The Political Consequences of Motherhood

Chapter 7. Reasons for Change: How Motherhood Alters Political Attitudes

194 Chapter seven Reasons for Change: How Motherhood Alters Political Attitudes Once you have children, all of your decisions are made with your children in mind. —Cynthia, massaChusetts In the previous chapter women identified six ways in which motherhood shaped their political views. Changes included increased levels of political awareness and interest, new policy priorities, a displacement of prior political concerns, a new focus on the future, seeing policy issues in concrete terms rather than as abstract ideals, and increased empathy for others. While these shared transformations give us important new insights into the nature of motherhood’s effect on women’s political views, they do not tell us why motherhood has this impact. What motivated these changes? What about motherhood caused these women to reorient themselves to the political world? Four mechanisms appear to facilitate the shifts that accompany motherhood : shifts in identity, the desire to model behavior for children, shifts in self-interest, and shifts in social networks. These are not mutually exclusive processes, and in fact, may be interdependent.1 Moreover, the role that each process plays in shaping attitudes and behavior may vary throughout an individual ’s parenting career.2 Indeed, the relationship among these mechanisms is likely complex, making it difficult to isolate each process and its effects . As a result, I do not take on the task of fully evaluating when and how these mechanisms structure the attitudes and behaviors of women. Rather, I offer examples of how these mechanisms might work through the stories of individual women. Again, I make use of the qualitative data gathered from these 46 women to identify these dynamics and explore how they might Reasons for Change 195 function. While these qualitative data do not permit making widely generalizable claims, they do offer important new insights into how motherhood works to alter women’s political attitudes. i’m someone’s mom: shifts in identity Parenthood often marks a shift in identity and self-concept (Cowan and Cowan 1992; Mercer 2004). This means that for many women, motherhood changes how a woman sees herself. Almost all of the women interviewed for this project articulated this shift in self-concept. Often they felt that motherhood had displaced or replaced other components of their identity and became the central component of who they were. My identity changed. I was, you know, before, I was “Chelsea.” I had a job. I was an engineer. And that’s kind of how I defined myself. And once I had kids it was, I was a mom. And that was definitely my identity—as a mom. I’m someone’s mom. (Chelsea, MA) I’m no longer Danielle. I’m now “Giselle’s mom.” Even the kids at school, they don’t know my name. They’ll go “Giselle’s mom, Giselle’s mom!” (Danielle , MA) [Having children] changed everything . . . a huge part of my identity is as a mother. A huge part. It’s not even just like one [of] the things I do. . . . There is no question that I have an identity as a mother because [it is] so much of what my day is, when I’m here, when I’m at work. (Angela, MA) While many of the women interviewed articulated an overhaul of their self-concept after having children, there was variation with regard to how politically relevant this shift was to them. Some saw this change as having little or no effect on their political views or engagement. Others felt that it had a substantial impact. In fact, many of the women who vocalized a new orientation toward “the future” and the policy choices that would affect the future also articulated that their self identity was quite different after having children. For women whose sense of self-concept was not dramatically changed by motherhood, the impact that this role had on their political views was often 196 the politiCal ConsequenCes of motherhood identified as small. Barbara, a 34-year-old mother of one, said that after becoming a mother, she became “more passionate or thought harder” about political issues, but did not feel as if the direction of her political attitudes had changed. In explaining this, she offered without prompting, a response about her own sense of self-identity. I, you know, like to think even though I’m a mother, and my daughter is, you know, my life, I like to think I have a life...