Introduction: The Meaning of Maternal Lies

Lie (verb):

To make an untrue statement with intent to deceive;

to be in a hopeless or defenseless state;

to have a place in relation to something else;

to create a false or misleading impression.[1] 

I learned of my mother’s first marriage while quarantine-cleaning the attic. There, under piles of old insurance records and holiday cards, was a small envelope containing photos of my mom, in a grand white dress, celebrating her marriage to a man I did not know. I never even knew that he existed.

These photos took me by surprise, but I wasn’t floored. I had uncovered another familial secret the previous summer when, while enjoying a bonfire with my cousins in Vermont, one of them let slip that my father had been married before he met my mom to a woman who lived just up the road. At first, I thought he was joking. I ran to my Great Aunt, sure that she would tell me the truth, that she would confirm my cousin’s cruel joke. But she didn’t, and I spent the next thirty minutes lying on my tiny guest bed, wondering about this mystery woman who might have been my mom and contemplating the reasons why my dad never told me about her.

So, by the time I found my mother’s wedding pictures, I was over the whole shock-and-awe betrayal act. I was curious, however. You see, I never cared about these previous marriages-turned-divorces themselves. I cared about the lies. I felt hurt that my parents didn’t see their pasts as pertinent to my life, that they thought I didn’t need to know about these marriages. But I was also mad at myself, because I had never bothered to ask. I never took the time to learn about my parents before they were parents. To be frank, I never cared.

You might be wondering why I am telling you about my family’s dirty little secrets. Why am I painting you a picture of my anything-but-perfect family? The truth is that until I embarked on this year-long project, I had never considered the fact that my parents’ pasts don’t actually concern me at all.

When I asked my dad why he did not tell me about his first marriage, he simply told me that it is ancient history and that he started a new life when I was born. When I asked my mom, she said she thought I knew, that she assumed I had overheard her talking to another mother about it when I was a child. She proceeded to tell me about her first husband, who, as it turns out, wasn’t a nice guy. I will not relay what my mother told me about her first marriage, as that is her story to tell and not mine, but the tale she told was not a happy one. And I realized, after she shared these painful memories with me, that they did not make me feel better; in fact, I felt worse. I had made my mother relive a painful period of her life simply because, as her daughter, I felt I had a right to know. I was wrong.

…

It is a long-held belief in Western culture that mothers must give all of themselves to their children. They should be open and transparent, sacrificial and selfless. They should neither hate nor hit their children, and they certainly should not mislead them or keep secrets from them. We have been conditioned to believe that mothers love at all times, that motherhood comes easily to all women, and that all women want to be mothers, even though we know this is not the case. Mothers do abuse, abandon, and lie to their children. We also know that many women do not want to be mothers even after they give birth. Still, we continue to circulate a picture of motherhood that we know to be inaccurate and unattainable. 

As Jodi Vandenberg-Daves details in her book Modern Motherhood: An American History, our modern understanding of maternal instinct and sacrifice can be traced back to the late eighteenth century and the Enlightenment in America. During this time, the term “republican motherhood” emerged, referring to the role of white mothers in raising “virtuous sons” who would continue to strengthen America’s burgeoning governmental system and political philosophy.[2] At that time, white women were also flocking to the Protestant religion, a shift which helped to establish them as morally superior to their male counterparts and thus better equipped for childrearing. As Vandenberg-Daves writes, “Morally speaking, it was men who needed a feminine influence, not the other way around.”[3] By the end of the nineteenth century, the belief that white mothers were morally superior to men was widely adopted, and this common assumption granted those women a certain degree of influence which they used to demand access to education and advocate for social reform. Yet, this assumption also further confined women to the domestic sphere by communicating that white women alone were responsible for children’s political, spiritual, and moral development. In other words, having and raising children was a woman’s most important job. This belief was cemented with the advancement of science and medicine in the early 1900s, which spurred a renewed fixation not only on the female mind and soul, but on the female body. Vandenberg-Daves writes: “Women’s bodies were defined by motherhood, and these medical ideas bolstered the ‘motherhood mandate’ and the emphasis on motherhood as women’s major contribution to society.”[4] Though white women in this period gained some autonomy when it came to getting pregnant and having children, the overriding expectation was that eventually they would get married and make babies — ideally more than one. Still, white middle and upper class women maintained markedly more control over their maternal experience than enslaved women who “virtually had no rights to protect and nurture their children.”[5] Some activists, such as Harriet Jacobs, employed the language of moral motherhood to argue that slavery disrupted “the sacred mother-child bond.”[6] Though this rhetorical method successfully generated empathy in some white mothers, it alone could not eliminate the racist systems that sought to diminish the black family unit. Even after slavery, black mothers could not afford to stay home with their children like their white privileged counterparts, and thus could not adhere to the “moral motherhood” code. In other words, slavery and structural inequalities put black women in a position where they could never be “good” mothers as conceptualized by a white, patriarchal society.

