“the right way of doing it all”: first-time australian mothers' decisions about paid...

‘‘THE RIGHT WAY OF DOING IT ALL’’: FIRST-TIME AUSTRALIAN

MOTHERS’ DECISIONS ABOUT PAID EMPLOYMENT

Deborah LuptonaAND Virginia Schmied

b

aSchool of Social Sciences and Liberal Studies, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, AustraliabCentre for Family Health and Midwifery, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

Synopsis — This article presents five case studies from a recent longitudinal and qualitative studyinvolving first-time heterosexual parents in Sydney. It examines issues around the ways in which womenmake choices about their engagement in paid work after becoming mothers for the first time, including therole played by their partners in their decisions. It is concluded that among this largely middle-class group,paid work was seen to be very important to the women’s notions of selfhood. Although the women heldup the ‘‘stay-at-home’’ mother as the ideal of the ‘‘good mother,’’ they also acknowledged that such anideal was difficult to achieve in practice. Most of the women felt unable to remain out of the paidworkforce during their children’s early years because of the importance that they attached to achievingself-fulfilment and self-actualisation through such work. For most of them, the role of ‘‘mother’’ seemed a‘‘distorted’’ or ‘‘constrained’’ self compared to the ‘‘real me’’ that was achieved via engagement in paidwork. D 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

In Western societies over the last half century, there

have been great changes in patterns of childbearing

and women’s participation in the paid labour market

after having children. It is increasingly common for

women in Australia and other Western countries to

continue in paid employment after having children.

Women in these countries have also been having their

first child at increasingly older ages and giving birth

to fewer of them.1 It has been speculated that these

trends have been influenced by women’s greater

interest and participation in the paid workforce and

their desire to establish their careers before having

children (McDonald, 2000).

Over this period of significant social and demo-

graphic changes, a child-centred approach to parent-

ing and childcare has begun to predominate. Notions

of the ‘‘sacred child,’’ which represents children as

‘‘precious entities entrusted to adults’’ care, deserving

the very best from us (Nippert-Eng, 1996, p. 203) are

evident in this approach. An increasing emphasis has

been placed on the first 3 years of life and the

caregiver’s role in promoting optimum intellectual,

physical, and social development of the child during

these years (Marshall, 1991; Woollett & Phoenix,

1991). Contemporary Western notions of the ‘‘good

mother’’ and the ‘‘good father’’ include the idea that

each should ‘‘be there’’ for their infants and young

children, willing to devote time to their care and close

attention to their emotional needs. A gender differ-

ence still remains, however, in that the ‘‘good moth-

er’’ is expected to privilege her children’s needs

above her own and to spend more time with them

to a far greater extent than is the ‘‘good father,’’ who

still tends to be placed in the ‘‘supporting parent’’

role. Further, while ‘‘good fathers’’ are expected to

continue in full-time paid work following the arrival

of their children, there is much more ambivalence

about mothers’ engagement in paid work when their

children are very young. The attributes of caring

and devoted emotional engagement, love, and affect-

ion are still seen more as relating to the maternal

than the paternal role (Brown, Lumley, Small, &

Astbury, 1994; Lupton, 2000; Lupton & Barclay,

1997; Walzer, 1997).

Indeed, previous Australian research has revealed

the schisms that exist between the notion of the

‘‘good mother’’ and that of the ‘‘working mother.’’

Reporting on their research carried out in the mid

1970s, as the second-wave feminist movement had

just begun to influence views about mothers in paid

work, Harper and Richards (1979) found that mothers

at home were characterised by contrasting stereo-

types. Their interviewees (women with young chil-

PII S0277-5395(02)00220-0

This study was funded by the awarding of two large grants

to Lesley Barclay and Deborah Lupton by the Australian

Research Council.

Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 97 –107, 2002Copyright D 2002 Elsevier Science LtdPrinted in the USA. All rights reserved

0277-5395/02/$ – see front matter

97

dren both at home and in paid labour and their

partners), represented stay-at-home mothers as bor-

ing, frustrated, lacking stimulation, and dull. On the

other hand, however, these mothers were regarded as

devoted to their children and doing the right thing by

them. Mothers in full-time paid work were seen as

having more interesting lives but were often repre-

sented as ‘‘bad mothers,’’ as selfish in leaving their

children unless forced to do so by financial pressures,

or too harried and tired to be able to give them

enough attention. Indeed, they were portrayed more

negatively than were mothers at home.

Harper and Richards note that although for most

interviewees, the ‘‘good mother’’ ideal conformed to

traditional notions of the mother who was always

there for her children, selfless and patient, the ideal of

the ‘‘independent mother’’ was also articulated by

some. The ‘‘independent mother’’ successfully jug-

gles paid work and family, and finds fulfilment in

both. This ideal has also been identified in research in

the UK and the USA (Hays, 1996; Lewis, 1991;

Woodward, 1997). Harper and Richards found that

the women in their study who espoused these values

were more likely to be middle class, well educated,

and have held well-paid and interesting jobs before

having children. A similar view of ‘‘good mothers’’

was found in Wearing’s (1984) Australian research

conducted in the late 1970s, but only among the

women she categorised as ‘‘feminist mothers’’ (who

again were more likely to be middle class). Surpris-

ingly, however, Brown et al. (1994) found little

evidence of this approach among the Australian

women they interviewed many years later (in the

early 1990s), when it might be expected that feminist

notions had become more mainstream among Aus-

tralian women.

We were interested in exploring these issues by

further using data collected in a more recent study

conducted in the mid-to-late 1990s. As part of a

qualitative and longitudinal research project investi-

gating the meanings and experiences of first-time

parenthood, 25 heterosexual couples living in Syd-

ney were asked to discuss issues around paid work

and parenthood. As our study extended over the first

3 years of life of the couples’ first child, we were

able to note shifts and changes over this time. In the

present article, we examine both the women’s and

the men’s attitudes to the female partner engaging in

paid work during this period of their child’s life.

