Margaret Atwood The Handmaid´s Tale displays a discouraging picture of a patrairchal society where women have little to nothing to say about how they want to live their life. Decresing population rates due to fertility issues make the ability to have children a very important aspect of their society. For this purpose, Handmaids are used as surrogates for high-ranking Commanders and their Wives. This thesis aims to explore how motherhood is portrayed in the novel and analyze these mother/child relationships to see how they affect the protagoists and their status in the patrairchal society of Gilead. Motherhood is explored from a feminist persepctive with the help of theories on motherhood by well-known feminist theorists Nancy Chodorow, Adrienne Rich and Andrea O´Reilly.

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Motherhood is stereotypically considered one of the main characteristics every woman has. It’s congenital, something that naturally belongs to women and that, because of that, represents one of the main and necessary ways to really complete the path of womanhood. You fulfill your being a woman by being a mother. Therefore, if you do not become a mother, you are also seen as only for half woman, pitied or judged as selfish and arid for that.The research has the purpose to analyze how this social conception of motherhood and non- motherhood affects women’s choice to become mothers in Italy. Through qualitative interviewing and a feminist phenomenological perspective, 6 women (both mothers and childless) who are currently living in Italy reported their experience.It was thus feasible to observe how the influence of social conception of motherhood and non- motherhood manifests itself (1), the role played by the so-called “natural instinct” in it (2) and the way in which a reflection on the choice of becoming or not mothers was developed (3). In conclusion, it was also possible to frame how social change can be promoted in this field and recognize the importance that education and learning have in it.

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Section A situates female clinical psychologists with children within the wider socio-historical context of working-mothers. Theoretical and empirical evidence of modernist and post-modernist approaches on the development of the working-mother identity is provided. This is followed by the literature on mothers employed in the caring profession and in psychology. The review highlights the need to further explore the relationship between social, professional and personal for female clinical psychologists with children within a socio-constructionist perspective. Section B investigates the social and professional challenges encountered by female clinical psychologists with children. Clinical psychology is an increasingly female profession, and many clinical psychologists are or will be mothers. Yet, proportionately fewer reach consultant positions (Band 8c and above) compared to their male colleagues. Existing historical professional structures, and traditional societal ideologies about motherhood and employment might be continuously negotiated within broader social positionings of working-mothers. This study aimed to explore the constructions of a sample of clinical psychologists who are mothers (CP-Ms) of their social identity. Foucauldian discourse analysis was used to explore the discourses available and drawn upon by CP-Ms to construct their professional and motherhood identity, and what were the subject positions they occupied. Ten qualified female clinical psychologists with pre-school children employed in a local NHS Trust were individually interviewed. CP-Ms’ identity was constructed as either a mother or a clinical psychologist, as being similar and different to other working-mothers. CP-Ms discoursed psychological knowledge and practices as potentially damaging their motherhood experience and their social relationships; they also discoursed motherhood and psychology as mutually enriching. Motherhood and professional identity were discoursed in opposition to one another, and yet the participants also constructed their CP-M identity as a continuous dynamic journey of reframing, of which they were agentic. This study suggests that the construction of CP-Ms’ identity is complex as it involves actively negotiating contradictions and overlaps between motherhood and clinical psychology. Further research is needed. Professional and clinical implications are discussed. Section C aims to elaborate on the research skills learnt during the research process, and on the abilities that need to be further developed. It continues with a critical appraisal of the study, before reflecting on possible clinical recommendations. Lastly, a potential new project is presented.

