Making valuable mothers in Finland: Assessing parenthood in publicly provided maternity healthcare

Abstract

This article discusses the e/valuation of motherhood in the assessment practices of maternity healthcare provided by the welfare state. It argues that while middle-class women can position themselves more easily than working-class women as neoliberal, reflexive and self-responsible client-consumers, and can have their family values reflected back to them by maternity nurses, there is also room for values and subjects of value beyond the dominant symbolic of parenthood. The study draws on ethnographic material from four clinics in Finland. Assessment encounters are considered as sites where mothers-to-be are e/valuated on the basis of classificatory struggle. The analysis shows that in concert with the emphasis of Nordic policy on social equality, a recently introduced standardised numerical risk assessment enables moral judgements on the basis of seemingly class-neutral, scientific, statistics-based knowledge. The nurses integrate this risk assessment into more intuitive, practice-oriented and experience-based assessments of problems. Maternal subjects emerge during these practices that might not always fit into the scales of normality in risk assessment, and that fail to perform respectability and responsibility. However, they are not simply blamed for their own shortcomings, but rather practical solutions are sought in teams, and a variety of values may be recognised or at least tolerated.