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1981

Tensions of Maternity

image of Tensions of Maternity

Using poetry and autoethnography, we examine performances of maternity through the feminist and queer lenses of our lived experience. Diana is a “good” mother, yet disruptions and betrayals challenge my performances of that “good.” The shattering of accepted norms of mothering. Across my life text, the imposition of a patriarchal voice asserts certainty — yet neither has nor delivers any. Steve is a “good” son, theoutcome of mum's doting intelligence, kindness, and presence, often in the absence of father. I adore her yet lament that the many good experiences she produced during my youth will become increasingly rare. In contemporary families, many parents work, even among those who have broken free of binary and social expectations of what families are and can be. How do we negotiate and nurture the ongoing performances of maternity, encourage agency, and make sense of what we become together?

Keywords: Autoethnography ; Betrayals of the good mother ; Family communication ; Feminist experience ; Liminal spaces ; Maternal performances in the age of COVID-19 ; Narrative inquiry ; Performances of Mothering ; Performative inquiry ; Qualitative inquiry ; Queer experience ; Spirit

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References

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  4. Barthes, R. (1981), Camera Lucida, New York: Hill and Wang.
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  5. Blommaert, J. (2013), ‘Enough is enough: The heuristics of authenticity in superdiversity’, in J. Duarte and I. Gogolin (eds), Linguistic Superdiversity in Urban Areas: Research Approaches, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 142–60, https://doi.org/10.1075/hsld.2.10blo.
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  7. Bochner, A. P. and Ellis, C. (2016), Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories, New York: Routledge.
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  8. Boylorn, R. M. and Adams, T. E. (2016), ‘Queer and quare autoethnography’, in N. K. Denzin and M. D. Giardina (eds), Qualitative Inquiry through a Critical Lens, New York: Routledge, pp. 185–98.
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  9. Boylorn, R. M. and Orbe, M. P. (eds) (2016), Critical Autoethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life, New York: Routledge.107
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  17. Ellis, C. (2007), ‘Telling secrets, revealing lives: Relational ethics in research with intimate others’, Qualitative Inquiry, 13:1, pp. 3–29.
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     [Google Scholar]
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