MOTHERING AND CAREGIVING

Defining caregiving and the cultural ideals of mothering.

Our ideals of mothering can be shaped by a culture, just as we are shaped by our children.

The expectations of mothering, arise not purely from biology, as Jia Tolenio, in an article for the New Yorker wrote “the terrain of mothering is not limited to those who give birth to children” words which are affirmed by science, that shows father’s brains and non biological parents brains are also sculpted to through the responsibilites and recipriocity of caregiving.

Mothering and caregiving is an unfolding, rather than a fixed state.

Author of the revolutionary book Matresence Lucy Jones writes on how mothering “is a social institution, that its expectations and conditions have always been invented and reinvented by societies”

Appreciating the dynamic nature of caregiving and its facets that have been wrought more by culture is enabling, allowing us to redefine the wider narrative of mothering and what it means.

H. Coutts.

22.May.2026.

References and Further Reading.

Jones, L. 2023 Matrescence: on the metamorphosis of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. Penguin Books, London

Tolentino J, May 2022, ‘Can Motherhood Be a Mode of Rebellion?’ The Newyorker, cited online feb 2023, Accessed online https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-motherhood-be-a-mode-of-rebellion