The Good Mother: A History of American Motherhood
Some say motherhood is the hardest job in the world; turns out, there’s a lot of history to back that up. In this Mother’s Day episode, the Guys explore the changing expectations of mothers over three centuries. Historian Linda Kerber discusses the “founding mothers,” who were tasked with instilling future generations with good republican values. Ann Hulbert, an expert on parenting experts, explains why mothers in the 1920s were instructed not to smother their children with love. And reporter Nate DiMeo tells the tragic story of Anna Jarvis, the “mother” of Mother’s Day.
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Related Links
- Nate DiMeo’s new history podcast, The Memory Palace
- Historian Rob MacDougall recounts the twisted tale of Mother’s Day’s origins
- A collection of columns by parenthood maven Ann Hulbert
- Mothering becomes mothering2.0 at MotheringDotCommunity
- Review article chronicling the long history of parenting expertise
- Historian Jill Lepore chronicles the politics & history of breastfeeding
- A hilarious collection of motherly correspondence
“Worst Mother Ever” Challenge
This episode explores what it has meant to be a “good mother” in American history. But we here at BackStory have been scratching our heads trying to think of some really bad mothers from our nation’s past. Who would you nominate as the Worst Mother in American History?
No history of American motherhood would be complete, particularly if it’s going to delve into 20th century genetics, without touching on the growing number of adoptive mothers in America. Does the ability to give birth continue, even today, to boost or stunt the status of women? How have American views on infertility and adoption changed over time? And how are American women who choose to adopt today redefining the entire American family?
QuoteExcellent questions, Rachel. As a matter of fact, adoption did come up in our preliminary planning discussion, and I expect we’ll be exploring some of these questions on the show. Incidentally — if you’re interested, you should check out the show we did last year on the idea of “family values.” There’s an interesting conversation a little more than halfway in about adoption: http://www.backstoryradio.org/2008/11/the-invention-of-traditional-family-values/
QuoteThanks!
I hope you are going to talk about wet nursing – when and among whom it took place – and the abandonment if infants by women who couldn’t care for them – how widespread that was in the US and when. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy has an absolutely wonderful book – Mother Nature – that I hope you will refer to. I’ll be interested to hear how far three guys can go in illuminating the challenges faced by women and the strategies used to promote survival.
PS I’m delighted to see that you use Captcha – I read somewhere that our decodings are actually useful in digitizing texts.
QuoteI was wondering, due the very high infant mortality rate of the past, if it is a myth that mothers refrained from fully bonding with their children until they reached the age where they might be out of danger from childhood disease. Is this notion of the bonding and nurturing mother of the present day really that different from the mothers of several hundred years ago? Are we looking back on the past with a kind of cultural and emotional sense of superiority due to a relative sense of comfort and ease?
QuoteWhat about our “Founding Mothers”? Let’s give credit to our Native American mothers whose hands rocked the cradle of American history. My great grandmother was a traditional healer and midwife. She never lost a mother or baby in all of her years of “practice”. Her knowledge of medicinal plants and herbs has been passed down to her descendants. Mothers are the unsung doctors and nurses of their families. Who sits up all night looking after a sick child or elderly relative? It’s usually a mother or other female relative whom has taken on the role of mother when taking care of family members.
QuoteHi Lucy– Wet nursing is a big topic and a great suggestion! From what I’ve read, its history combines issues of class, race, health care, psychology, and closely mirrors the shift from communal colonial attitudes to the sentimentalization of the Victorian era to the industrialization of the 20th Century. And I’m guessing our Guys haven’t thought of breastfeeding as a lens through which to view the past. Then again, they’ve surprised us before…
By the way, you have an exquisite surname!
QuoteHello! I was wondering whether you were planning on delving into the idea of “working” mothers. Although we often think of mothers who work (in addition to taking care of their family) as a 20th century phenomenon, I believe it was very common for mothers to work either on their own or as part of a family business or farm as early as the 19th century- or maybe even earlier? Is what has really changed the *kind* of work that mothers do (the kind where they can’t bring their children with them)? How have the stigmas attached to working outside the home evolved over time? I’m just curious to get your take. Thanks!
By the way, I have full confidence that three intelligent men can do a great show on this topic (after all, you are professionals). I am curious, however, to see what you choose to focus on. I also think a show on “fathers” would be very interesting…
Good luck!
QuoteMany of my peers (and I) have delayed motherhood while working on educational and career pursuits. Now we as a group are facing the problems of a biological clock that is winding down and the reality of health concerns that are in some cases taking the “choice” to be mothers away. Is this a relatively new phenomena? Was there ever a time in the history of this country besides ours where so many women delayed motherhood almost “too late” to then experience it. Also, I am curious about how historical representations of the bond of mother and child have changed over time. I have this sense that in earlier time periods it was believed that women “automatically” knew how to be mothers and give their children what they need (emotionally, spiritually, physically), but I know that now (at least among my peer group) that is not a foregone conclusion.
QuoteI am the mother of two small boys and wondering about the how the changes in our society as relates to movement of people have affected motherhood. In the past, it seems, a new mother had a network of mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, grandmothers, and all manner of other women who lived nearby and could be called upon for help and advice. This kind of built-in support system would have allowed women to care for each other and each other’s children or homes as necessary as well as provided relief as needed or maybe even caught signs of post-partum depression (I have heard stories about relatives who took in children from other branches of the family while the mother suffered from obviously psychological illness).