A clear demarcation between “good” and “bad” mothers emerged in the 1900s, with good mothers defined not only as virtuous but also educated, observational, and deferential to the advice of so-called medical experts. No longer could mothers rely on morals and instinct alone; in fact, some scientists came to view maternal instinct as inherently dangerous — an obvious shift from the Enlightenment conception motherhood. Rather, twentieth-century mothers were expected to bolster their natural acumen with scientific research. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1873, wrote, “Ignorance will not be a sufficient excuse for our mistakes in this day when so much is written on child-nature, child-culture, and child-training.”[7] This statement reveals how rather than making a mother’s life easier, the age of modernization and technological innovation placed additional pressure on mothers to raise healthy and smart children. If a woman’s maternal instinct could not be trusted, then it was her job to educate herself and anticipate her child’s needs from a medical and psychological perspective. In short, even the “modern” mother was expected to devote all her time and energy to the betterment of her child through the practice of “scientific motherhood.” Despite this pressure and an uptick in restrictive political and economic policies in the pre-WWII era, many women managed to adapt to society’s ever-changing expectations and found joy in motherhood. The female commitment to motherhood that defined the mid-twentieth century would eventually pose a challenge for white feminist activists in the 1960s and 1970s who advocated for educational and economic opportunities that extended beyond the confines of motherhood.

For black women, who remained largely excluded from white feminist movements, activism was a necessary component of caring for their children. Recognizing that their ability to raise happy and healthy children hinged on government support, black mothers voiced their opinions on a wide range of issues including the environment, education, and housing. For some black women and other women of color, motherhood gave them a voice and empowered them to participate in politics. This link between motherhood and empowerment contradicted the claims of many Second Wave feminists that “motherhood [was] a very problematic piece of the pedestal on which the unliberated American woman was placed.”[8] This assertion, however, has been challenged in recent years as more scholars devote their attention to motherhood as site of autonomy rather than oppression. For example, academic texts such as Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas’s Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage (2005) and Elaine Bell Kaplan’s Not Our Kind of Girl: Unraveling the Myths of Black Teenage Motherhood (1997) examine the ways in which motherhood functions as a source of power for poor and marginalized mothers. Summarizing Edin and Kefalas’s work, Samira Kawash writes, “For poor women with few prospects, motherhood is perceived not as an unwanted burden but as way to experience joy, value, and achievement… becoming a mother enhances perceptions of women’s maturity and gains them respect and esteem in their communities.”[9] Moreover, the past twenty years have seen the rise of more mothers’ rights organizations, such as Mothers & More and the Mothers Movement Online, and the normalized link between motherhood and activism. Still, it is important to note that even as white women are increasingly embracing maternal activism, their concerns are far removed from the everyday stressors of BIPOC mothers.[10] As Kawash outlines, “The concerns with work and childcare that characterize the most visible advocacy groups are the traditional concerns of white middle-class women. Women of color have organized mothers’ groups to focus on issues that are quite different: gun violence in urban communities, public schooling, welfare reform, and poverty.”[11] For further examples of modern discrepancies in maternal concerns, we need only to look at the effects that the issues of this past year — the coronavirus pandemic, police brutality, housing discrimination, and unemployment — have had on black communities. Though all parents and children have suffered from the transition to remote learning and the dual challenge of parenting while working from home, black children, particularly black girls, have received harsher punishments from educators, including “virtual suspensions.”[12] Meanwhile, in the wake of the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Daunte Wright and the murders of six Asian women in Atlanta, GA by Robert Long, mothers of color have had to take care of their mental health while talking to their children about these very real threats of violence and systemic racism. These issues reveal how even fifty years after the peak of the Second Wave feminist movement, the gap between white and BIPOC mothers continues to widen when it comes to economic opportunities, health and safety, and emotional support; for this reason, BIPOC mothers continue to bear the brunt of the “bad” mother label despite their activism and relentless defense of their children.