THE STUDY

The participants were progressively recruited into the

study between late 1994 and early 1997. Most of the

couples who took part (17 of the 25) were volunteers

attending antenatal classes at a metropolitan Sydney

hospital. The hospital is located in southeastern

Sydney, an area that ranks around the middle com-

pared with other areas of Sydney in terms of average

weekly income, percentage of population in full-time

employment and percentage with university educa-

tion (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1998). Limited

snowball sampling and the use of other contacts were

also used as recruitment strategies to recruit the re-

maining eight couples.

As it turned out, those who volunteered to partic-

ipate tended to be quite homogeneous with respect to

their ethnic background and social class, which could

broadly be described as middle class, based on the

characteristics of area of residence (discussed above)

and occupation. This perhaps to some extent reflects

the sociodemographic characteristics of the majority

of expectant parents who attend antenatal classes or

of those who volunteer to be interviewed for an

academic study, as well as the area from which the

participants were recruited. For example, there were

no unemployed or adolescent participants. Further,

although a total of 11 participants were born in

countries other than Australia, most were of Anglo-

Celtic ethnicity and had an English-speaking back-

ground. The exceptions were two of the women

(Brazilian and German descent, respectively) and

three of the men (one each of Chilean, Greek, and

Sri Lankan descent).

The age of the 25 female participants ranged from

23 to 35 years, with most in their late 20s and early

30s. Just over half of the female participants (13)

were employed in white-collar occupations such as

clerical, administrative, personal service, and health

care work. While some of these women held post-

school qualifications, none had completed a univer-

sity degree. The other 12 held one or more university

degrees: Of these, one was a doctoral student, two

were speech therapists, one a physiotherapist, one a

nurse, one a dietitian, one a research scientist, two

were management consultants, two were teachers,

and one was a research assistant. Of the 25 male

participants, the age range was 23–38, with most in

their early to mid 30s. They, too, were predominantly

employed in white-collar occupations, including a

number of sales representatives, managers or execu-

tives (eight men), and small business operators (two

men). Eight men were employed in positions requiring

university training as: teachers (two men), financial

analysts (two men), psychologist, engineer, scientist,

and nurse. A further seven men were employed in the

skilled trades, such as plumbing, landscape gardening,

and electrical work.

Deborah Lupton and Virginia Schmied98

The female and male partner in each couple were

interviewed separately in their own homes, using a

semistructured interview schedule, by a team of

researchers comprised of research assistants, a doc-

toral student, and one of the study directors (two

women were responsible for interviewing the female

participants and three men for interviewing the male

participants). The study was first planned to extend

over the first 6 months of parenthood, involving the

completion of five interviews with each participant.

These were carried out just before the birth, between

2 and 10 days after the birth, and then at the inter-

vals of 4–8 weeks, 12–14 weeks, and 5–6 months

after the birth of the child. These intervals were

chosen, with a greater frequency in the early days, to

capture the intensity of change and adaptation to

parenthood experienced in the first few days and

weeks following the birth of the first child. The

study was then re-funded to carry out a further four

interviews with the same couples until their children

had reached three: at 1 year, 18 months, 2 years, and

3 years of age.

The questions asked in each interview varied, but

all centred around issues of how the participants felt

about being parents, their relationships with each

other, their children, friends, and family members,

the sources of information they drew upon to practice

parenting, their child-care arrangements, and the

relationship between paid work and child care. We

used discourse analysis to examine transcribed inter-

view data, seeking to identify patterns in the way

that the women and men talked about their experi-

ence of parenting. Our analysis is based on the

premise that the ways in which we think about,

understand, and experience social phenomena such

as parenting are inevitably shaped, indeed, consti-

tuted, via language and visual imagery (Fairclough,

1995; Parker, 1999; Weedon, 1992). The scrutiny of

words, phrases, metaphor, figures of speech, concepts,

and ideas in the interview accounts can provide an

understanding of the way in which women and men

actively participate in the reproduction of dominant

discourses and practices around parenting and how

they might seek to contest or negotiate these dis-

courses and practices.

In the case of heterosexual couples going through

the experiences of first-time parenthood, gendered

notions of ‘‘motherhood’’ and ‘‘fatherhood’’ are par-

ticularly important in influencing the discourses upon

which people draw to make sense of their experien-

ces. In analysing the data from our participants in

relation to decisions and experiences concerning the

female partners’ engagement in paid work, we were

interested in identifying how notions of the ‘‘good

mother’’ were constructed in their accounts, as well

as how the unpaid labour of mothering is contrasted

with the work of paid employment. We also sought to

explore how ideas and discourses around the ideas of

selfhood, identity, and self-fulfilment were used in

the participants’ accounts.

OVERVIEW

As we noted in an earlier discussion focusing on the

fathers (Lupton & Barclay, 1997), the men in our

study considered their paid work to be extremely

integral to their identity as fathers. All of them

continued to engage in full-time paid employment

after the birth of their first child, while all their

partners took maternity leave of some kind.2 None

of the fathers took the opportunity to take paternity

leave, apart from a short period of leave immediately

following the birth. It was clear from their accounts

that the men considered their role as economic

‘‘providers’’ to be an important part of their contri-

bution to the family qua fathers. This included being

able to support their partners while they were on

unpaid leave or if they chose not to return to their

paid employment for a time following the arrival of

their infant.

The same was not true of the women in our study.

