The Identity Work and Health of Intensive Motherhood

Authors

  • M Paltineau EHESS: l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/hcs.2012.101

Abstract

The French government strictly frames the health of mothers, establishing specific protocols of maternal healthcare during pregnancy and childbirth, as well as for baby care.

Intensive mothers seek to free themselves from a state controlled health care system, and seek to undertake their own therapeutic of pregnancy on the fringes of standardized procedures. Their behaviors enable them to operate an identity work as mothers, and as intensive mothers in particular. These women, use health as a tool to construct their identity as an individual, and, likewise, as part of a couple and a group.

But what characterizes the health choices of intensive mothers and what are the hallmarks to intensive motherhood? How is a specific parental identity formed? And how, moreover, do more natural health behaviors enable intensive parents to assert themselves as individuals within an everchanging society?

 

Author Biography

M Paltineau, EHESS: l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales

Researcher with CADIS: Centre d'Analyse et d'Intervention Sociologiques

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Published

2012-11-12

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 1 (2012): Identities

Section

Invited Articles

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