Examining ‘Good’ Mothering and Value Transmission: How British-Born South-Asian Mothers Seek Generational Change

Abstract

Sociological literature has begun to examine how mothers occupying non-normative positions negotiate the transmission of cultural capital and habitus, and how the norms of good mothering shape this process. However, less is known about second-generation mothers’ experiences, despite evidence of changing gender relations within ethnic minority communities. Drawing on interviews with British-born South-Asian mothers who held upwardly mobile aspirations, we highlight several forms of departure from intensive, middle-class mothering. Informants face additional responsibilities for transmitting cultural and religious capital, pursuing the ideal of the child as ‘skilled cultural navigator’, enabling their children to negotiate hybridised identities. They reinterpret the norms of intensive mothering, pushing against key tropes including expert-dependence, self-sacrifice and overprotection. These findings extend knowledge of the mother’s role in creating a reflexive habitus, by showing how second-generation mothers socialise their children with reflexively chosen cultural and religious practices, based on egalitarian gender norms.