Why an Archaeology of Mothering?

For my five-year-old daughter, “family” is still a sacred trinity of “mommy,” “daddy,” and “baby.” It will not be long until her social contacts lead her to encounter other kinds of loving, nurturing families. With artificial insemination, DNA testing, surrogate mothers, remarriages, and adoption now common, and cloning seemingly on the horizon, the ways in which families become constructed will become more diverse. As the legal system attempts to sort out who is responsible for paying support for whom and who is a parent, contemporary society is forcefully confronted with the socially constructed nature of the role “parent” (Strathern 1992; Ragone´ and Twine 2000; Chase and Rogers 2001).