Singing maternity through autoethnography: making visible the musical world of myself as a mother

Abstract

There is perhaps no image more maternal and musical than that of a young mother cradling a child to her breast as she softly sings a sweet lullaby. Yet the way that a mother experiences, relates to and renders meaningful the social and musical moment of singing to her children remains silent and hidden in popular and academic discourse. In this paper, I will explore how music becomes mothering; that is, the way that women sing maternity and use music to mother; what music brings to their thoughts, feelings and identities as mothers; and, what kinds of interactions and interrelationships are created with their children through music as play and performance of mothering. Through auto‐ethnographic processes of reflection and research about my own experiences as the mother of two sons, and engagement with a wide array of discourses about mothering; the voices and perspectives of women take centre stage in this paper. My main concern is to make visible the musical worlds of mothers and children and make known the power of maternal song in creating places of excitement, empowerment, love and peace in the home for mothers and children.

Keywords:

• mothering
• music
• autoethnography
• singing to babies
• lullabies