This thesis explores the intersections of war, motherhood, and language in the poetry of Aria Aber and Solmaz Sharif, focusing in particular on their debut poetry collections, Hard Damage and LOOK respectively, and the “America” poems by both poets, published online. Chapter One explores the differing portrayals of motherhood in Aber’s poems and Sharif’s poems, focusing particularly on Aber’s specificity in the image of the mother, focused on the speaker’s mother, and Sharif’s wider view of the mother. Chapter Two explores how each of them portray war through the similar formal structure—a list poem followed by a long documentary poem focused on the personal—in order to understand the lasting impacts of war. Chapter Three focuses on their “America” poems and how both poets understand belonging, and how they eventually find an impossible home in language.

Somali women have suffered at the hands of the patriarchy for as long as they have known. It is well established that the civil war in 1991 created irreparable damage to the Somali people. Nevertheless, it opened doors for women to experience autonomy for the first time. The impact it has had on the men has been contrasting, causing them to separate from their manhood. This thesis aimed to determine how migration has solved the empowerment-disempowerment dichotomy Somali women have faced for centuries. To do this, we will explore the dynamics of maternal politics, using a concept referred to as political motherhood. We then utilised political motherhood and conducted a qualitative analysis using four semi-structured interviews with a prominent group known as the “Mothers of Rinkeby” internationally. These women have been working to prevent crime in Rinkeby. Our results show a considerable correspondence between fleeing Somalia and how women of the Somali diaspora long to dismantle the patriarchal values deeply ingrained in their culture. Meanwhile, the husbands and fathers are absent. We conclude that Somali diaspora women are not only empowered now, but they are working to change the flawed patriarchal system upheld in Somali culture.

I detta arbete analyseras föräldrarna herr och fru Vidrigsson i boken Matilda av Roald Dahl (1990). Föräldrarna analyserades genom att tolka, förstå och förmedla vilket är ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv. Syftet med analysen var att få vetskap om hur föräldrarna gestaltas, vilka normer de bryter och vad deras funktion var i boken. Bakgrunden till arbetet ligger i att jag själv uppskattar boken och att jag tidigare hört både bra och dåliga åsikter om Roald Dahl och hans karikeringsteknik. Även för att Roald Dahl har många olika böcker som är fantastiska att arbeta kring i skolan för alla olika åldrar.

In 1931 the United States Children's Bureau asserted that "nothing short of really healthy children should satisfy parents." This thesis examines how literature published by the Children's Bureau from 1913 to 1933 shaped perceptions of motherhood and of maternal control over the body. As the bureau taught mothers how to care for their children, it also taught them that by following bureau advice, mothers could shape the bodies of their children to adhere to normative body standards. The research considers the relationship between mothers, the state, and the physical body. This thesis is divided into chapters about prenatal care and maternal marking; infant care and maternal policing; and child care and maternal control.

Yes / Over the past few decades the number of women having their first babies over the age of 35 in the United Kingdom (UK) has increased. Women’s timing of motherhood is invariably bound up with a discourse of ‘choice’ and in this paper we consider the role choice plays in the timing of motherhood among women who have been defined as ‘older’ mothers. This article is based on data from 11 semi-structured interviews that explored the transition to motherhood among ‘older’ middle-class mothers. The interviews were analysed using critical discursive psychology. The women drew upon two dominant repertoires when making sense of their timing of motherhood. Within the first repertoire, ‘older motherhood as circumstance’, older motherhood was presented as the outcome of life circumstances beyond their control, with a lack of the ‘right’ circumstances facilitating ‘delayed’ motherhood. Within the second repertoire, ‘older motherhood as readiness’, women constructed themselves as (now) prepared for motherhood. ‘Readiness’ was bound up with notions of self-fulfillment, yet also assessments of their ability to be ‘good’ mothers. We conclude that, far from a straightforward choice, the timing of motherhood is shaped by cultural definitions of the ‘right’ circumstances for parenthood, but also cultural definitions of ‘good’ motherhood, which may define when women are ‘ready’.

