Becoming respectable: low-income young mothers, consumption and the pursuit of value

ABSTRACT

Teenage mothers find themselves caught between two discourses: the irresponsibility of youth and the responsibility of motherhood. We unravel some of the complexities surrounding the performance of socially approved ‘good mothering’, from a social position of restricted resources. We demonstrate the relevance of Skeggs’ notion of respectability in order to forge a deeper understanding of how young, low-income new mothers seek to secure social value and legitimacy via the marketplace. We identify a number of consumption strategies centred around identification and dis-identification, yet we recognise that young mothers’ careful marshalling of resources, in relation to consumption, risks being misread and could leave young women open to further scrutiny and negative evaluation, ultimately limiting their opportunity to secure a legitimate maternal identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Teenage mothers
• low-income consumers
• identity
• dis-identification
• consumption

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the women who participated in this study along with the NHS Midwifery Service for Teenage Mothers for their invaluable help with recruitment. We would also like to thank the reviewers and the Associate Editor for the insightful comments and suggestions, which have helped us develop this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ I1 and I2 refer to the first and second interviews, respectively.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financed by a grant from the ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) [grant no. ANR-06-BLAN-0079-01] within the framework of the NACRE project (New Approaches to Consumer REsistance) led by Professor Dominique Roux.

Notes on contributors

Emma N. Banister

Emma N. Banister is a Senior Lecturer in Consumer Research at Manchester Business School. Her research is mainly focused around issues of identity and consumption. Key current projects relate to young adults’ alcohol consumption and new mothers’ identity transitions. Her research has been published in Advances in Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research and Sociology of Health and Illness.

Margaret K. Hogg

Margaret K. Hogg is Professor of Consumer Behaviour and Marketing at Lancaster University Management School. Margaret’s research focuses on inter-relationships among identity, self and consumption. She has researched identity and consumption across different generational (e.g. new mothers; empty nest women) and ethnic (e.g. British Asian) family contexts. She has published in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, Advances in Consumer Research, Consumption, Markets and Culture and the Journal of Marketing Management.

Kirsty Budds

Kirsty Budds is a Lecturer in Psychology at Keele University. She holds a PhD from Huddersfield University, which explores the social construction of ‘older motherhood’. She also has interests in gender and parenting roles and discourses around health and illness. She has published in Feminist Media Studies and Health, Risk & Society.

Mandy Dixon

Mandy Dixon is the Lancaster Health Hub Manager in the Faculty of Health and Medicine in Lancaster University. Mandy has worked within a number of research management roles within the Universities sector and the NHS. She has a PhD in applied health research and has gained extensive experience of cross-sectoral working across NHS and academic environments, including comprehensive knowledge of research and funding landscapes.