Irati Fernández Pujanak Feminism and maternity: An uncomfortable relationship? carried out an investigation. We ask him if there is a war on the sides: “Speaking on the side seems to me to speak categorically. There is a hegemonic ideology (traditional motherhood) that tells us motherhood in one way or another, and in front of it there are alternative experiences, especially those that drive the feminist movement. I don’t think someone says ‘I mean the ideal of the good mother’ and someone else will think ‘I won’t give priority to raising the child’. I wouldn’t talk about extreme ideologies.” We have tried to follow a model of motherhood, we have said that society is ugly to all mothers, and yes, categorically, that is what can be said, that mothers are always judged.

Feminists also pursue naturalizing ideology

The anthropologist Mari Luz Esteban and Irati Fernández are concerned about the evolution of the disease. The ideal of the good mother is gaining strength; naturalizing or essentialist motherhood has opened the door to it. The ideal of the good mother has been built in the last two centuries, and the model that is being consolidated in the Basque Country during these twenty years is based on it. Several feminist mothers have also internalized it. In the opinion of Mari Luz Esteban, this conservative ideology is very naturalizing and considers social inequalities as natural, such as the distribution of care tasks. By following this code, instead of bringing women and men closer together, it will make them more and more different. Irati Fernández spoke with the mother of several feminists to investigate and knows that “progressive feminists have also fallen into the grip of children’s natural growth.” In her opinion, we must go beyond discussing whether natural growth is good or bad, whether these practices are oppressive or not for the mother.

Good mother

The good mother who sells us the hegemonic ideology is willing to give everything and will not ask or expect anything to come to her. The mother is a mother and will always be there until muera.Este code has a number of social demands, among which the absolute priority of parenting stands out and the fact that being a woman makes you know more about motherhood than men. Specifically, and focusing on the naturalizing model that has gained strength nowadays, the good mother must have natural pregnancies and births, the mother's skin is very important and breastfeeding is preferred, among other things.

Discourse is one thing and practice is another.

Feminism has been very critical of motherhood. Adrienne Rich, poet and essayist, believes that a distinction must be made between institutional motherhood and practices. To the extent that the traditional model of motherhood becomes an institution, and as a patriarchal, it must be criticized and dismantled. On the other hand, we have very varied maternal experiences. It's not the same thing to talk about mothers in Western Europe as in Africa. It's not the same for one social class as it is for another. Something similar says Esteban in Hik Hasi magazine: “We have to bear in mind that motherhood is a very varied experience, and we tend to homogenize it. We have to look at the speeches, the ideologies, but depending on social class, age, feminist or non-feminist ideology, training... there will be different practices”.

Ideologies are not the same as practices, but ideologies influence mothers' daily lives, influence the decision to follow one model or another, and society strongly criticizes mothers based on these weightings. And all mothers are judged by society, because they cling to affective parenting and sleep with the child, who breastfeeding the child at any time and anywhere. And to the mother who's been looking for alternative paths by facing the hegemonic code, because on Fridays she's going to have dinner with her friends, leaving the child in her father's arms and taking her to the nursery for four months. The judgments make “guilty”. Today, we have a group of mothers who feel guilty.

Irati Fernández tells us the reflection of Adrienne Rich that we have just explained and Fernández makes the following reflection: “Feminist theory has traditionally criticized motherhood as an oppressor for women, but perhaps there has been a kind of vacuum to reflect on how to construct motherhood differently. The feminists who have participated in the study have put on the table the lack of reflection on this topic. It is clear that the traditional approach must be criticised, but are we talking about alternatives?”

Tight mothers

Parents do not feel guilty, says Esteban: “A mother is still being demanded of what a parent is not asked for. We have tremendous demands on mothers. Guilt is widespread in women, but in men it is not. In society, there's a lot of pressure on mothers. It's not just the media pressure, or the medical-scientific discourse... The pressure from those around us is high. Any mother gives advice.”

Feminist mothers also feel guilty. Internal tensions are created between feminist identity and motherhood. These conflicts are evident in Fernández’s research with feminists. The report analyses heterosexual couples and observes how the egalitarian pact they have built between men and women is shaken, even breaking the pact. Because it is not the same to live in equality when there are no children, when motherhood and paternity come into play. The gender system is reinforced through motherhood and imbalances occur in care tasks, domestic tasks, the way to occupy or not time and space. In the first year of life, the mothers who participated in the research recognized that they did not realize that the pact with their partner was about to explode. After two years in which the child achieves a sufficient capacity to cope on its own it is no coincidence, women begin to use strategies to alleviate the imbalances between father and mother. “Children start to think after a year, where is that man, who told me that he would take care of this and that?” They admit they've jumped into the trap. They want to be a militant feminist forever, they believe that their principles will be maintained, and then they don’t.” In the opinion of Fernández, feminism contributes to the awareness of the inequalities of the gender system and, once given the situation, strategies must be put in place to face it.

Irati Fernández and Mari Luz Esteban are clear that the hegemonic ideology of the good mother, through the naturalization of motherhood, is pressuring the mothers of today. For his part, Nahia Alkorta, who has decided to practice attachment rearing (see table below), tells the burden of the mothers who have made that decision. In his view, two sides have been set up around motherhood which are fighting each other. The two sides lose.