ABSTRACT
Given that women’s social position and motherhood are so commonly equated, it is perhaps obvious that the differenti ation between public and private spheres described in previous chapters implies changes not only for women as homemakers but also as mothers. This apparent expansion in women’s responsibilities has brought with it a steady production of prescriptions which circumscribe the maternal role. This pro duction has been supported both by the development of scientific knowledge of child health and development and by the emergence of social regulatory apparatuses concerned with the well-being of children. These apparatuses, as Donzelot1 suggests, have contributed to the production of the modern family as a site for intervention and the reproduction of dominant ideologies. One consequence of this has been a general tendency to define the role of the mother in terms of assumptions about children’s needs and propensities.
