ABSTRACT
This chapter exposes the ways in which Smith’s story follows traditional patterns of what could be termed overcoming narratives—present from self-help books to films—where a redemptive possibility for a mother defined by precarity is introduced. The ambivalent reading of vulnerability, i.e., the potential to affect and be affected in positive and negative ways alike, can be perfectly illustrated in the experience of motherhood, in which both mother and child create a strong physical and emotional interdependence which opens the maternal body and psyche to harm, yet also has the potential to become a source of resilience and change. In liberal experiences of motherhood, normative commitments are particularly formulated and implemented to regulate what are considered basic human needs and conditions to flourish—which in a first-world, consumerist society can range from organic food and electronic devices to a college education—and not only to address those especially vulnerable or precarious situations for the practice of maternity.
