Whose Work is it Anyway? The Shifting Dynamics of ‘DoingMothering’

Benedetta Cappellini, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

Elizabeth Parsons, Keele University, UK

Cappellini, B and Parsons, E (2013) ‘Whose Work is it Anyway?The shifting dynamics of doing mothering’ S. O'Donohoe, M.Hogg, P. Maclaran, L. Martens and L. Stevens, Motherhood, Marketsand Consumption: The Making of Mothers in Contemporary Western CulturesTaylor Francis/Routledge.

Introduction

The inspiration for this chapter came from a discussion withone of our participants from a previous research project. Afew years ago we looked at the processes and practices ofmothering in the household. Drawing from sociological,anthropological and consumer research literature we wrote acouple of pieces showing how the restless work of feeding thefamily has analogies with the process of sacrifice (Cappelliniand Parsons forthcoming 2012a; forthcoming 2012b). Havingdrafted one of these papers (Cappellini and Parsonsforthcoming 2012a), we decided to send it to Tracey (one ofour participants) for her comments and reflections. A few dayslater Tracey responded:

‘Hi Benedetta,

An interesting paper. It’s not something I'd really thought about. I don'ttend to put myself in such a virtuous light - for me I'm just being practical- I have to be organised if I want to live the way I do (i.e. not always tied tothe kitchen sink). I feel bad though as Mark [Tracey’s husband] is cookingthe tea whilst I'm here reading your paper (and he's done the shopping -but I still planned the weekly menus and wrote him his shopping list). Infact things have changed a bit since your observations - I've now got thekids cooking (Albert on one night and Richard on another). Mark and Ishare the other meals depending on who is home first. But it is still me

that organises the menu (with the others piping up with the particularmeals they want) and I have to create the shopping list (sometimes I shop,at other times Mark). As I was saying to Liz, I think a lot of it is down to mebeing a control freak!! ‘

There are a lot of things to say about this email. Itundoubtedly reflects the guilt and anxiety that Traceyexperiences in trying to juggle her working life and home lifewhile trying to match up to the norms of mothering which seemto constantly stalk her in her everyday life. The work offeeding the family is particularly demanding and, as Tracey’scomments show, this work is routinely underestimated by womenthemselves, they tend to consider it as part of their ownidentity (being practical[…] being a control freak) and an inescapableand integral part of their everyday life, something that theythemselves are responsible for and therefore have to manage (Ihave to be organised if I want to live the way I do). Thus Tracey’s emailsatisfied us in a way, as it shows that our paper on motherlysacrifice at mealtimes successfully captured our participants’everyday experiences, and that our analysis did at least somejustice to their lives. However Tracey’s email alsoillustrates how households change over time, as Tracey puts it“things have changed a bit since your observations”. Benedetta observed amealtime at Tracey’s house in 2008. In the intervening fouryears her children have grown up and both her and her husbandhave changed modes of employment. As we will discuss below,these changes have impacted quite dramatically on the divisionof labour in Tracey’s household. Reflecting on our earlierinterpretations we became acutely aware that the picture offamily life we had presented was rather static, in thisrespect we could be accused of reproducing the norm of the‘stable family’ which has been problematised in the literature(Doucet 1996). We started questioning how the organisation oflabour in the household changes over time in relation toevents like children growing up or moving out, people findingor losing jobs, getting divorced. Turning to the literatureour curiosity was not entirely satisfied. While some studiesdo focus on families during liminal stages such as children

moving into their teens (Cody and Lawlor, 2011), or childrenleaving home (Hogg et al. 2004) very few studies have adopteda longitudinal perspective on these issues. With a fewexceptions (see for example Lindridge et al. 2004)longitudinal studies seem at present to be unpopular. Thisparticularly surprising if we consider that in the mid-nineties Doucet (1996) accuses family studies of lacking alongitudinal perspective and as a result offering an”outstanding stability” of gender divisions in the domesticsphere.

Tracey’s email therefore inspired us to go back to thefamilies we visited in 2008 and see what had changed (andindeed what had not changed) in their households. This chapteris based on an analysis of this in-depth interview and isinformed by our early studies of household mealtimes whichexplore issues of sacrifice (Miller 1998), sharing (Belk 2010)and gifting (Ruskola 2005). The theme of sacrifice camethrough quite strongly again in this second interview withTracey but here we are more concerned with the division oflabour in the home and Tracey’s view of her role within thehome. As we worked with the data we quickly realised that taskdivision within the household cannot be separated from both anunderstanding of individual and collective family identities,and the power struggles between these. In teasing out thesetwin themes we have turned to feminist literatures on thedoing of gender and the doing of mothering. The chaptertherefore starts with an overview of the literature on doinggender and doing mothering and the ways in which theseidentities are intertwined with entitlement and accountabilityin the context of the home. In the analysis we begin byexploring the changes to Tracey’s household that have takenover time and how these changes have impacted on the divisionof task performance in the home as well as Tracey’s identityas mother. The second part of the analysis uses the conceptsof accountability and entitlement to gain a deeperinterpretive insight into what is really ‘going on’ inrelation to these same two issues. In the conclusion we make a

series of contributions to our understanding of the shiftingdynamics of doing mothering.

