Australian Mothering Historical and Sociological Perspectives

This collection defines the field of maternal studies in Australia for the first time. Leading motherhood researchers explore how mothering has evolved across Australian history as well as the joys and challenges of being a mother today. The contributors cover pregnancy, birth, relationships, childcare, domestic violence, time use, work, welfare, policy and psychology, from a diverse range of maternal perspectives. Utilising a matricentric feminist framework, Australian Mothering foregrounds the experiences, emotions and perspectives of mothers to better understand how Australian motherhood has developed historically and contemporaneously. Drawing upon their combined sociological and historical expertise, Bueskens and Pascoe Leahy have carefully curated a collection that presents compelling research on past and present perspectives on maternity in Australia, which will be relevant to researchers, advocates and policy makers interested in the changing role of mothers in Australian society.

1. Defining maternal studies in Australia: Historical and contemporary perspectives on mothers, mothering and motherhood; Petra Bueskens and Carla Pascoe Leahy.- Part I: Constructing mothers as citizens, workers and wives.- 2. State socialism for Australian mothers: Andrew Fisher’s radical maternalism in its international and local contexts [reprint]; Marilyn Lake.- 3. Mothering reshaped: fertility decline, “the selfishness of women” and the smaller family; Alison MacKinnon.- 4. Imagined, intended, forsaken: the status of the mother in a century of Australian adoption advertisements; Shurlee Swain.- 5. What Mary Bennett knew – the whispering in her heart; Anne Manne.- Part II: Remembering families: mothers, fathers and children.- 6. Mothers-in-waiting: maternographies of pregnancy in Australia since 1945; Carla Pascoe Leahy.- 7. "The most radical, most exciting and most challenging role of my life”: Lesbian motherhood in Australia 1945-1990; Rebecca Jennings.- 8. Historicising domestic violence in the family: Pearlie McNeill and Jimmy Barnes remember their mothers; Catherine Kevin.- 9. New wave father? Oral histories with Australian fathers from the 1970s and 1980s; Alistair Thomson,- Part IV: The history and politics of childbirth and breastfeeding.- 10. Violence and trauma in Australian birth; Paula A. Michaels,Elizabeth Sutton and Nicole Highet.- 11. Maternalism to consumerism? Mothers and the politics of care in childbirth; Kerreen Reiger and Monica Campo.- 12. Breastfeeding bodies and choice in late capitalism’ [reprint]; Alison Bartlett.- Part V: Becoming a mother: identity, emotion and time use.- 13. Reflecting on the past: The role of biographical, familial and social memory in new mothers’ interpretations of emotional experiences in early parenthood; Kate Johnston-Ataata.- 14. Australian mothering in cross-national perspective: time allocation, gender gaps, scheduling, and subjective time pressure; Lyn Craig, Judith Brown and Theun Pieter van Tienoven.- Part Vl: Childcare, welfare and wages: financial survival in a gendered economy.- 15. The good mother in Australian child care policy; Deb Brennan.- 16. Mothers and waged work following equal opportunity legislation in Australia, 1986 – 2006; Patricia Grimshaw.- 17. The devaluing and disciplining of single mothers in Australian child support policy; Kay Cook.- 18. Re-imagining social citizenship for single mothers: Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip, then and now’; Kristin Natalier .- Part VII:Maternal citizens and maternalist politics.- 19. Gillard’s dilemma”: The Sexual Contract and maternal citizenship’; Petra Bueskens.- 20. Reframing ‘success’: mothering and migration; Karen Lane.- 21. Who’s afraid of maternalism? Political motherhood in postmaster nal times’; Julie Stephens.