Unschooling motherhood: caring and belonging in mothers’ time-space

Abstract

For mothers, time is experienced in unique patterns reflecting mother-child relationships shaped by caring responsibilities and producing notions of belonging. The temporal and spatial rhythms of mothers’ lives are determined by interembodiment and co-presence; particularly apparent when offspring are infants and incapable of independent mobility and self-care. For most mothers these rhythms evolve as children grow and develop, with a particular increase in independence experienced by many mothers when their children reach school age. However, for home educating mothers, the constant interembodiment and co-presence of the mother-child relationship extends into late childhood resulting in alternative habitus to mothers who attend to school and to work. This paper draws on blogs authored by unschooling mothers in the UK, Australia and the USA – mothers whose children engage in a child-led form of home education - to explore a geography of motherhood that contrasts with the mainstream experiences that determine socio-cultural and policy-generating expectations. In so doing, this paper contributes to geographical discourse concerning the way in which motherhood impacts on experiences of time and space whilst also challenging mainstream representations of motherhood and particularly the widespread problematisation of caring. This paper demonstrates the way that caring relationships embed an individual in complex reciprocal networks leading to a particular identity-in-space which in turn influences, and is influenced by, temporal rhythms.

Keywords:

• habitus
• interembodiment
• motherhood
• time
• social media
• unschooling

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on research that was undertaken during a temporary lectureship at Plymouth University. I am indebted particularly to colleagues at Plymouth for their interest and support in the initial development of this paper. I am also very grateful to the anonymous peer reviewers, and to Katherine Brickell, for detailed and insightful feedback that has significantly improved the quality of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nadia von Benzon

Nadia von Benzon is a lecturer in Human Geography at Lancaster University. Her work focuses on social and cultural geography with a particular interest in children, youth and motherhood in both contemporary and historical contexts.