Good Working Mothers as Jugglers: A Critical Look at Two Work–Family Balance Films

ABSTRACT

We examine the portrayals of two good working mothers in popular work–family balance films—Melanie in One Fine Day (1996) and Kate in I Don’t Know How She Does It (2011). Using a critical standpoint, we build on communication work–family/life scholarship to extend theoretical understanding of underlying ideological notions of the good working mother. In particular, we analyze Melanie and Kate’s performances that reflect the underlying cultural ideologies of being an ideal worker, a true domestic woman, and an intensive mother. Further, we explicate how this juggling of identities portrays good working mothers as perpetually defensive. We go beyond the analysis of ideologies to lay out some of the consequences of the performance portrayals of the good working mother, in that she should (a) accept “punishments” from her children, (b) conceptualize fathers as secondary parents, (c) solve problems on her own, and (d) choose family over work.

Acknowledgments

This manuscript began as a compilation of individual papers presented at the 2014 National Communication Association Convention; the first author utilized the papers to create one overall manuscript and then worked closely with the second author to finalize the manuscript that was then revisited by all authors across several stages. The authors would like to thank Sandra Faulkner, Beth Suter, and the reviewers of the Special Issue on Critical Family Communication for the Journal of Family Communication, all of whom provided substantive critiques for enhancing the quality of this manuscript.

Notes

¹ Although we use the term “working mother,” we must note Johnson’s (2001) critical review of this very term. She illustrates that because there is no parallel of working father, the assumption is that fathers work and the “contextual linking of the adjective working to mothers also has an exclusive meaning that is essential to the paradox. The term as used implies that when mothers are employed, their role as mothers weakens or diminishes” (p. 22). Furthermore, she articulates the socioeconomic class and race arguments included in our article—that some women do not have a “choice” to opt to be mothers or “working mothers.”

² Martha Stewart is an American businesswoman, writer, and TV personality; Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia centers on the home and garden industry and includes Martha Stewart Living magazine.