Sara Moreno and Neus Solé
This essay examines certain linguistic expressions of affect that are present in a thread from Mumsnet, a popular online space for mothers, through a feminist approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The analysis reveals recurrent feelings of anxiety, burnout, and struggle throughout the different narratives presented by maternal figures in their Mumsnet entries.
Chai, Sarah (2021). Pexels.
1. Introduction
Nowadays, parenting is still a controversial topic regarding motherhood and fatherhood roles. The societal perceptions of the role that each member of a family might have to assume have not changed as much as we could think, which dramatically affects the parenthood experience, especially for mothers. As a consequence, many online websites such as Mumsnet have emerged with the objective of sharing women’s preoccupations or concerns and receiving advice from other mothers. Therefore, this essay will attempt to track linguistic expressions of affect, such as depression or overwhelm, used in the narrative of new motherhood by analysing one of the threads in the previously mentioned online site. Furthermore, the feminist approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) that will be employed will evaluate different categories in discourse and unequal gendered expectations as a result of the mental load usually experienced by mothers. In addition, the thread’s comments published on the Mumsnet webpage will be extremely useful in order to observe how the stereotypical discourse of gendered parenthood is still present nowadays and how its roles are distributed in our society.
Each section of this study will reveal different crucial information regarding the topic of motherhood and its effects on women. The theoretical framework will discuss broader implications and previous research that has been conducted concerning men’s and women’s roles in modern-day society and especially in parenthood. The following section of the paper will present the analyzed data that is relevant to this research and how it will be analyzed through a particular perspective and approach. Afterwards, the results will be presented to better understand Mumsnet’s purpose and women’s position within a patriarchal society. Finally, a conclusion will highlight the key concepts that have been discovered with this research. The final part of the paper, the appendix, will include a full reproduction of the Mumsnet’s thread and its respective comments, which altogether have been analyzed for this paper.
2. Theoretical Framework
Parenthood might result in a complex social phenomenon for many individuals due to the new responsibilities that parents are expected to accomplish and the different roles they have to assume. Although some may believe that in modern-day society women and men are closer to equality, an extended list of case studies demonstrate that there is still work to do in order to achieve that goal. Different research studies that have analysed social power abuse, dominance, and equality have concluded that “mothers with male partners still perform about twice as much childcare and housework as their partners” (Cristopher, 2012, p. 74). Moreover, these types of frequent gendered role assumptions are not only represented through actions but also through discursive strategies employed to reproduce social inequality, thus privileging certain groups over others. Also, media portrayals, advertising stereotypes and societal expectations may include instances of discourse reinforcing traditional gender roles and emphasizing women as the ones in charge of household duties and taking care of children. Moreover, the effects of these normalised and unfair expectations from mothering might make women feel pressure and guilt according to Cristopher (2012), which leads to online websites such as Mumsnet, where they feel they can vent and share with the world their experiences while seeking advice for these unequal situations they are in. Therefore, nowadays parenthood still has “a traditionalizing effect and parents’ housework exhibits significant gender deviance neutralization” (Syrda, 2000, p. 794), which can be present throughout the Mumsnet website’s thread, for instance. In addition, it is significant to take into account how in the domain of parenthood “there is nothing inherently fixed about the identities ‘mother’ and ‘father’” (Lazar, 2000, p. 376), which are formed by societal structures and “fixed in and through discourse”. As a consequence, we can see the huge impact that discourse might have in establishing certain rules or beliefs and how these affect individuals or in this case certain groups such as women. For instance, as Mackenzie explains in her research, “the discourse of gendered parenthood can be identified through participants’ repeated adoption of the category ‘mum’, or its variants” (2018, p. 123). As a result, “the evident frustration of some Mumsnet users at being unable to escape gendered subject positions such as the ‘child-centred mother’ is an important sign that the persistence of these dominant discourses is problematic for many female parents” (Mackenzie, 2018, p. 131).
In addition, through the analysis of the several entries that can be found on the selected thread of study, it can be seen that still in modern-day society “gender roles become tied to the dichotomous constructions of [these] two basic societal institutions—men work and women take care of families” (Collins, 1994, p. 46). Therefore, while men can choose if they get involved with family life and domestic chores aside from working, it is expected that women devote themselves to taking care of the house and children (even if that means sacrificing their professional careers). Moreover, Mumsnet’s thread also exemplifies the division of men and women into a public and private sphere dichotomy, thus “separating the family/household from the paid labor market shapes sex-segregated gender roles within the private sphere of the family” (Collins, 1994, p. 46). As a result, the family division into two opposite spheres, “the ‘male’ sphere of economic providing and the ‘female’ sphere of affective nurturing, mainly mothering” (Collins, 1994, p. 46) represent the unfair and segregated society that intends to make only women responsible for family duties.