Even as we continue to circulate harmful myths regarding the institution of motherhood, our current society is equally fascinated with mothers who appear to rebel against or exist outside this institution. Thanks to social media, it is easier than ever not only to witness alternative parenting methods, but to also publish derogatory comments about any methods with which we disagree. Public personas whose job requires an active online presence are especially at risk of being labeled a “bad mom.” Talking to the Today Show in February 2020, model and author Chrissy Teigen shared that she often receives Instagram comments shaming her for what she wears and what she feeds her kids.[13] People even condemned Teigen for posting pictures on Instagram from the hospital where she underwent a miscarriage. Writer Jason Whitlock took to Twitter to question Teigen’s actions, saying, “Who takes a picture of their deepest pain and then shares it with strangers? Do other women/parents want a reminder of their deepest pain, the loss of a child? Is everything just social media content?.”[14] Apart from being obviously insensitive and crude, comments like Whitlock’s willfully ignore the facts that 1) a mother’s online presence does not accurately depict her care for her children and 2) hospital photos are often the only pictures that mothers who miscarry will have with their children and are thus a necessary part of the grieving process.[15] However, this type of empathetic reflection is easily lost to the instant gratification that comes with online social interactions. Though in many ways Teigen is far removed from the average maternal experience and struggle, the reactions to her online persona reflect the ways in which modern mothers of color are expected to not only parent in certain ways, but also to successfully present those practices in the online sphere to prove their adequacy to intangible critics. Moreover, Teigen’s experiences highlight how vulnerable mothers seeking online empathy and advice might be met with labels and vitriol instead.

To take our societal obsession with the bad mother one step further, we need only to look at the plethora of television specials and online articles that emerge in the aftermath of violent maternal acts, and this is especially true in cases of mothers killing their children. When Casey Anthony was accused of killing her two-year-old daughter Caylee in 2011 (Caylee’s body was never found), so-called journalists were quick to assert her guilt despite the lack of forensic evidence against her and the jury’s not-guilty verdict. The Casey Anthony case, along with the subsequent sensationalized cases of white suburban moms killing their children, also suggests an iniquity inherent in our societal application of the “bad mom” label. In an opinion piece for The Grio in 2011, Imani Perry wrote, “While black women are being jailed for sending their children to good schools, white women who murder children are being let off.”[16] She continued to argue that what happened to Caylee was nothing new given that “violence against children happens every day,” and posited that Casey and Caylee’s whiteness was the determining factor in the media’s fascination with the trial. Buzzfeed, too, ran a story in 2018 analyzing the extent to which “murderous mothers” are put on trial not only for the act of killing their children but also for any lifestyle choices and habits which deviate from society’s ideal maternal archetype. The trials of Alice Crimmins, Patsy Ramsey, Darlie Routier, etc. are all cases in which “legal questions about guilt or reasonable doubt were successfully reframed by the prosecution as questions about whether [the defendant] was a “good” or “bad” mother, through a sexist character assassination.”[17] Whether these women were guilty or not, their cases illuminate the ways in which our simultaneous obsession with and disdain for “bad” mothers has tangible systematic consequences. Assigning an individual the label of “bad mother” allows us to ignore what Adrienne Rich calls the “stresses” or “connecting fibers” of the “invisible institution” of motherhood. Some examples of these connecting fibers include: “the laws regulating contraception and abortion,” “the absence of social benefits for mothers,” “the inadequacy of childcare facilities in most parts of the world,” “the unequal pay women receive,” etc.[18] All these factors encompass what Rich describes as “the darkness of maternity,” and “bad” mothers are the scapegoats around which “this darkness of maternity is allowed to swirl.” Yet, what Rich really wants us to understand is that the line between good and bad mothers is not as solid as we want to believe it is. She writes, “If we could look into [mothers’] fantasies — their daydreams and imaginary experiences — we would see the embodiment of rage, of tragedy, of the overcharged energy of love, of inventive desperation, we would see the machinery of institutional violence wrenching at the experience of motherhood.”[19] Though not all mothers harm their children, Rich argues many mothers struggle with violent or destructive thoughts because of the ways in which motherhood as an institution has been used to oppress women. Michelle Oberman and Cheryl Meyer found this to be true when they interviewed forty women who killed their children for their book When Mothers Kill: Interviews from Prison. This understanding that no clear binary exists between “good” and “bad” mothers can lead us to elevate the maternal identity and fight for the material and non-material support that all mothers need. 