None of them saw herself as the main economic

‘‘provider’’ for the family, and in all of the couples,

it was decided that it would be the mother who would

be the primary carer of the infant. For all except two

of the women in our study, this involved taking leave

from work extending beyond the paid maternity leave

to which they were entitled. One of these women

started working 3 days a week 8 weeks after the birth,

and the other returned to full-time employment

12 weeks after the birth of the child. Two other

women recommenced their studies three months after

the birth of the child (one as a doctoral student on a

scholarship and the other as a law student). Two more

women returned to paid work prior to their infant

turning 6 months of age: One returned at 4 months

4 days a week, and the other started a new half-time

job at 5 months. Of the remaining 19 women, 13 re-

turned to some form of paid employment, typically

part time, within the first 18 months following the

birth of their first child. Only six women did not

return to paid employment at all during their 3-year

participation in the study.

In their interviews, the women constantly made

reference to the idea that it is a person’s choice what

she decides to do concerning paid work, that differ-

ent women respond to motherhood in different ways,

and that some need to work while others prefer to

Mothers’ Decisions About Paid Employment 99

stay home. Nonetheless, it was clear from their

accounts that certain dominant discourses concerning

what mothers of infants and young children ‘‘should

do’’ were influencing their decisions and emotions

in relation to paid work. We discuss five case studies

below to demonstrate the kinds of discourses the

women used to articulate and make sense of their

choices about paid work. These case studies were

chosen because they vividly exemplified the dis-

courses, thoughts, and feelings of women in differ-

ent categories across the group of participants. They

include the following: a woman who did not return

to work during the first 3 years and was very

positive and certain about her choice; one who also

stayed at home during this time but was much more

ambivalent about doing so; a third woman who

returned to full-time work as soon as her paid mater-

nity leave had expired and had not regretted this

decision; another who returned to part-time work

and was very happy and certain about her choice;

and a fifth who also returned to part-time work but

experienced greater feelings of ambivalence. These

case studies represent the diversity of choice across

the study group. It should be noted, however, that

the fifth case study is representative of the majority

of the participants’ experiences and feelings about

paid work.

We also include some data in each case study

from the interviews with the women’s partners. These

data are less detailed because the men did not discuss

the issues of their partners’ paid working choices as

extensively as did the women themselves. Nonethe-

less, we include their views here because, like Walzer

(1997), we assumed that the men’s opinions about

their partners’ participation in paid employment

would be important in the latter’s decisions, views,

and experiences. Further, the analysis of separate

interview data from women and men draws attention

both to the ways in which partners in a couple work

together to produce their relationship, as well as the

differences in the female and male perspective and

the tensions and negotiations experienced in working

through the issues of coupledom and family life

(Hertz, 1995).

THE CASE STUDIES

Cecily

Cecily, who was aged 24 at the time of the first

interview, was one of the few women in the study to

decide to stay at home while their children were of

preschool age. Born in South Africa of Anglo-Celtic

parents who emigrated to Australia when she was a

child, Cecily held a university degree and had

worked in a demanding but well-paid job as a

management consultant before taking maternity

leave to give birth to her son Martin. When her

3-month period of paid maternity leave expired,

Cecily did not return to work, although she had

been encouraged by her employers to do so. She

stated at the 6-month interview that she intended to

have three children very close together and did not

want to work at all until they were all at school. In

the meantime, she and her partner Ray planned that

she would raise the children while he worked long

hours as a financial analyst (with the same firm for

whom Cecily had worked) to further his career and

provide for the family.

Cecily said that she felt very strongly about the

importance of staying home with her baby. Although

the family would be financially ‘‘much better off’’ if

she went back to work, we’ve made the decision that

no, we’ll make these sacrifices so that we can actually

raise our own children and we’re prepared to do

that.’’ While Ray could not spend much time with

Martin because of the demands of his job, she could

compensate by always being there: ‘‘Whereas if

Martin was in daycare, we’d both miss out.’’

Cecily’s account underlined the meaning that

‘‘being there’’ for her baby had to her in terms of a

positive sense of self. She described the good feeling

this engendered, contrasting this with the negative

feelings she saw other women as experiencing:

I feel, like, so strong, I feel so positive that I’ve

done the right thing, and so strong and so happy

doing this. And I met so many women—and I

don’t feel like I need to justify to anyone—and

I met so many women who are in the workforce

and are constantly justifying what they are doing.

You know, why their babies are in day care. And

I just wonder whether they, you know, feel they

need to constantly keep proving to themselves

[that] what they’re doing is the right thing to

be doing.

Cecily was clearly aware of the social pressures

that force women who put their young children into

childcare to ‘‘justify’’ themselves. On the other hand,

however, she also noted that she herself has felt

‘‘pressured’’ to return to work, both by her employers

and work colleagues and the general societal attitude

towards women who stay at home. She had noticed

that other people, ‘‘particularly women at work,’’

‘‘look down on me’’ and made that assumption that

‘‘you must be really stupid if you can cope without

any mental stimulation.’’


At the next (12-month) interview, Cecily com-

mented again on how others in her workplace saw her

decision as unusual:

No-one at work could believe the option that I was

taking. The work environment which I was in,

women just simply didn’t give up work. Well, a

maximum of three months off they would have.

We were paid three months maternity leave, so

that’s why they were taking three months. And

then they’d be back at work full-time, with a

nanny for daycare.

By the 3-year interview, Cecily had had her three

children as planned and had not returned to paid

work. She said that she was looking forward very

much to starting part-time employment once her

youngest child was attending school. In the mean-

time, she was happy to continue taking on the

primary carer role while Ray worked long hours

at his job. Even though she had once enjoyed a

high-level, well-paid, and challenging job, Cecily

seemed content to relinquish any ambition for her-

self, at least for the time being, in favour of trans-

ferring it to Ray’s career. It appeared that her sense

of identity was not challenged or undermined by

leaving paid work. Rather, she had taken on an-

other role— that of full-time mother—which al-

lowed her to feel positive about herself and achieve

self-actualisation.