Now, however, a child is lucky to have one grandparent within a hundred miles, and that grandparent is likely to still work and so not be available for childcare. Because people tend to move away from home when they reach adulthood, families are increasingly scattered, and that support system has been lost or weakened. I feel that new mothers are increasingly isolated from their families and friends, even while we are more constantly in contact over phone and internet.
QuoteHow about the use of mother as icon in order to wield power in public life? I think about people like Sarah Palin, Phyllis Schafly, the rational used for giving the women the vote . . .
QuoteInterestingly enough, I can relate to most of the comments made here. I was brought up in the southwestern part of the state of Virginia in a matriarchal society that included my grandmother, my grandmother’s sisters, my mother, and the black women of our community. In addition, my ancestors–some of whom lived in the same geographic area for over two hundred years, and others who lived there a lot longer–intermarried with the Cherokee, and my great great grandmother, who was the original matriarch of the family, was a midwife and an herbalist doctor, just as a woman who commented earlier noted about one of her ancestors. The women in my family not only farmed and grew their own food, but grew tobacco as well, and ran various entrepreneurial businesses. They also took care of each other, including caring for each other’s children, and the sense of community engendered created an actual community in which it was considered a duty and moral responsibility to care for others. The breakdown of the extended family has put tremendous pressure on modern women to do and be everything to everyone, which is, of course, an impossibility. Even with liberated husbands, the pressure for women to be miracle workers in all areas of life is great. As women–and men–with children know, a child always seems to get sick at three AM. or to need that extra moment from you when you have a paper to present, report to do, appointment to make. My advice? Choose the child. The report will be there the next day. The moment with your child might not be. I know this from helping my sisters care for their children, having been a member of a generation in which some of us did wait too long to have children of our own. That is not to say that a woman who does not have children is in any way deprived of a full experience and expression of the human experience itself. I know many women who are very happy that they are childless. I am telling you what I feel. I have regretted many things in my life, as everyone does if they live long enough. But I have never regretted a single moment I spent with a child.
Thanks History Guys for a great website! Looks like my old alma mater has come a long way since the 1970s.(That is the other side of the coin. For those who don’t know: UVA did not admit women until the 1970s. That’s right, The 1970s.) Please link your readers who are interested in the Civil War to Kevin Levin’s blog, Civil War Memory. It is a brilliant blog, well worth their time. Thanks again.
QuoteWhat about the recent Religious Right push back against Feminism in the 2007 book “Passionate Housewives Desperate for God: Fresh Vision for the Hopeful Homemaker” by Jennie Chancey and Stacy McDonald. I would think that there would be good argumenta against what is stated in this book, since there is plenty of arguments in the book already in favor of it.
QuoteYou asked during the mothers day show what is so American about apple pie? Apples themselves are not native to north America, they are an imported, colonial species–just like historians, and myself. Micheal Pollan writes wonderfully about the history of apples in North America in his book, The Botany of Desire. “American as apple pie” is essentially an advertising campaign according to Pollan’s book, an attempt to re-brand apples as wholesome and rescue them from their association with boozing in the form of cider. What’s more American than effacing history to make a buck?
QuoteI listened to the podcast of your Backstory episode about mothering and mother’s day this morning and am moved to make a comment.
I believe the institutionalized and commercialized prompts to express (however lamely) our family connections are not a terrible thing. The perversion of the vision of the Jarvis women is tragic, I agree.
When I finished high school in 1963, being a homemaker was a reasonably respectable thing to do. By the time I finished college and was married in 1967, it was less so, and by the early 1970s the vast majority of educated women wanted to work outside the home. The always undervalued work of homemakers was no longer acceptable with the coming of feminism.
So, I think Brian’s point about somehow paying for the value received for running a household is an interesting one. It seems, though, that horse is out of the barn. Too bad we couldn’t adopt a model that values the work that women do, a model that would have to include men doing that work too. I know things are much changed from the 1950s when men never changed diapers, but I will only be convinced that we are a changed society when little boys are given as many dolls as trucks.
QuoteCharlotte, I agree. With the luxury of unlimited bytes, I can assure you that I did not intend to monetize family relations — although i still think that might be the best way to get to a truly equitable sharing of the burdens and joys of child rearing. I continue to be amazed at how skewed, by gender, child rearing is, even in a supposedly progressive town like Cville.
QuoteI also liked the way you “historicized” your point — i.e. these values have changed, even within our own life time. Thanks for listening and taking the time to write. Twentieth-century guy.
Charlotte wrote, “I will only be convinced that we are a changed society when little boys are given as many dolls as trucks.”
That actually suggests what could be a fascinating topic for a future episode: How have our ideas of childhood changed over time? How do we teach our children? How do they play? What does that play teach them about the world and their role in it? And how long is childhood–or in other words, just how fast do we grow up?
And getting back to your point, from the standpoint of cultural history, how do we define the difference between playing with Barbies, and playing with action figures?
QuoteGreat idea, Steve. And great questions. As a new parent myself, I’d add one more question to the list (picking up on your last one): When did we stop dressing our boy babies in dresses?
As a matter of fact we’ve been talking about doing a History of Childhood show for some time, now. Maybe your encouragement will be just the push we need to actually do it…
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