This thesis is concerned with a particular type of “bad” mother, that is the mother who lies to her children. The trope of the lying mother transcends genres, though it recently has found its home in mystery novels and journey narratives. Notable modern examples include Maggie O’Farrell’s The Hand That First Held Mine (2009), Amy Meyerson’s The Bookshop of Yesterdays (2018), and Brit Bennett’s The Mothers (2016), among many others. The popularity of these books transcends the literary realm, however. Of the four books discussed in this thesis, two of them — Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies (2014) and Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere (2017) — have made their way to our television screens. Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half (2020) is also set to have its own stint on HBO. Though the fourth book of this thesis, Lisa Ko’s The Leavers (2017), has not yet attracted a film or television deal, I would not be surprised if it, too, is picked up soon given the praise it has received from critics and readers alike.

Clearly, lying mothers are having a cultural moment, and the question at the heart of this thesis is why that is the case. Why are books that feature maternal lies flying off the shelves and being turned into binge-worthy network series? And, perhaps an even greater question is why are authors continuing to find inspiration in this trope? Though there is no simple explanation for this phenomenon, it is my belief that we consume these novels because they reveal important truths regarding the ways we treat mothers and their children. Novels like Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere, The Leavers, and The Vanishing Half force us to abandon our preconceived notions of good and bad mothers in lieu of emotionally complex characters with nuanced motives; we must replace our antiquated moral code, which tells us that lying is always unethical, with one that conceives lies as potentially ethical acts in certain circumstances. None of the mothers discussed in this thesis lie impulsively; though some mothers, like Mia and Stella, lie intentionally, their secrets are not spontaneous or unprompted. Rather most moms, like most individuals, lie with purpose. They lie to protect themselves and their children from physical or psychological pain, to avoid confronting traumatic memories, to start over and fashion new identities, to resist the institution of motherhood, or simply because they do not see a reason to tell the full truth. In any case, lying — like other seemingly “unethical” acts — is a response to something. For example, Oberman and Meyer understand infanticide as a “response to the societal construction of and constraints upon motherhood” and “a reflection of the norms governing motherhood.”[20]

While Oberman and Meyer acknowledge that many women who commit filicide suffer from mental illness, they did not find many such women at the prison where they conducted their research, the Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW).[21] Instead, they found other “common threads” across their subjects’ lives such as “domestic abuse, limited opportunity, and isolation and lack of social support.”[22] For Kawash, these findings paint, “a saddening portrait both of human frailty and of the failure of a society to meet these women’s needs as mothers and as human beings.”[23] Though infanticide is a more extreme and controversial act than lying, recognizing that such an act is rooted in more than mental health opens the door to understanding other “bad” acts as manifestations of trauma, stress, isolation, etc. Rather than thinking of lying as another supposed crime against motherhood, this thesis understands any form of lying as a natural and necessary aspect of a mother’s duty to herself and her children. Simply put, at a time when many mothers still lack sufficient support, lies big and small become a survival strategy which mothers employ to navigate and engage with the world around them.

Because there is no single reason why mothers lie, and because the topic of maternal lies has not been heavily explored until now, I cannot rely solely on one field of study to bolster my argument; rather, I borrow from trauma, feminist, maternal, and critical race theories to argue that understanding the roots of lies — oppressive structures, interpersonal relationships, or mental/emotional conditions — is more constructive than arguing for the universal unethicality of lying, especially when it comes to humanizing and empathizing with mothers. I reference a wide range of texts including book reviews, trial coverage, psychological surveys, academic essays, and personal reflections to emphasize how the societal fixation with mothers who lie (more broadly bad mothers) pervades the literary and media realms. The framework through which I view these texts incorporates the views of many maternal studies scholars, particularly those of Adrienne Rich, Jacqueline Rose, and Sarah Ruddick, though I also rely heavily on the works of Patricia Hill Collins and Susan Brison, among others. Together, these brave and brilliant women help inform my understanding of the simultaneously expansive yet marginal space that mothers occupy in modern society and the ways in which our cultural antipathy for mothers trickles from the top (governments and policymakers) to the bottom (the home and workplace).