Ray, Australian—born of Anglo-Celtic parents—

was also aged 24 at the first interview. He had little

to say in his interviews about the couple’s decision

for Cecily not to engage in paid work. It appeared

that for Ray, there was little to talk about: From his

perspective, the couple had made the ‘‘right’’ deci-

sion for their family, and it was working well. Ray

did remark at the 18-month interview (when their

second child was 3 months old) that some people

had been surprised that Cecily had decided to be a

stay-at-home mother, particularly given her high-

level job and the university training she had under-

taken for it. He observed that he himself was ‘‘more

than happy’’ for Cecily to stay at home caring for

their children: ‘‘I’d rather have her here [at home]

than at work.’’

Neither Cecily nor Ray mentioned any conflict

between them concerning this ‘‘traditional’’ division

of labour, and nor did either of them suggest that

they were dissatisfied in any way with the arrange-

ment. Both partners agreed that the ‘‘good mother’’

was one who stayed at home with her young children

and had successfully planned their lives around ful-

filling this ideal.

Jenny

Jenny, 27, like Cecily, was a stay-at-home mother.

However, Jenny’s previous employment was not as

high-level or as well-paid as that of Cecily, and she

held no university qualifications. She had worked in

various semiskilled jobs: as a nanny, in the catering

industry, and in a plant nursery prior to the birth of

her daughter Grace. Nonetheless, Jenny had found

the choice to stay at home more difficult than did

Cecily, although she shared the same reasons for

doing so. Jenny had only recently migrated to Aus-

tralia from the UK and therefore was separated from

her relatives and friends. She had little opportunity

for social interaction during the day, and it was

mainly her longing for this interaction that led her

to the idea of working part time, perhaps 2 days a

week by the time Grace was 6 months old. However,

Jenny was also concerned about possible disruption

to her relationship with Grace because of the time

spent at paid work and worried about ‘‘missing out’’

on her baby’s development. She therefore decided not

to engage in paid work at all in the first few years of

Grace’s life.

By the 12-month interview, however, Jenny was

becoming concerned about her future prospects in the

paid workforce:

We had a conversation the other night, Mike [her

partner] and I, about what— even if we have

another [child] and both of them are in school

within five or six years—what are you going to

do with yourself? And it totally started to dawn on

me, what the hell am I going to do all day long?

I said I don’t want people turning round to Grace

saying ‘Has your mum got a career?’ Nothing

against housewives, but when they’ve got no kids

there, you know, I wouldn’t feel justified in

staying at home.

In this interview extract, Jenny demonstrates her

awareness of the social opprobrium that attends the

figure of the ‘‘housewife’’ who does not have a career

and stays at home after her children have started

school. She can even imagine the embarrassment her

daughter might feel if her classmates hold this atti-

tude. In this interview, Jenny was also beginning to

think about her need for an identity other than a

mother or wife. She said that she found being at home

everyday, performing household and childcare tasks,

very dull, commenting that: ‘‘I just feel like Grace’s

mum mostly, not even Mike’s wife, but Grace’s mum,

you know. That seems to be my whole life at the

moment.’’ Jenny felt that going back to paid work


would restore some of her feelings of ‘‘independ-

ence’’ and ‘‘self-worth.’’ Jenny, however, was torn

two ways:

It’s a case of, if you go out you feel guilty, but

you’ve got to start doing something for yourself.

Or you stay home and you think you’re the perfect

mum, but some days you’re just bored shitless and

you’re not giving her the quality time that perhaps

you should be.

The schism between ‘‘doing something for your-

self’’ and ‘‘being the perfect mum’’ is clear in Jenny’

account. ‘‘Being the perfect mum’’ may satisfy a

desire to fulfil the dominant discourses of ‘‘good

motherhood,’’ but does not fulfil self-actualisation.

Indeed, Jenny points to a contradiction within the

discourse of ‘‘good motherhood’’ itself. Staying at

home to care for one’s child may be seen as positive,

but because it frustrates self-actualisation, it may lead

to less-than-perfect mothering (not giving enough

‘‘quality time’’ to one’s child).

At the 2-year interview, Jenny had not yet man-

aged to come to terms with these tensions. She had

not returned to paid work and was 3 months pregnant

with her second child. At this interview and at the

3-year interview (when her new baby was 4 months

old), she again wondered whether the fact that she

spent all the time at home with her children meant

that she did not give them enough ‘‘quality time’’ and

was less tolerant of them. Unlike Cecily, Jenny

seemed frustrated and lonely at home.

It is evident from the interviews with Mike that

he did little to encourage Jenny’s ideas about return-

ing to the paid workforce. Mike, 30, an electrician,

was born in Australia of Greek immigrants. His

remarks indicated that he was very ambivalent about

the idea of Jenny returning to paid work while their

children were of preschool age. It would seem that

much of Mike’s identity as a father was his position-

ing of himself as the ‘‘provider’’ for the family,

which to him meant that Jenny did not ‘‘have’’ to

work. He argued in the 6-month interview that

‘‘good mothers’’ should stay at home with their

young children if there was no economic imperative

for them to return to paid work: ‘‘Obviously, the

perfect scenario would be, the mother stay home

and, you know, looks after the baby while the baby

grows up.’’ At the same time, however, Mike

acknowledged that Jenny was ‘‘just not happy’’ at

home and ‘‘would love to go back to work today,’’

and claimed that ‘‘If she wants to go back to work,

that’s fine, doesn’t bother me at all.’’ He reiterated

this at other interviews, but noted at the 2-year

interview that he did not want to send Grace to

childcare, as he worried about the standard of super-

vision that was provided.

Although Mike said on several occasions that it

was ‘‘up to Jenny’’ to decide what she wanted to do,

it seemed that he was not supporting or facilitating

her return to paid work in choosing in his discussions

with her on the matter to focus on the negative rather

than the positive aspects of such an action. Both Mike

and Jenny, then, shared the notion that the ‘‘good

mother’’ should ideally stay at home. However,

Jenny, unlike Mike, acknowledged that this ideal

did not always succeed in practice, and that women

who went out to work could sometimes have more to

offer their children in terms of ‘‘quality time.’’ Some

conflict was generated in their relationship by Mike’s

refusal to acknowledge Jenny’s frustration. He

seemed willing to accept that Jenny might be

unhappy in seeking to fulfil the ideal of the ‘‘good

mother,’’ trading off their children’s well-being

against hers.