Adolescent motherhood is a reality amongst South African adolescent girls from all cultures. However, there is a scarcity of information available on Swazi adolescents’ experiences of early motherhood. The research consequently aimed at exploring and describing the experiences of early motherhood amongst Swazi adolescent girls. The participants were encouraged to describe their unique lived experiences as to the early period of adolescent motherhood (pregnancy included). Positive psychology provided the theoretical framework, and phenomenology was used as the methodical design for this qualitative study. Purposeful and snowball sampling was used to find the nine participants. Semistructured one-on-one interviews were conducted with Swazi girls ranging from the ages of 16 to 20 years. The interviews were conducted in English as a second language of the participants, and they all resided within the Nkomazi municipality in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The collected data were analyzed according to the interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) and five main themes were identified: (a) The influence of emotions; (b) Social support during early adolescent motherhood; (c) Challenges experienced during early motherhood; (d) Personal growth; and (e) Resilience. The research findings indicate that early motherhood amongst Swazi adolescents comprises both positive and negative experiences and results in good and bad emotional experiences. All the participants experienced incidences in which their immediate environment (family, friends, community, neighbours, school, and boyfriends) rejected them and were unsupportive. This was especially evident in the ongoing lack of support offered by the biological father of the baby and the deterioration of original friendships. Ultimately however, it became apparent that the inherent Swazi culture and African principle of “Ubuntu” resulted in their being mostly accepted and supported. Furthermore, most participants experienced personal growth and a sense of maturity. Insights gained from motherhood resulted in participants making more responsible choices with regards to sexual behaviour, changes in their priorities, developing their characters, becoming more ambitious to achieve their personal life goals and becoming future orientated. The personal growth of most participants was clearly indicated by the mastering of several challenges related to early motherhood. A change in lifestyle was the most significant problem to overcome, and other challenges included the “burden” of being a provider, financial constraints in the present and future, interrupted education, loss of leisure time, and the experience of helplessness in times of need, for example when the baby is ill. Despite the fact that adolescent motherhood was experienced as a difficult occurrence, most participants (six of the nine) demonstrated high levels of resilience. These participants demonstrated effective coping strategies by taking responsibility and ownership of the difficulties associated with adolescent motherhood, and expressed the desire to be good mothers. Recommendations are given to enhance the well-being of Swazi adolescent mothers and the findings offer guidelines for a pregnancy prevention program as well as giving ideas on how to support adolescent girls in their journey of motherhood. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Adolescent motherhood is a reality amongst South African adolescent girls from all cultures. However, there is a scarcity of information available on Swazi adolescents’ experiences of early motherhood. The research consequently aimed at exploring and describing the experiences of early motherhood amongst Swazi adolescent girls. The participants were encouraged to describe their unique lived experiences as to the early period of adolescent motherhood (pregnancy included). Positive psychology provided the theoretical framework, and phenomenology was used as the methodical design for this qualitative study. Purposeful and snowball sampling was used to find the nine participants. Semistructured one-on-one interviews were conducted with Swazi girls ranging from the ages of 16 to 20 years. The interviews were conducted in English as a second language of the participants, and they all resided within the Nkomazi municipality in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The collected data were analyzed according to the interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) and five main themes were identified: (a) The influence of emotions; (b) Social support during early adolescent motherhood; (c) Challenges experienced during early motherhood; (d) Personal growth; and (e) Resilience. The research findings indicate that early motherhood amongst Swazi adolescents comprises both positive and negative experiences and results in good and bad emotional experiences. All the participants experienced incidences in which their immediate environment (family, friends, community, neighbours, school, and boyfriends) rejected them and were unsupportive. This was especially evident in the ongoing lack of support offered by the biological father of the baby and the deterioration of original friendships. Ultimately however, it became apparent that the inherent Swazi culture and African principle of “Ubuntu” resulted in their being mostly accepted and supported. Furthermore, most participants experienced personal growth and a sense of maturity. Insights gained from motherhood resulted in participants making more responsible choices with regards to sexual behaviour, changes in their priorities, developing their characters, becoming more ambitious to achieve their personal life goals and becoming future orientated. The personal growth of most participants was clearly indicated by the mastering of several challenges related to early motherhood. A change in lifestyle was the most significant problem to overcome, and other challenges included the “burden” of being a provider, financial constraints in the present and future, interrupted education, loss of leisure time, and the experience of helplessness in times of need, for example when the baby is ill. Despite the fact that adolescent motherhood was experienced as a difficult occurrence, most participants (six of the nine) demonstrated high levels of resilience. These participants demonstrated effective coping strategies by taking responsibility and ownership of the difficulties associated with adolescent motherhood, and expressed the desire to be good mothers. Recommendations are given to enhance the well-being of Swazi adolescent mothers and the findings offer guidelines for a pregnancy prevention program as well as giving ideas on how to support adolescent girls in their journey of motherhood. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

The purpose of this study was to describe maternal coping effort. The sample was composed of 30 mothers of infants hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit. Descriptive and correlational statistics were used to determine maternal coping effort and the maternal factors that may be associated with coping effort. Results of the study showed that a majority of the mothers exerted a great amount of effort to cope with situations encountered in the NICU. Maternal age, marital status, gravidity and parity, mode of delivery and ethnicity did not prove to associate significantly with coping effort. The results of this study are significant to nursing practice in the confirmation of the high degree of maternal coping associated with the hospitalization of an infant in the NICU.

This project investigates the development of mature student mothers’ identities in the dual contexts of constructions of the women’s at-home study practices and of their ‘responsibilities’ for their children’s development. Interviews were conducted with 23 women – all ‘new university’ students – and with their schoolaged children. I used discourse analysis focussing on language as performative and constitutive in order to understand positioning of, and by the women. I also drew upon critical developmental psychological theory and the concepts of discourse, intersubjectivity and dialogicality as epistemological resources in order to understand the women’s and children’s accounts. The methodology yielded a diversity of constructions of the women, these drawing upon a variety of discourses. The first empirical chapter addresses constructions of mature student mothers, the second, constructions of child development and the third, constructions of ‘influence’. The organisation of the empirical chapters reflects not only the importance I accorded to particular themes, but also the idea that separating mothers’ concerns and those of their children can be less fruitful in examinations of identity construction than addressing these together. The key issues that are a thread connecting the empirical chapters are time (requiring ‘balancing’ of social positions); change (in mothering practices and confidence); perceived ‘influence’ on children’s development, and relationships (including the ways in which identities are constructed in the ‘space in the middle’). Participants addressed these issues in different ways with some women positioning not spending ‘quality’ time with their children as meeting children’s developmental needs (addressed in Chapter Seven). Other important themes were mothering constructed as mundane and undervalued (in Chapter Five), children’s constructions of ‘roles’ as helpers (in Chapter Six) and perceived intersubjectivity in mother/child interactions (examined in Chapter Seven). In the concluding chapter I discuss the implications of the findings in terms of the contribution of the research to theoretical debates about motherhood, mothering and child development. I also reflect on my position as a mature student mother, examining my involvement in the research process and finally, suggest applications for the findings reported in the thesis.