ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that it is possible to conceptualise the care work enacted by mothers as a deliberate and considered political act that can displace dominant and oppressive ideas about motherhood. Drawing on Sara Ruddick’s theory of maternal practice, mothering is considered as an activity undertaken with specific intention and informed by values as a response to the perceived demands made by raising children. The concept of maternal practice positions mothering as a discursive route and the investigation of women’s intentions and values can support the formulation of their maternal practice. The chapter considers how the idea of maternal practice has broad import for social work practitioners working with women in caretaking roles. Working with mothers to identify maternal practice is better able to reveal what it is women want, why they want it and what they are doing to achieve it. Supporting women to identify the discourses they engage with in their everyday mothering can co-create a story of identity that better reflects their experience and speaks to the way they are constructing their preferred identity as mothers. This works towards a more socially just recognition of the motherhood experience.
