Resilient Young Mothering: Social Inequalities, Late Modernity and the ‘Problem’ of ‘Teenage’ Motherhood

Abstract

This paper draws on a systematic review of qualitative research to explore the resilient mothering practices that young, British, working-class mothers employ to care for their children. The synthesis of studies of UK mothers under the age of 20 demonstrates how young working-class women must mother in impoverished circumstances, at the same time as being discursively positioned outside the boundaries of ‘normal’ motherhood. Consequently, they utilize the only two resources to which they may have access: their families and their own personal capacities. Engaging with debates regarding the extent of the transformations of the social in late modernity, the paper discusses the most prominent of the young mothers’ practices: investment in the ‘good’ mother identity, maintaining kin relations, and prioritization of the mother/child dyad. The paper argues that, while the young mothers’ practices display reflexivity and individualism, they are also deeply embedded in, and structured by, social inequalities.

Notes

This paper draws on research funded by the ESRC (H141251011) through the Centre for Evidence-based Public Health Policy, based at the MRC Social and Public Health Services Unit, University of Glasgow. The Centre is part of the ESRC's Evidence Network. The authors would like to thank Val Hamilton and Mark Petticrew for their input and advice.