Mis(sed) Conceptions: Motherhood Through the Lens of Involuntary Childlessness

ABSTRACT

The present study was designed to examine sociocultural and relational predictors of fertility-specific distress in the experience of involuntary childlessness. A hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to examine whether gender self-confidence, relational quality, feminist perspectives, and traditional mothering values predict fertility-related distress. Analyses revealed that higher traditional mothering values and lower relational quality predicted higher levels of fertility-related distress. Younger age and lower income also predicted higher distress. Placing women's reproductive struggles in a sociocultural context may help to increase women's sense of agency and authenticity in negotiating their own perceptions of motherhood as they make reproductive decisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Involuntary childlessness
• infertility
• reproductive barriers
• fertility-related distress
• relational quality
• reproductive justice
• gender self-confidence
• motherhood
• patriarchal motherhood
• pronatal ideology

Notes

1 In order to reduce the stigmatizing language often associated with reproductive problems, the term involuntary childlessness is used except when we report the results of studies that used alternative terminology.

2 Please note that more than one outcome could be endorsed.