beyond hegemonic ideologies of motherhood. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78, 18–196.
Friedan, B. (1963). The feminine mystique. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
Goodwin, S., & Huppatz, K. (2010). Mother making class distinctions: The aesthetics of maternity. In S. Goodwin & K. Huppatz (Eds.), The good mother: Contemporary motherhoods in Australia. Sydney: Sydney University Press.
Hays, S. (1996). The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lazarre, J. (1997). The mother knot. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
McRobbie, A. (2013). Feminism, family and the new ‘mediated’ maternalism. New Formations, 80, 119–137. https://doi.org/10.3898/newF.80/81.07.2013.
McRobbie, A. (2015). Notes on the perfect. Australian Feminist Studies, 30(83), 3–20.
Miller, T. (2007). ‘Is this what motherhood is all about?’ Weaving experience and discourse through transition to first time motherhood. Gender & Society, 21, 337–358.
Ross, C. E., & Van Willigen, M. (1996). Gender, parenthood, and anger. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 572–584.
Scott, J., & Alwin, D. F. (1989). Gender differences in parental strain: Parental role or gender role? Journal of Family Issues, 10, 482–503.
Tyler, I. (2008). Why the maternal now? Published by the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/papers/whythematernal.pdf.
West, C., & Zimmerman, D. (1987). Doing gender. Gender & Society, 1, 125–151.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Huppatz, K. (2018). ‘What Have I Done?’: An Exploration of the Ambivalent, Unimaginable Emotions of New Motherhood. In: Kokanović, R., Michaels, P., Johnston-Ataata, K. (eds) Paths to Parenthood. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0143-8_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0143-8_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-0142-1
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-0143-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)