{"id":299,"date":"2011-08-17T14:06:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-17T18:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/08\/a-transition-in-motherhood\/"},"modified":"2012-08-10T00:13:33","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T04:13:33","slug":"a-transition-in-motherhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/08\/a-transition-in-motherhood.html","title":{"rendered":"A Transition in Motherhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
I\u2019m thinking about starting a new series here on my blog consisting simply of snippits from my research and studies that I think my readers might find interesting. So today you get a section from Julia Grant\u2019s <\/span>Raising Baby by the Book<\/span> (page 15) on the transition from extensive to intensive mothering: <\/span>\n

For seventeenth- and eighteenth-century colonial American women, child rearing was only one of a multitude of tasks shared by neighbors and kin. With the help of older children, mothers supervised numerous offspring \u2013 their own and those of neighbors and relatives \u2013 while attending to household needs \u2013 sewing, washing, preparing food, and caring for the sick.<\/span> <\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Historian Laurel Ulrich defines colonial mothering as \u201cextensive,\u201d explaining that \u201cmothering meant generalized responsibility for an assembly of youngsters rather than concentrated devotion to a few.\u201d (She uses the terms \u201cextensive\u201d and \u201cintensive\u201d to differentiate between two forms of mothering.)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During the colonial period mothers raised an average of seven or eight children to adulthood, but during the nineteenth century women\u2019s fertility rates declined dramatically. By midcentury most women were having five or six children, and by 1900 the average woman had three or four children at close intervals and ended her childbearing at an earlier age than her grandmother had.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With fewer children to share their resources of care and affection, middle-class mothers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries increasingly engaged in \u201cintensive\u201d parenting \u2013 that is, they concentrated their attention on the physical and emotional nurture of individual children.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Certain mothers, however, continued to engage in extensive mothering: those who were living in slavery, raising large numbers of children, struggling to make ends meet, caring for children alone, or working for wages inside or outside the home.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have to say, I really found the above section fascinating, because I think many Quiverfull mothers revert to extensive mothering without having any idea that that is what they\u2019re doing. I also think that smaller families can engage in intensive parenting in ways that especially large families simply cannot, which makes sense appearing that the author seems to be tying the growth of intensive parenting to a decrease in family size over the years. I also wonder if some of the accusations I heard growing up in my parents\u2019 huge family regarding small families \u201cspoiling\u201d their children results simply from the extensive\/intensive mothering difference as well. <\/span> Your thoughts?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m thinking about starting a new series here on my blog consisting simply of snippits from my research and studies that I think my readers might find interesting. So today you get a section from Julia Grant\u2019s Raising Baby by the Book (page 15) on the transition from extensive to intensive mothering: For seventeenth- and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,6,108],"tags":[183,123],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-feminism","category-parenting","tag-history","tag-motherhood"],"yoast_head":"\nA Transition in Motherhood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm thinking about starting a new series here on my blog consisting simply of snippits from my research and studies that I think my readers might find\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/08\/a-transition-in-motherhood.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Transition in Motherhood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I'm thinking about starting a new series here on my blog consisting simply of snippits from my research and studies that I think my readers might find\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/08\/a-transition-in-motherhood.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-17T18:06:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-08-10T04:13:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/08\/a-transition-in-motherhood.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/08\/a-transition-in-motherhood.html\",\"name\":\"A Transition in Motherhood\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-08-17T18:06:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-08-10T04:13:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"I'm thinking about starting a new series here on my blog consisting simply of snippits from my research and studies that I think my readers might find\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/08\/a-transition-in-motherhood.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/08\/a-transition-in-motherhood.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/08\/a-transition-in-motherhood.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Transition in Motherhood\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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