In Of Woman Born, Rich explains the burden that the institution of motherhood places on women by expecting them to love at all times, possess an inherent maternal instinct, and willingly suffer for the sake of children. Unable to meet such impossible standards, “all mothers [are found] more or less guilty of failing their children.”[24] Even children find their mothers guilty because it is easier to blame their mothers for their perceived failings than the oppressive institution of motherhood itself. Daughters, especially, may come to resent their mothers for raising them within that patriarchal institution despite their inability to circumvent it. Rich writes, “Few women growing up in a patriarchal institution can feel mothered enough; the power of mothers, whatever their love for us and their struggles on our behalf, is too restricted.”[25] The resentment comes when the child, from watching her mother, realizes her options are limited under patriarchy; yet again, the mother has failed her child. Jacqueline Rose similarly discusses our societal disdain for mothers in her book Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty when she writes, “motherhood is the place where we lodge, or rather bury, the reality of our own conflicts” (1).[26] Rose argues that by expecting mothers to silently endure the cruel world around them, we are not only causing immense pain but we are also blinding ourselves to the iniquities and cruelties that come with living; in other words, we expect mothers to endure all that is wrong with the world — to love without protest — so that we don’t have to face those wrong ourselves. Mothers who fail or refuse to hide their children from the world quickly earn the “bad mother” badge, but those who lie, intentionally or unintentionally, to protect their children from the same cruel world are not safe from scrutiny either. Thus, Rich and Rose help us see the problem of universally labeling lies (or any non-normative maternal action) as morally wrong when they might be one of the only resources available to mothers attempting to resist, appease, or protect themselves and their children from a society that would rather scapegoat individuals for their failures than provide enough support to ensure those “failures” never happen in the first place.

Though none of these scholars takes up maternal lies as their foremost concern, many of them address secrecy/privacy/dishonesty as intrinsic to, and exemplary of, the complex philosophical and psychological work that mothers carry out daily. Ruddick, for example, includes lies in a list of nonviolent behaviors which mothers perform daily to “get their way,” whether that is with their children, landlords, spouses, teachers, etc.[27] As caretakers who maintain a position of power over their children, mothers must decide daily what “hurts, hates, impatience, and lying are damaging and what strategies are effective and consonant with safety, development, and conscientiousness.” [28] According to Ruddick, lies are only violent insofar as they inflict damage, which means a mother must determine whether the lies she tells will affect her child’s development and consciousness in the long run (in other words, she must predict the future effects of her present decisions). Mothers of color undergo this philosophical reasoning daily when teaching their children how to navigate oppression. Patricia Hill Collins discusses in Black Feminist Thought how black mothers find balance between teaching their children how to survive with wanting them to transcend the systems of power that aim to subjugate them. She writes, “African-American mothers place a strong emphasis on protection, either by trying to shield their [children] as long as possible from the penalties attached to their derogated status or by teaching them skills of independence and self-reliance so that they will be able to protect themselves.”[29] At times, these “protections” may come at the expense of affection, though Collins found that most black children understood their mothers’ actions to be rooted in a deep love and concern for their well-being.[30] Naturally, there are times when all mothers’ internal negotiations do not achieve their intended outcomes; throughout this thesis, we will meet mothers who see their lies as necessary and protective in the moment only to realize years later that these lies bred resentment and confusion in their children. Yet, it is important to acknowledge what violent actions mothers avoid when they choose what they perceive to be the nonviolent action of lying; abandoning, physically harming, yelling, and manipulating their children are arguably more violent actions than lying. Moreover, recognizing the emotional and mental labor involved in daily attempts at nonviolence is a critical step to understanding why mothers do what they do. This understanding then hopefully breeds empathy, which can be used to advocate for increased protections, resources, and concern for mothers at macro and micro levels.