Amanda

As noted above, most of the women in our study

had returned to paid work by the time their first child

was 18 months old, but for the majority, this was on a

part-time basis only. Very few women returned full

time while their children were less than 6 months old.

Amanda, a secondary school teacher born in England

of Anglo-Celtic parents who emigrated to Australia

when she was very young, was one of these women.

She was also the youngest woman in our study, being

only 23 when Luke was born.

Amanda returned to work on the expiry of her

paid maternity leave, when Luke was 12 weeks old.

She had planned to do this from the beginning,

recognising the importance of her work in her life.

In the first interview (before Luke was born),

Amanda talked about her plans for work. She said

it was important financially, but also commented

candidly that: ‘‘It’s really terrible saying it, but I’d

go insane if I didn’t have something else to do.’’

Amanda, however, also talked in this interview about

the disapproval she encountered from others regard-

ing her plans for work:

Well the number of people, when they’ve said,

‘Oh, so what are you going to do next year?’ and

I’ve said, ‘Oh I’m coming back term 2’ [have

replied] ‘Oh are you?’ And you can see

disapproval looks on their faces and you find

yourself having to reason with them all the time

why you’re doing it.


At the interview held just before she was due to

return to work, Amanda noted that her parents-in-law

had been very negative about her plans, and she had

been forced to ask her partner, Neil, to have a word

with them about their attitude. She commented that it

was only other people’s remarks which made her feel

in any way doubtful about her decision: ‘‘I wouldn’t

have any problems myself doing it but it’s what

everybody else puts in your mind. It’s like, [Luke’s]

not going to be very old, you’re not going to see his

first step.’’

At the 6-month interview, Amanda confirmed

again that she was happy with her decision:

It’s good being back at work, it’s like I’ve gained

a life again . . . it was like having some part of me

come back again. Whereas like before I was just

his mother, which was good, but I needed to be

something else.

Amanda said at this stage that she would have

preferred to go part time rather than full time, so she

could spend more time with Luke. However, she and

Neil had recently taken on a mortgage to purchase

their first home, so she needed to work full time for

financial reasons. However, by the time Luke was

two, Amanda said that she was happy working full

time and would not want a part-time job. Nonethe-

less, she was still having to deal with criticisms from

other people concerning her choice and finding

herself constantly having to justify it: ‘‘Everybody’s

got to have their two bob in about me working. They

say ‘Oh you shouldn’t be working, you should be at

home’ or ‘Why don’t you work part time?’ I go, ‘I

don’t want to, this is what I want to do, why can’t I

do it?’’’

Neil, also aged 23 at the first interview, was

Australian born, of Anglo-Celtic ethnicity, and a

manager in a large retail firm. He was very supportive

of Amanda’s decision to go back to work when Luke

was still very young. At the 6-month interview, he

noted that:

I think the opinion that a mother should be at

home doesn’t really make much sense to me. I

can see now that the way Luke is now, that

hasn’t caused any problems whatsoever, the fact

that Amanda’s gone back to work . . .. I think

it’s probably the best decision we made. We’ve

got two incomes again, so we’re still able to

live quite easily. There’s nothing to say that

we’re unhappy or depressed that we’re spending

less time with Luke. I mean, even though we

might not be seeing him during the day, it’s not

depressing me, it’s not depressing Amanda, so

what have we got to worry about? There’s no

problems caused by it, only other people’s opin-

ions really.

Neil, too, had observed the disapproval to which

Amanda had been subjected: ‘‘Even my mum was a

bit shocked at first to find out that she was going

back.’’ He maintained, however, that as long as he

and Amanda were happy with the arrangement, then

it was ‘‘no-one else’s business’’ what they did.

In this couple, there seemed little evidence of

conflict concerning Amanda’s choice to return to

full-time work so early in Luke’s life. Neither

Amanda nor Neil saw the ‘‘good mother’’ as one

who was always present for her child in infancy. Both

agreed that Luke was not disadvantaged by Amanda’s

absence, and neither of them were concerned that

other people (first Amanda’s mother, then workers in

a childcare centre) were caring for Luke during the

working week. Their main concern was about dealing

with the disapproving attitudes of other people,

especially close family members.

Trisha

Trisha, 26, was born in Ireland and emigrated

to Australia in her early 20s. Although she, like

Amanda, had decided to return to paid work early

on, Trisha and her partner Juan experienced far

more conflict than did Amanda and Neil about this

decision. Trisha had started work again as a legal

secretary, for 4 days a week, when her son

Lachlan was 4 months old. At the 6-month inter-

view, she talked about the relief from the strains of

full-time care of her son that this arrangement

offered her:

Now I’m back at work [the carer] has him, and if

he’s going to have bad day she’ll have to cope

with him. So in a way that’s good, because I get a

variety . . . now and again you’d have couple of

bad days or a bit of a bad day and you’d be really

tired and you’d feel like, you know, giving him to

someone for a little while. But now I’m back at

work I can do that.

Trisha described the ‘‘monotony’’ of staying at

home and how pleased she was now to see Lachlan

after she had been at work all day. She found that she

missed him while at work and initially had felt

‘‘really upset’’ about the idea of leaving him in the

care of another to return to work. Trish, however,

acknowledged that the benefits of going back to paid


work well exceeded the drawbacks, particularly in

relation to her sense of identity and self-esteem:

I just feel when you’re at home all the time, you

tend to lose the sense of yourself and like your

qualities as a human being, like your self esteem a

bit . . . You can sort’ve just be yourself when you

come to work. That’s you and you’re capable of

doing your job and you get appreciated for that.

