How to be a Good Mother: The Case of Middle Class Mothering in Russia

Abstract

Contemporary motherhood in Russia is a complex discursive field. A mother is supposed to possess significant knowledge in such domains as medicine, paediatrics, child psychology and nutritional science. She must also be a competent consumer of goods and services for children in order to conform to common understandings of ‘good’ motherhood. In the Russian context parenthood is semantically more associated with motherhood, a legacy of Soviet gender policy and of contemporary Russian gender culture. The mother is perceived as the primary parent and the spokesperson acting on behalf of the child in his or her best interests. The actualisation of a mother’s identity represents a powerful symbolic and discursive instrument of legitimisation of women’s activity in the public sphere. Motherhood gives Russian women, especially those from lower classes, resources to improve their social status and to apply for numerous, albeit low, social allowances and benefits. At the same time, we know rather little about the way motherhood is produced on the subjective level and what discursive practices are at work in the process of Russian women becoming mothers.

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