She's From a `Good Family'

Abstract

In this article, the author explores the performances and practices of motherhood and childhood as they materialize in a private elementary school setting in Ottawa, Canada. The author analyses the ways the ideology of intensive mothering and the intensification of children's lives intersect and inform one another in this setting. She argues that these mutually reinforcing conceptualizations are maintained through surveillance and mother blame that result in narrowing possibilities for the lives of both women and children rather than creating spaces of childhood and motherhood envisaged in a capacious and mutually productive way.