But when you’re at home, you’re a mother, but

you don’t necessarily get any recognition for that.

You just get some criticism some of time. People

don’t tend to say to you, ‘Oh, you’re such a good

mother!’ you know.

When Lachlan was 12 months old, Trisha was

pregnant again and was considering whether she

should continue working after her second child was

born. The cost of childcare was one issue, but she

talked about getting ‘‘really lonely without adult

company’’ staying at home and how much she

enjoyed her work. By the time Lachlan was two,

her second child was 6 months old. Trisha had

returned to work 2 days a week, but was finding it

hectic fitting everything in. Nonetheless, she still

considered the paid work very important: ‘‘Yeah, I

think it makes it more bearable, isn’t that awful? Just

in that I know when I’m with [the children] con-

stantly that I just need to escape now and again.’’

Trisha’s partner Juan, 37, a researcher in the

plastics industry, only reluctantly agreed to her work-

ing. Juan was born in Chile and emigrated to Aus-

tralia in his early 20s. Like Mike, his cultural

background led him to believe that the mother should

be ‘‘the heart of the home,’’ sacrificing her own needs

for those of her children. At the 12-month interview,

Juan noted that he held a deep personal belief that a

mother is the best person to care for a child:

I’m afraid I’m still very old fashioned. I believe

that the woman should be at home with her baby,

at least until it’s two or something. I believe that

the baby, while it’s breast feeding or still

developing, should only see its mother’s face,

more often than anybody else.

Juan said that he knew from talking with other

women at his work that stay-at-home mothers were

often viewed in negative light: ‘‘If you’re a woman

these days and you’re not working, people think

there’s something wrong with you.’’ He also knew

that going to paid work was very important for Trisha’s

happiness. However, he worried that Lachlan was not

being cared for properly by the ‘‘strangers’’ who

looked after him at the childcare centre he attended.

Juan reiterated this concern at other interviews, as well

as his belief that, ideally, themother should care for her

small child. He acknowledged that his views had

caused some conflict in the marriage, and that he and

Trisha had to constantly negotiate arrangements,

which he saw as involving compromises on his part.

Donna

As we noted above, the largest group of women in

our study were those who harboured strong feelings

of ambivalence about their decision to return to paid

work. On the one hand, they relished the opportunity

to have a ‘‘break’’ from full-time care of their child,

the mental stimulation, and socialising with other

adults that paid work offered them. On the other

hand, many of these women felt guilty and anxious

about their child’s welfare, concerned that they were

not spending enough time with them. They had

difficulties resolving these feelings while their chil-

dren were still small.

Donna, 25, was born in Australia of Anglo-Celtic

parents and had worked in an insurance company

before taking maternity leave. She returned to part-

time work when her son Andrew was 9 months old.

Donna first talked about her intentions in the 6-month

interview. At this stage, she sounded certain of her

decision, noting how she needed to escape from the

mother role and ‘‘be her own person’’:

Yeah, I will be definitely going back [to work].

Even if I had the choice I think, like if I didn’t

have to I think I probably still would, at least part-

time. At least at work you’re your own person, so

to speak. Whereas in your home, as much as I

love being home with [Andrew], I’m his person,

I’m not my own person. I’m mother, mother

wholly and purely.

Donna’s words suggest that for some women,

motherhood is experienced as a swallowing up, or at

least the subjugation, of the ‘‘real self.’’ One’s premo-

therhood autonomous identity, which appears to be

strongly based on the paid work role, is lost for the role

as ‘‘mother, wholly and purely.’’ Donna found this loss

of the self difficult and challenging. She reiterated

some of these points at the 12-month interview:

I was really looking forward to returning mainly

because at work you’re your own person. You’re

not somebody’s mother or somebody’s wife or

somebody’s friend, you’re you, you’re working

and you’re able to do whatever you’re able to do,


you know, your abilities can be further reached, I

suppose. Yeah, and I enjoyed that contact with

other people too by coming back to work.

Working part time had its drawbacks, however. At

the 2-year interview, Donna talked about her frustra-

tion in not being able to ‘‘move ahead’’ in her career

because she needed to be working full time to access

appropriate opportunities:

I suppose this last six months or 12 months, where

I’ve seen my friends moving ahead and I think,

you know, they’ve all gone in totally separate

directions and they’re all doing really well for

themselves. You know, one of them’s just been

offered— they want to put him on as a package

staff member and they’re giving him a car and he

flies all over the place for work. And I think, ‘I

could be doing that.’

Despite these frustrations, at this stage, Donna

was determined not to work full time while Andrew

was still very young. She had started working full

time again, however, before Andrew had turned three.

At the 3-year interview, she remarked upon how

much she was enjoying her work but also how she

still had qualms about doing it full time:

It’s been a lot of fun and a real chance to develop

myself. But, you know, the other side of it too,

over the last five weeks I was off work with my

[broken] ankle, and in that time it was like I did a

little bit of soul searching. And you think, yeah,

but is it all really worth it? Like when I was

having some great days with Andrew and that sort

of thing, it’s really hard to know what the right

way of doing it all is.

Donna went on to say:

It’s still hard to weigh up whether the work

situation’s the right one or whether to stay at home

and be with your child is the right one. But I don’t

know— I mean, I don’t know how good I’d be at

being a full-time mum. I think I’m a better person

for being at work because I think I’d be too

frustrated or too—you know, I think I’d lose my

patience a lot more and I don’t like doing that. I

don’t like being somebody that’s got to yell and

things like that. And I’m finding myself doing that

sometimes and I think if I was at home full-time

with him that I would not be a nice person. So I

think it’s nicer on him doing it [full-time work],

so I am doing it.