3. Data and Methods
The data for this essay were selected from an online website called Mumsnet in order to be examined and analyzed through a critical discourse approach is at. The main source of our corpus is a text entry made by a Mumsnet user. The rest of the corpus is formed by eight responses to the initial post (all written by different users) and a second contribution by the original poster. These posts have been chosen because they depict similar points of view and recurring ideas about motherhood, which shows that these are beliefs that real women experience during their journey as mothers. After learning about the impact of discourse in society, this essay will analyze the construction of parenthood discourses by new mothers.
The main idea of the thread on this website on motherhood is about regretting the fact of becoming a mum. The speaker not only explains her current situation at home and how she feels about every task related to housework or her children being unfairly ‘assigned’ to her, but she also comments on how this evokes negative feelings in her, which at the same time makes her feel guilty about having them. Moreover, people in the comments section below the thread seem to agree with her since they make her feel understood and share similar experiences. Also, despite people’s advice on how she could manage the categorization of parenting roles in her family, it will not disappear since society seems to embrace those gendered tasks that are extremely established in several cases. The aspects that this paper will analyze are the voice of these posts (women in its entirety), their recurrent themes (such as anxiety, burnout, struggle, and misunderstanding), and the type of responses to the main source (i.e., women agreeing with the situation, saying words of affirmation, and giving practical advice). Furthermore, it is worth noting that since parenting is a very broad topic, every mother has a different vision and experience of it that is affected by phenomena such as class or race differences. The thread entries only depict a small part of a reality that might not be universal to all mothers. In terms of this paper’s corpus, we are unaware of the users’ background and standard of living, which makes it difficult to present established ideas that are applicable and common to all maternal figures.
4. Results
This section of the paper presents the main findings that we obtained after examining the different forum entries on Mumsnet. First of all, it is important to identify the recurrent themes that are present in the thread. The main idea presented by the original contributor is the fact that she is feeling anxious and unhappy because her son does not have a proper sleep schedule (which even causes her to feel resentment towards him). On top of that, she is also burnt-out because she takes care of the baby’s tasks and the household. Another key idea is the fact that her husband does not understand her struggle and barely does any chores.
The responses to the original contribution are diverse, but there are several ideas amongst them that are recurrent. First of all, there is a sense of agreement between most mothers, as seen in statements such as “This is completely normal”, “I’ve been there”, or “I totally sympathise”. This is a key idea because the fact that these narratives are labeled as common shows that society has already accepted and normalized the dominant discourse of women being expected to struggle when they become mothers. The fact that most of them experience high levels of anxiety and stress should not be perceived as normal; they should be able to prioritize themselves and receive help so the situation at home can change and improve. Nevertheless, the mothers on this thread just perceive the situation as common, which actually leads to passing on the message to generations of future maternal figures which might normalize this belief too. Therefore, this is how this prevalent patriarchal discourse is created.
In addition, the vast majority of mothers on the thread give advice to the original contributor, which actually shows that they understand the struggle and aim to help her because they are aware of how dreadful the experience is. The given recommendations are related to topics such as the dynamic of the couple, as seen in “try and be kind to each other”, “give the baby to the father too because he needs to do his share of work”, and “a change of mindset […] might really help both of you”. These pieces of advice illustrate the resistance against certain dominant roles and discourses that assign tasks such as “main caretaker” to the mother by intending to break the patriarchal mindset and change the dynamics already established. Furthermore, plenty of the advice also consists of practical solutions and alternatives related to childcare that could improve the child’s sleep schedule. Some of these recommendations would be “do you have any caffeine at all? if so try cutting it out”, “i also cut out dairy”, “try some baby massage”, and “feed him a bottle at night […] split feeds”. These suggestions convey the message that the mother is the one that is responsible for her child’s well-being and, consequently, she is expected to handle and solve the situation. Moreover, a few comments also suggest asking a loved one for help. Both of the contributors who posted these messages affirm that their mothers helped them during this process, as seen in “my mum came to stay for a long weekend – she helped with everything (and helped show my dh that he couldn’t just leave everything to me). Do you have a family member or in-law who might help?” and “maybe find a girlfriend you can chat to? Or even your mum – that really helped me xx”. These comments are key because they depict that, while fathers do not get as involved, mothers are always the main caretakers and the ones who end up helping their daughters. Therefore, this shows that the ideology of maternal figures being the ones in charge of taking care of the family is still present and being reproduced nowadays. Meanwhile, the figure of the father assumes another gendered role in parenting throughout the thread, which consists of being the one who brings money to the household and thus being exempt from being another caretaker of both their child and the house. This normalized assumption not only is unfair since mothers also have to go to work but also should not be justified considering that both parents are responsible for caring about household chores and their children.