I employ the word “lie” consciously throughout this thesis in an attempt to strip the word of its judgmental overtones and residency within the realm of “badness” or immorality. In the first chapter, “When A Lie Is Not A Lie,” I also incorporate the terms “secrecy” and “withholdings” to emphasize that the mothers in Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere, and The Leavers do not intentionally lie to their children. They do not “make untrue statement[s] with intent to deceive” or “create false or misleading impression[s],” to borrow from Merriam-Webster’s definitions of the term. Rather, as trauma survivors, the women discussed in this chapter — Celeste, Jane, Elena, Bebe, and Polly — strongly relate to another one of Webster’s definitions of lying, that is “to be in a hopeless or defenseless state,” because they are all survivors of traumatic events. In the aftermath of these events, which range from sexual violence to volatile pregnancy to deportation, these women’s’ memory and self-perception are utterly distorted. Unable to fully process or confront what has happened to them, these women unintentionally keep secrets from and close themselves off to their children. I argue that casting blanket judgement on these women for their “lies,” i.e. responses to trauma, only reinforces the good/bad mother divide by blaming women for circumstances beyond their control. Thus, discussing lies in relation to trauma forces us to infuse the term with empathy and acknowledge that the institution of motherhood unfairly expects mothers to surrender all of themselves to their children — an expectation that further fractures the post-traumatic “self” rather than mends it.

The second chapter, “Lying on Purpose,” explores the complication of treating lies with empathy when mothers employ them intentionally, even destructively. The mothers discussed in this chapter — Mia from Little Fires Everywhere and Stella from The Vanishing Half — leave their pasts and families behind to construct new identities prior to giving birth to their daughters. Importantly, these mothers differ from the trauma survivors in the first chapter in that they are in no way itching to tell their stories or looking for empathetic witnesses. If it were up to them, Mia and Stella would never have a confessional moment with a loved one in which they unpack their reasons and motivations for deceiving them.[31] Still, Mia’s and Stella’s lies are not random but rather are responses to hardship and structural inequalities such as poverty, legal trouble, systematic racism, and even trauma (though these women do not lie in response to trauma in the same way that Jane, Celeste, Elena, Bebe, and Polly do). More than anything, however, Mia and Stella lie not because they want to cause harm, but because they want to live freely and protect themselves and their daughters. In this way, they too are victims of the institution of motherhood. As such, the goal of this chapter is not to excuse Mia’s and Stella’s choices — which cause real harm — but to show that their choices were not made easily. As with the women discussed in the first chapter, emphasizing the whys behind Mia’s and Stella’s lies opens our eyes to the ways that society attempts to strip marginalized women of their maternal identities.

In the foreword to Of Woman Born, Rich writes, “All human life on the planet is born of woman.”[32] Despite this fact, that motherhood affects us all, our society continues to confine, demean, and silence mothers. We are especially quick to ridicule the actions of BIPOC, poor, single, and gay women based on their inability and/or refusal to conform with heteronormative and patriarchal views of motherhood. In general, we are more willing to judge every little choice a mother makes rather than pause and reflect on the reasons why she’s making those choices in the first place. It is my hope that through its investigation of just one maternal action, lying, this thesis can demonstrate that the whys matter more than the lies themselves. The mothers discussed throughout this thesis are far from perfect; their lies cause harm and hurt. But it is important to understand that mothers hurt too. They experience sexual assault, poverty, racism, governmental neglect, unsolicited advice, and more; many may not even have wanted to mother in the first place. This thesis analyzes all these aspects of the maternal experience to prove that mothers are more than a label; they are humans. Acknowledging and sitting with this fact is simply the first step in understanding, at least superficially, the maternal condition. With this understanding we can work toward eliminating the whys behind maternal lies until maybe, just maybe, mothers no longer feel like they need to lie at all.

[1] “Lie.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lie. Accessed 20 Jan. 2021.

[2] Vandenberg-Daves, Jodi. Modern Motherhood: An American History. Rutgers University Press, 2014. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqb20. Accessed 6 Jan. 2021, pp. 17-18.

[3] Ibid, p. 18.

