If a motherhood conference is on your wish list

If only government policy makers attended conferences on motherhood, and while I’m on it, if only advertisers attended these mythical conferences instead of running mindless focus groups or whatever it was that came up with this concept. Imagine if mothers were taken seriously and motherhood was seen as the productive, highly-skilled, multi-layered, fascinating pursuit that it is. No myth. My co-conspirator in feminist motherhood and I delivered a presentation at an international, multi-disciplinary conference on research into motherhood so for two days we could imagine just that.

We’ve participated on panels at festivals and conferences, we’ve run workshops for Ladyfest, we’ve done media appearances but this was our first motherhood conference. We were excited and a little uncertain. We spoke about what else but feminist motherhood. Never mind us, here’s a sample of what I heard from other presenters.

Shelley Kulperger gave a fantastic presentation on consumerism and the sexualisation of young girls but I’m going to post on that seperately. She has promised to make available to this site a copy of her presentation, and hopefully she wasn’t just saying that to get me to move out of her way to the afternoon tea buffet. The tea is getting cold.

Muslim countries aren’t as progressive as countries like Australia and the United States when it comes to work policies for women, right? An Iranian academic informed us that Iran offers 6 months paid maternity leave and one hour lactation breaks when you return to work! How do you like them apples? (Of course there is also this, so, not perfect)

Turn-ons and let-downs (I borrowed that cute title). You may remember when I posted on this paper from Alison Bartlett in relation to sex and breastfeeding? Well, I went to that academic’s presentation and it was very interesting. Here’s what I picked up:

• A growing interest in their bodies led by white, middle-class women precipitated a new approach to parenting manuals and breast-feeding manuals in particular. 
• Evolutionary biology based breast-feeding manuals based their discussion on the potential erotic pleasures of breast-feeding, hypothesizing that voluntary acts of reproduction had to involve some degree of pleasure for women for them to be sustaining – oxytocins are released during breast-feeding and orgasms (this hormone also rises in fathers when they have skin to skin contact with their babies).
• Breast-feeding rates were low during the 1970s and the breast-feeding books were partially a
  response to this together with the increasing respectability of sexuality.
• Everyone got so caught up in sex and breast-feeding theories during the ’70s  that the failure to breast-feed was linked to a failure to adjust to sexuality in marriage. Frigid wives – putting the blame on women, what a novel idea.
• Mothers were advised by many manuals to breast-feed their husbands as part of sex so as to defuse potential jealousies their husband might be experiencing over her demanding new role. (Big eye roll).  
• The hippies were keen producers of breast-feeding manuals too (could you have guessed?) and they were comfortable with the idea of sexy breastfeeding – they saw “sexual vibrations” as another way of pouring out your love to your child, you man, and the universe in general. 

A study by Deborah Keys on young homeless mothers (can you imagine anything harder?) in Australia found overwhelmingly that motherhood was a catalyst for positive change in the lives of these vulnerable young women. These women talked about the enjoyment of embracing responsibility, not something you expect from teenagers.

Ever feel like you’re being brainwashed? What do mainstream Hollywood films like Step Mom and Raising Helen tell us about the way we see motherhood? Clare Mariskind analysed three films with the central theme of learning to mother and she found –

• An opposition between being sexy and being a mother, when the characters became mothers they started to dress modestly and they lost the power or chic dressing of career and single women. 
• Putting your needs before your children was seen as an ‘immaturity’. 
• Work and motherhood was always portrayed as being in direct opposition with one another. 
• The films never depict children being taught to care in return for their care-givers. 
• The fathers never downsize their working lives for their children even when they are the biological parents, the replacement mothers (late adopted or step mothers) eventually leave their careers instead. 
• Forming a nuclear family was always the desired end goal.

Motherhood on the edge from Helena Austin and Lorelei Carpenter –

• Research on the effect on women of mothering a child of difference, particularly ADHD.
• The presentation examined how these women disrupt the granted notion of what is a ‘good mother’ . Mothers of these children frequently experience harsh and judgemental treatment by medical professionals, teachers, friends and family.
• The measure of your goodness as a mother is the outcome of your mother-work which is evaluated by your child’s performance – what about when your child doesn’t align with ‘normal’?
• These women’s rebellious work as mothers in speaking out and being vigilant to their child’s interests.

Motherhood too soon from Jennifer L. Broeder –

• A longitudinal study on the bonding of mothers with their premature infants in neonatal intensive care units and afterwards at home. The study examined what helped or impeded the mothers getting to know their infants.

I also caught other amazing presentations including a paper from Vivienne Muller on the portrait of a mother in We Have to Talk About Kevin, reminding me that I really must read this novel. Mabel Cordini’s presentation on a game she’s designed for prompting the discussion of the division of labour around parenting with rural Brazilian families. Motherhood and legal liability from Julie Werren. Breast sharing in the 20th Century in Australia from Virginia Thorley. Being a mother whilst at primary school in South Africa by Thenjiwe Magwaza. Lessons from lesbian mothering from Margie Ripper. I missed many more intriguing presentations but thus is the bittersweet pleasure of attending a strong conference.  

The Association for Research on Mothering (ARM) runs these conferences so keep your eye out for them. Oh, and our presentation went very well, thanks for asking.