Moreover, a few comments in regards to the original post have in common the presence of words of affirmation that evoke positive messages such as “you’re not alone”, “you can do it” and “you’ll see the other side soon”. Since the replies on the thread are from other women who have experienced similar situations as mothers, it can be seen how women know what society expects from them. The aforementioned examples show that, since mothers understand these feelings, they are able to support and relate to each other throughout this struggling experience. Therefore, the language employed among women who are victims of societal stereotypes is cooperative and positive, which denotes an encouraging and supportive lexical field accomplished through an assertive speech act since the words describe what each individual believes. Furthermore, the presence of online peer support through a thread with a comments section allows a joint production building on each other’s contributions that create a shared floor and a feeling of solidarity for those who might be struggling with motherhood. The outcome is a shared narrative created by bringing together similar experiences and thoughts concerning the topic of motherhood. Consequently, each member of the Mumsnet community could be able to share their own story, which altogether results in a set of events that are collectively understood and accepted. Therefore, the discourses that are present in shared narratives might help individuals shape their identities and have clearer ideas in regard to one main theme, in this case, motherhood.
In terms of linguistic analysis, there are several occasions throughout the posts in which the mothers use the first-person singular pronoun “I”. They normally use this pronoun to talk about their caretaking methods or their feelings regarding motherhood. Some examples of this circumstance would be: “I’m starting to regret having a DS”, “I’m exhausted”, “I don’t give her enough focused attention”, “I try rocking, shushing, putting down”, or “I can’t leave him”. As affirmed by Mackenzie, “Posts that almost exclusively employ first person singular pronouns […] imply that the female contributors in question have total responsibility for their children” (2018, p. 125). This idea contrasts with the absence of the first-person plural pronoun “we” throughout the Mumsnet posts. This pronoun is only present in one of the comments, i.e., “We found it really hard” and “We were in a right state”, which means that out of all the mothers, only one of them felt like she shared her experience on parenting with her partner.
Furthermore, the vast majority of the words used by women on this forum when expressing their experience of being a mother are adjectives with negative connotations. Some examples would be “It’s making me anxious”, “I’m burnt out”, “I’d had a traumatic birth”, “I found it really stressful”, “you feel so exhausted and helpless”, and “I know it feels horrible”. The narratives presented by the authors of these thread entries barely mention the benefits and happiness that having children supposedly brings them, which depicts that their negative experiences have stolen the spotlight. This also contrasts with the fact that Mumsnet users employ the terms DH (Darling Husband), DS (Darling Son), and DD (Darling Daughter) to refer to their family members. While the adjective darling is used to talk about a person whom you love, mothers on this online forum use it with a sarcastic tone in order to create a contradiction between the expected social role of the nurturing and loving mother and the exhausting and challenging experience that motherhood actually means for women.
5. Conclusion
To conclude, through the feminist approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in regard to this online web page, i.e. Mumsnet, and the impact of this site on women who are experiencing motherhood, it can be seen how language also implies action and establishing concepts in the real world. In other words, the fact that the majority of mothers in the comment section of the forum intended to be supportive by advising on how the original publisher can better accomplish her role as a mother, it is normalized that fatherhood belongs to a public sphere outside all the housework and childcare. Moreover, the assertive speech acts and encouraging and supportive expressions employed by these mothers illustrate the cooperative style they want to embrace in order to make the author of the thread feel understood and accompanied throughout the journey of motherhood. Therefore, discourses on gendered parenthood demonstrate the power that language holds and the impact that it might have in people’s lives through the normalization of certain ideas. Furthermore, this paper aims to unveil and emphasize the importance of identifying, questioning, and challenging the gendered roles and expectations of parenthood that are still present nowadays in specific discourses used by members of our society. Moreover, the narratives presented by mothers will change if responsibilities between spouses start to become equal and additional support is provided to mothers. Consequently, this will also entail that the discourses of parenthood will no longer be based on gendered expectations or feelings of anxiety and struggle experienced by mothers.
References
Christopher, K. (2012). Extensive Mothering: Employed Mothers’ Constructions of the Good Mother. Gender and Society, 26(1), 73–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23212242
Chai, S. (2021). Young working mother cuddling baby and using laptop at home [Photograph]. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-working-mother-cuddling-baby-and-using-laptop-at-home-7282818/
Collins, P. H. (1994). Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing About Motherhood. In E. N. Glenn, G. Chang, & L. R. Forcey (Eds.), Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency (pp. 45-65). Routledge.
Lazar, M. M. (2000). Gender, discourse and semiotics: the politics of parenthood representations. Discourse & Society, 11(3), 373–400. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42888322
Mackenzie, J. (2018). ‘Good mums don’t, apparently, wear make-up’: Negotiating discourses of gendered parenthood in Mumsnet Talk. Gender and Language, 12(1). 114-135. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.31062
Syrda, J. (2023). Gendered Housework: Spousal Relative Income, Parenthood and Traditional Gender Identity Norms. Work, Employment and Society, 37(3), 794-813. https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170211069780
Theicingonthecake et al., (2023, November 21). I am regretting become a mum [Online forum post]. Mumsnet. www.mumsnet.com/talk/parenting/4947362-i-am-regretting-become-a-mum