[4] Ibid, p.73. The term “motherhood mandate” does not refer to a specific law or policy but the societal assumption that women should have children, ideally more than one, and raise them well.

[5] Modern Motherhood, p. 48.

[6] Ibid, p. 45.

[7] Ibid, p. 78.

[8] Ibid, p. 223.

[9] Kawash, Samira. “New Directions in Motherhood Studies.” Signs, vol. 36, no. 4, 2011, pp. 969–1003. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/658637. Accessed 21 Apr. 2021, p. 979.

[10] BIPOC stands for black, indigenous, and people of color.

[11] “New Directions in Motherhood Studies.”

[12] Klein, Rebecca. “The New School Suspension: Blocked from Online Classrooms.” HuffPost, 11 August 2020. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/school-discipline-remote-learning_n_5f329829c5b64cc99fde4d64?campaign_id=10&emc=edit_gn_20210228&instance_id=27586&nl=in-her-words&regi_id=96804558&segment_id=52522&te=1&user_id=258e8d6ad60987de2d7fe6cd9166d0da. Accessed April 21, 2021. See also Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girl’s Childhood by Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Blake and Thalia González, https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-inequality-center/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2017/08/girlhood-interrupted.pdf?campaign_id=10&emc=edit_gn_20210228&instance_id=27586&nl=in-her-words&regi_id=96804558&segment_id=52522&te=1&user_id=258e8d6ad60987de2d7fe6cd9166d0da.

[13] Abrahamson, Rachel Paula. “Chrissy Teigen reveals the No.1 reason she gets mom-shamed,” TODAY, 20 Feb. 2020, https://www.today.com/parents/chrissy-teigen-gets-mom-shamed-online-how-she-feeds-kids-t174362. Accessed Jan. 13, 2020.

[14] Whitlock, Jason. “I don't understand this or social media. Who takes a picture of their deepest pain and then shares it with strangers? Do other women/parents want a reminder of their deepest pain, the loss of a child? Is everything just social media content? Help me understand.” Twitter, 1 October 2020, 8:23 a.m., https://twitter.com/WhitlockJason/status/1311643018173263872.

[15] Abrahamson, Rachel Paula. “Why do people say such mean things about miscarriage and pregnancy loss?” TODAY, 1 Oct. 2020, https://www.today.com/parents/chrissy-teigen-pregnancy-loss-why-are-people-so-mean-t193054. Accessed Jan. 13, 2020.

[16] Perry, Imani. “Would Casey Anthony be found guilty if she were black?” The Grio, 6 July 2011, https://thegrio.com/2011/07/06/if-casey-anthony-was-black-would-the-verdict-be-different/. Accessed Jan. 13, 2020.

[17] Dominguez, Alessa. “Why Are We Obsessed With Mothers Accused of Murder?” Buzzfeed, 27 June 2018, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alessadominguez/casey-anthony-darlie-routier-true-crime-moms. Accessed Jan. 15, 2021.

[18] Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. W.W. Norton & Company, 1995, p. 276-277.

[19] Of Woman Born, p. 280.

[20] Oberman, Michelle, et al. Mothers Who Kill Their Children: Understanding the Acts of Moms from Susan Smith to the Prom Mom, New York University Press, 2001. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/georgetown/detail.action?docID=2081680. Accessed January 5, 2021, p. 10.

[21] Meyer, Cheryl L., and Michelle Oberman. When Mothers Kill : Interviews from Prison, New York University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.georgetown.edu/lib/georgetown/detail.action?docID=865729, pp. 4-5.

[22] “New Directions in Motherhood Studies, p. 984.

[23] “New Directions in Motherhood Studies,” p. 984.

[24] Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. W.W. Norton & Company, 1995, p. 223.

[25] Of Woman Born, p. 243.

[26] Rose, Jacqueline. Mothers: Essays on Love and Cruelty. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.

[27] Ruddick, Sara. Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace. Beacon Press, 1995, p. 165.

[28] Maternal Thinking, p. 168.

[29] Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Vol. Rev. 10th anniversary ed., Routledge, 2000, p. 184.

[30] Ibid, p. 187.

[31] If is of course the operative word here because, as this second chapter will prove, Mia and Stella are not actually in control of their own narratives.

[32] Of Woman Born, p. 11.