Search

In this paper, we explore meanings of adulthood and youthfulness in relation to notions of life course, good motherhood, and girlhood among young mothers in Sweden. Our analysis was informed by a discursive psychological approach and was based on interview conversations with 17 mothers who were 13–25 years old at the birth of their first child. In our analysis, we identified two repertoires – the ‘social age’ repertoire and the ‘chronological age’ repertoire. The interviewees invoked the two repertoires to position themselves and others as either responsible adult mothers or as responsible youthful mothers. Meanings of adulthood are central within the idea of motherhood, and by deviating from their expected life course young mothers are often understood as non-adults who are incapable of fulfilling the developmental task of motherhood. Our work suggests that the maternal identity work of young mothers takes place within discourses of both adulthood and youthfulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the western understanding of a nuclear family and the idea of good motherhood, the need for grandparental support is commonly viewed as an expression of deficient motherhood. Young mothers are often seen as incapable of maternal practices and as being in need of support from their extended family. An alternative view is that too much support might result in the grandmothers taking on the role of mother. This paper explores research around the ambivalent meanings of grandparental support in young Swedish mothers’ narratives. In this research, we identified three repertoires: inhibiting, being-there-no-matter-what and responsibility. Mothers who were following their expected life course achieved a subject position as a “real mother” within a functioning nuclear family. Mothers deviating from their expected life course achieved a subject position as either a “mother in becoming” with a functional and supportive extended family or as a “real mother” with a dysfunctional and non-supportive extended family. In the case of young mothers who are seen as insufficient, motherhood might become negotiable and fluid between the biological mother and the young mother’s own mother. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]