Donna was candid about what she saw as the

drawbacks of staying at home full time. Her ideal of

‘‘good motherhood’’ included the notion that one

should be patient and not lose one’s temper at one’s

child: ‘‘a nice person.’’ For Donna, the only way she

could achieve or at least aspire to this ideal was to go

out to work rather than be a stay-at-home mother.

Donna’s partner, Peter, 27, was also Australian

born and of Anglo-Celtic ethnicity, and worked as a

manager in a sporting facility. Peter was totally

supportive of Donna’s decisions about paid work.

At the 12-month interview, he noted that he had

observed a change in Donna when she returned to

work: ‘‘She was much more content and happier

because she ‘had a bit of a life back’.’’ Peter argued

that expecting a woman to stay at home to care for

her children was ‘‘really old-fashioned as far as I’m

concerned. I think it’s totally up to what the individ-

ual wants to do, and then if she wants to go ahead and

go back to work, great.’’ Peter said that he had

allowed Donna to make up her own mind and had

not sought to influence her decision. He made no

other comments about her working in other inter-

views, suggesting a lack of conflict in their relation-

ship about the issue. Both Donna and Peter seemed to

agree that a woman could only be a ‘‘good mother’’ if

she felt fulfilled and happy, and that some women

could only achieve this by going out to work rather

than staying at home.

DISCUSSION

Our data revealed that, to some extent, traditional

notions of ‘‘good motherhood’’ were still circulating

among couples experiencing first-time parenthood in

the mid-to-late 1990s. Many of the women in our

study espoused the ideal of the mother who was

always ‘‘there’’ for her child, guiding and observing

her child’s development and well-being. Like the

mothers in Walzer’s (1997) American study, several

of our interviewees found it almost shameful to

‘‘admit’’ that they enjoyed work because of the break

it gave them from caring for their child. Many of

those who had returned to paid work expressed

ambivalence about their decision and worried about

the welfare of their children, asking themselves

whether they had done the right thing. This suggests

the dominance of the discourse that suggests that

‘‘good mothers’’ should be devoted to their children

to the exclusion of their own needs, and want to

spend as much time as possible with them. The

constant reference of women in our study to the need

to have ‘‘quality time’’ with their children also

reveals the great importance that is currently placed


upon the well-being of the child and the type of

interactions that mothers (and, to a lesser extent,

fathers) have with them.

However, while guilt and ambivalence was evi-

dent in several of our interviewees’ accounts of their

decisions and experiences of paid work, it was also

clear that nearly all of the women who had returned

to work (and these were the majority of women in the

study) felt that they gained a great deal from it. In

articulating what their participation in paid work

meant to them, the women appeared to support the

ideal of the ‘‘independent mother’’ in stressing the

importance of their own self-development, fulfilment,

and actualisation through their jobs. This was the case

even for those women who did not have particularly

challenging or high-level jobs. Such an approach to

participation in paid work challenged the traditional

notion of the ‘‘good mother.’’ Indeed, as several

women in our case studies argued, a woman who

was not happy staying at home could not, in the end,

be a ‘‘good mother’’ because in her unhappiness and

frustration, she would not be able to demonstrate the

appropriate qualities of patience and tolerance with

her children and willingness to devote time to ensur-

ing ‘‘quality time’’ with them. While a contented

stay-at-home mother might be still considered ideal,

an unhappy one was viewed as detrimental to her

children’s well-being.

Other recent studies (for example, Bailey, 1999;

Hays, 1996; Uttal, 1996) have shown that many

women (particularly middle-class women) are be-

coming less apologetic about seeking self-fulfilment

through their participation in paid work, expressing

enthusiasm about returning to work while their chil-

dren are still infants and professing few feelings of

guilt about leaving their children in the care of others

while they do so. This trend may be explained by the

growing acceptance of the notion that women’s iden-

tities, like men’s, are closely related to their involve-

ment in paid work. As the ideas of feminism have

gained dominance and women’s participation in paid

work, including high-level professional employment,

has increased, the ideal of the autonomous, inde-

pendent self who gains fulfilment and self-actualisa-

tion through paid work now applies to women as

well as men.

This was evident in the words of many of our

interviewees, who talked about their authentic selves

(or in their words, the ‘‘real me,’’ ‘‘my own person’’) as

being submerged or undermined by stay-at-home

motherhood but realised via their participation in paid

work. As was evident in our case studies, most women

saw themother role as being too confining and limiting

of their expression of selfhood. Very few mothers

talked about stay-at-home motherhood as achieving

self-actualisation and self-fulfilment (Cecily, one of

our case studies, was very much an exception). Rather,

most women tended to discursively position their

selves as ‘‘mothers’’ almost as a ‘‘false’’ or ‘‘distorted’’

self, in direct opposition to their ‘‘real selves’’ (the self

that is realised through paid work). For many women,

a sense of an altered self begins in pregnancy, when

their previously stable sense of self is challenged and

there is a perception that the ‘‘old self’’ will have to

change radically to accommodate the ‘‘mother self.’’

Even at this stage, women may feel apprehensive

about ‘‘losing’’ the identity they had constructed via

work (Bailey, 1999). Many of our interviewees articu-

lated the continuing loss of this self while at home with

their children, and their consequent desire to return to

paid work to recover their sense of ‘‘being my own

person’’ and ‘‘not just somebody’s mother.’’

The women in our study were also highly con-

scious of the negative meanings that attended the

figure of the stay-at-home mother and resented being

associated with these meanings. As many feminist

critics have pointed out (see, for example, Grace,

1998), the labour of caring for children largely goes

unacknowledged and unrespected in contemporary

Western societies because it is not associated with

economic productivity and is seen as unskilled,

mundane, and unintellectual. Our interviewees were

acutely aware of this and also aware of the contra-

diction between the idealised figure of the ‘‘good

mother’’ and the denigrated stay-at-home mother.

