Negotiating motherhood: women with troubled upbringings and their self-conceptions as mothers

This paper examines how women who experienced severe adjustment problems during adolescence, and who had troubled childhoods in families with high levels of conflict, construct their self-conceptions as mothers. Applying data from a 30-year-long follow-up study, this paper examines how participants with troubled upbringings experience social norms of motherhood. Two overall themes emerged along with their associated subcategories, and these are identified as significant findings. The first theme is the stigmatizing gaze, exemplifying how the intervention of the child welfare service is recognized as essential to the women's self-conception; its three subcategories are prejudiced motherhood, predestined motherhood and self-critical motherhood. The second theme is significant relationships, exemplifying the mothers' personal bonds and contributing greatly to their self-conception; its three subcategories are the other half, next of kin and disturbed relations. The findings reveal that the way these women view themselves as mothers cannot be separated from the way that others view them, and in addition, they must negotiate their positions as mothers through the normative discourses of motherhood. The findings apply to both theoretical and practical social work, addressing the need for an understanding of motherhood within the field of child welfare.