No / In response to a recent report published by the Royal College of Nursing, Bryan McIntosh, Uduak Archibong and Louise Donaghy discuss the impact of motherhood, part-time hours and career breaks on the cultural perceptions and experiences of female healthcare professionals.

Yes / Despite higher work-life conflict (WLC) amongst women (Bakker & Karsten, 2013; Minnotte, 2013), work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC) experienced by single mothers receives less attention than dual earner couples but more than single fathers (Gatrell, 2001; 2005). This paper presents a review of key concepts, drawn from a variety of WFC debates allowing us to understand how the under-researched single parent attributes meaning to, self-actualises, copes with and facilitates decision-making around daily time specific WFC episodes within the family domain. The paper acknowledges that previous WFC studies examine inter-role effects and levels of influence between work and family-life although time-specific episodic WFC experiences are concealed. A comprehensive understanding of the nature in which work facilitates time specific WFC episodes or events within the family domain of the single parent is also lacking. A new framework is suggested in examining the WFC experiences of the single parent. Future single parent studies underpinning WFC may consider the complex distinctive nature in which work is conceptualised perhaps single mothers and single fathers distinguishing the coping strategies and decision-making criteria underpinning their daily-time specific episodic WFC experiences. Our conceptualisation of the daily time specific nature of WFC perhaps suggests that we revisit our understanding of the implications that single parents present for the workplace. The use of an innovative mixed methods qualitative approach is suggested using qualitative dairies, photo elicitation and convergent interviews to capture rich, in depth and time specific interpretations of the daily episodes of single parents. Extant studies on WFC adopt quantitative methodologies while the use of qualitative methods remains under-developed.

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The primary theme of the thesis is "paternity determination", an interesting part of private law. The goal of the thesis was to find juridical legislation that could be applied by legal institutions in the Czech Republic, and have been neither legally controlled nor properly spoken through. Also the thesis deals with surrogate motherhood institutes, same-sex parenthood, baby hatches and paternity determination of children, made by assisted reproduction. The thesis is divided into five chapters, which are divided further into sub-chapters. Following the introduction, the primary terms of parental difficulties, paternity determination and the term family are explored. The second chapter discusses motherhood institutes. It speaks primarily of surrogate motherhood's challenges, including other countries' attitude to this topic. The following chapter is about fatherhood determination, containing the juridical legislative analysis of the problem in the Czech law. The fourth chapter expands on the issues of same sex couple parenthood, and the forms of family coexistence. These issues are described in great detail from both the view of Czech law, and also as a global issue. The last chapter discusses the issues of baby hatches, and legislation regarding anonymity for those who utilize them in the Czech...

This study explores the relationship between ideals of motherhood and heterosexual normativity, from the perspective of women at the margins of these discourses. The title, In the shadow of Motherhood, illustrates the overriding power of the image of motherhood to marginalise alternative experiences. The concept of motherhood, like that of Family, has traditionally signalled the reproduction of the normative; it does not usually encompass the critical scrutiny that would allow for diverse experiences of mothering. Theoretically, the study is located within the fields of feminist sociology and inclusive family studies in productive dialogue with queer notions of gender and sexuality. Methodologically, it is inspired by narrative analysis and consists of in-depth interviews with eight lesbian, bisexual and heterosexual women grappling with different experiences of motherhood and mothering practices. Some of them identify as mothers while others do not, but by not being biogenetic mothers within a heterosexual relationship they share the position of being outside of what is often considered normal, natural and desirable. The analysis reveals a considerable variation in the positions, experiences and identities of the participants, particularly in regards to changes over time, which cannot be reduced to binary categories such as heterosexual/lesbian, biological/non-biological, mother/childless or voluntary/involuntary childlessness. The analysis also exposes a deep tension between ideologies of motherhood and lived experiences of care practices. Furthermore, from the perspective of the participants, the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion reinforce and challenge each other, creating spaces of both individual and collective resistance. The study illuminates the need to shift the location of these experiences from the margins to the centre not only in sociological research of family and gender, but also within feminist sociology.