Inventing motherhood
Subtitle: the consequences of an ideal
By: Ann Dally.
Publisher: Schocken Books
Published: 1983
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 360
Subjects: Motherhood
Description: Mothers have always existed but "motherhood" is a comparatively recent invention. The economic and social developments which, over the past two hundred years, divorced the place of work from the home, separated the elderly from the working population, and virtually abolished the domestic servant, have resulted in a family consisting, for most of the working hours, if not all the time, of the mother and her children. In the first part of her book Ann Dally shows how this trend has run paralled with changes in the theory and practice of mothering which have emphasized the importance and exclusiveness of the mother-child relationship and have idealized it at the expense of the older, wider relationships with family and community.
Notes: Bibliography: p. 346-356.
Includes index.