Paradox Of Natural Mothering

Single or married, working mothers are, if not the norm, no longer exceptional. These days, women who stay at home to raise their children seem to be making a radical lifestyle choice. The women in this work have renounced consumerism and careerism in order to reclaim home and family. These natural mothers favour parenting practices that set them apart from the mainstream: home birth, extended breast feeding, home schooling, and natural health care. Regarding themselves as part of a movement, natural mothers believe they are changing society one child, one family at a time. This work profiles 30 natural mothers, probing into their choices and asking whether they are reforming or conforming to women’s traditional role. It illuminates the paradoxes of natural mothering, the ways in which these women resist the trappings of upward mobility but acquiesce to a kind of biological determinism and conventional gender scripts.