They struggled to come to terms with this contra-

diction, seeking both to achieve the ideal of the

‘‘good mother’’ and to maintain the ‘‘real me’’ that

was part of the ‘‘real world’’ of economic activity and

adult interactions.

Further, there was evidence in several of the

couples in the study of conflicts between the female

and male partner over decisions about the former’s

participation in paid work after their child’s birth.

Several of the men held to the traditional ‘‘good

mother’’ ideal and found it difficult to accept that

their partner might want or need to leave their child in

the care of others to engage in the paid workforce.

Some were reluctant to relinquish their notion of

themselves as ‘‘providers’’ for their families. Many

other men, however, seemed to have embraced the

‘‘independent mother’’ ideal and strongly supported

their partner when they decided to return to work.

We cannot generalise from our study, but we can

conclude that there is evidence that among our largely

middle-class and Anglo-Celtic group of first-time

parents, the notion that the ‘‘good mother’’ should

necessarily be a stay-at-home mother when her chil-


dren are of preschool age has begun to weaken.

While this notion was still articulated by our partic-

ipants, it was strongly challenged by the counter

notion of the ‘‘independent mother.’’ Indeed, it is

telling that so few of the women we interviewed

chose to stay at home with their young children, even

while many of them struggled with the demands,

pressures, and contradictions that they felt trying to

juggle paid work with motherhood. This suggests a

willingness to make compromises in relation to

notions of ‘‘good motherhood’’ and to incorporate

ideas about the importance of self-actualisation into

such notions.

ENDNOTES

1. In Australia by the mid-1990s, 54% of women aged25–34 years who had dependent children were in thepaid labour force (compared with 46% in the mid-1980s). At the same time, fewer women in this agegroup had dependent children living with them com-pared with women in the mid-1980s (down from 70% to59% over this time) (Kilmartin, 1997). The fertility rateof Australian women had decreased to 1.8 children perwoman by 1995, consonant with other Western coun-tries experiencing declines in fertility (Australian Bureauof Statistics, 1999).

2. All women working in the Australian public sector haveaccess to a period of paid maternity leave (which variesfrom 9 to 12 weeks in duration) and additional unpaidleave up to a total of 12 months full time or 24 monthspart time. In private sector employment, however, womenare not always provided with paid maternity leave. Someemployers in this sector offer to keep a position open forwomen to return to, but situations still exist wherewomen have to resign from their job when they leaveto have their baby. Men working in the public sector, butfew of those in employment in the private sector, areentitled to paid paternity leave that can be shared withtheir female partner.

REFERENCES

Australian Bureau of Statistics (1998). Sydney: A social atlas.Canberra: Australian Government Printing Service.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (1999, December). HealthStatistics News, 42, 1.

Bailey, Lucy (1999). Refracted selves? A study of changes inself-identity in the transition to motherhood. Sociology,33, 335–352.

Brown, Stephanie, Lumley, Judith, Small, Rhonda, & Ast-bury, Jill (1994). Missing voices: The experience ofmotherhood. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Fairclough, Norman (1995). Critical discourse analysis.London: Longman.

Grace, Marty (1998). The work of caring for young children:Priceless or worthless? Women’s Studies InternationalForum, 21, 401–413.

Harper, Jan, & Richards, Lyn (1979). Mothers and workingmothers. Ringwood: Penguin.

Hays, Sharon (1996). The cultural contradictions of mother-hood. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Hertz, Rosanna (1995). Separate but simultaneous inter-viewing of husbands and wives: Making sense of theirstories. Qualitative Inquiry, 1, 429–451.

Kilmartin, Christine (1997). Young women delaying fami-lies. Family Matters, 46, 52–54.

Lewis, Susan (1991). Motherhood and employment: Theimpact of social and organizational values. In Ann Phoe-nix, Anne Woollett & Eva Lloyd (Eds.), Motherhood:Meanings, practices and ideologies ( pp. 195 –215).London: Sage.

Lupton, Deborah (2000). ‘A love/hate relationship’: Theideals and experiences of first-time mothers. Journal ofSociology, 36, 50–63.

Lupton, Deborah, & Barclay, Lesley (1997). Constructingfatherhood: Discourses and experiences. London: Sage.

Marshall, Helen (1991). The social construction of moth-erhood: An analysis of childcare and parenting man-uals. In Ann Phoenix, Anne Woollett, & Eva Lloyd(Eds.), Motherhood: Meanings, practices and ideologies( pp. 66–85). London: Sage.

McDonald, Peter (2000, 9 October). Action plan to savean endangered Australian species. Sydney MorningHerald, 14.

Nippert-Eng, Christena (1996). Home and work. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Parker, Ian (1999). Introduction: Varieties of discourse andanalysis. In Ian Parker & the Bolton Discourse Network(Eds.), Critical textwork: An introduction to varieties ofdiscourse and analysis (pp. 1–12). Buckingham: OpenUniversity Press.

Uttal, Lynet (1996). Custodial care, surrogate care, and co-ordinated care: Employed mothers and the meaning ofchild care. Gender and Society 10, 291–311.

Walzer, Susan (1997). Contextualizing the employment de-cisions of new mothers. Qualitative Sociology, 20,211–227.

Wearing, Betsy (1984). The ideology of motherhood. NorthSydney: Allen & Unwin.

Weedon, Chris (1992). Feminist practice and poststructural-ist theory. Oxford: Blackwell.

Woodward, Kathryn (1997). Motherhood: Identities, mean-ings and myths. In Kathryn Woodward (Ed.), Identityand difference ( pp. 239–298). London: Sage.

Woollett, Anne, & Phoenix, Ann (1991). Psychologicalviews of mothering. In Ann Phoenix, Anne Woollett,& Eva Lloyd (Eds.), Motherhood: Meanings, practicesand ideologies ( pp. 28–46). London: Sage.


“the right way of doing it all”: first-time australian mothers' decisions about paid...

Documents