Doing Mothering and Doing Gender: Accountability andentitlement in the household

We have drawn on theorisations surrounding doing gender anddoing mothering to understand the everyday reproduction ofTracey’s identity in the household. The concept doing genderis today very used (and abused) in feminist literature(Deutsch, 2007). Coined in the eighties by West and Zimmerman(1987) doing gender refers to the assumption that gender is apractice constantly re-enacted in everyday social interactionsand is not a monolithic, stable and unchangeable ontologicalindividual propriety (West and Zimmerman 1987; 2009). As Westand Zimmerman points out gender is a “routine accomplishmentembedded in everyday interaction” (1987, 125), and hencestudying gender implies looking at “the interactional workinvolved in ‘being’ a gendered person in society” (1987, 127).The vast body of study influenced by West and Zimmerman’s ideaof doing gender in the household shows how social and culturalmeanings associated with the distribution of domestic labourserve to perpetuate inequality in gender relations. Forexample, work on ‘doing mothering’ explores the ways in whichmothering reproduces gender identity, seeing mothering notonly as a biological destiny but as a social institution(Chodorow, 1978). In her seminal work Feeding the Family,Marjorie DeVault (1991) explores how women’s work of providingfood for the family is a restless work of care, love,responsibility as “the food provided for a family cannot justbe any food, but must be food that will satisfy them” (1991,40). Similarly others show how shopping (Miller 1998),cleaning (Carrigan and Szmigin, 2006), providing homemade food(Moisio et al. 2004) as well as dealing with leftovers(Cappellini and Parsons forthcoming 2013) are practices that

perpetuating women’s self-sacrifice for the greater good ofthe family. In these studies it is evident how cooking, andall the other work that makes cooking possible, operates as aform of doing gender in which ‘a woman conducts herself asrecognizably womanly’ (DeVault 1991, 118). In many cases womenadhere to, and perpetuate, the existing and prevailing socialand cultural norms and practices associated with being (doing)a wife and a mother. Despite the emergence of the popularimage of the male cook through the success of internationalcelebrity chefs (Brownlie and Hewer 2007) behind closed doorswomen continue to undertake much of the mundane private workof feeding their families (DeVault, 1991; Hook, 2010). Inaddition recent work on mothering observes the intensificationof the investment required in mothering both financially andemotionally (Hays, 1996; Warner, 2006) as well as the tensionsbetween individual and intersubjective identities often feltby mothers as they struggle with competing family versuspersonal needs (Hollway, 2006).

Studies inspired by the doing of gender have been recentlycriticised for being unable to take into consideration thesocial and cultural changes in gendered interactions and workdivisions in the home (Moloney and Fenstermaker, 2002;Sullivan, 2004; Risman, 2009). Although we partly agree withthese criticisms, we think that the original formulation ofdoing gender look at changes in interactions using the conceptof accountability. Following West and Zimmerman (1987; 2009)gender is done through enactments accountable to an existingand prevailing gender order, norms and conventions. As they(2009: 118) recently point out such prevailing gender order,norms and conventions are not “ “free floating” and changes init involve both changes in persons’ orientation to these normsand changes in social relations that reflexively supportchanges in orientation.” Therefore doing gender and beingaccountable to an existing gender order are dynamic conceptsas they describe how “gender is not undone so much as redone”(West and Zimmerman, 2009: 118) in situated gender enactmentsinvolving social relations and personal orientations. Recent

work looking at personal orientations, as well as genderedinteractions and practices reveal that the labour distributionin the household is changing (Bianchi et al. 2000; Sullivan,2004). These are not dramatic changes, but “a slow dripping ofchange that is perhaps unnoticeable from year to year but thatin the end is persistent enough to lead to the slowdissolution of previously existing structures” (Sullivan,2004; 209-210). Sullivan (2004) proposes a way of looking atthe division of domestic labour by looking at genderconsciousness of all parties involved, their interactions theaccompanying practices involved in doing gender in thehousehold. We do not quite achieve this multi-perspective orholistic view of the household here because our analysis isbased on the views and experiences of Tracey alone. However wecan get some sense of how she constructs herself as mother andgain some purchase on the way in which household membersrelate to one another in her accounts of everyday householdinteractions.

We take inspiration from the idea of doing and redoing genderand accountability in specific situations, as we examineTracey’s understandings of “doing mum and doing wife” in hermanagement of the household labour. We look not simply at theperformance of household labour (the doing) but also at themanagement of, and responsibility for, household tasks(Sullivan, 2004). We also explore the feelings of entitlementand gratitude surrounding domestic work (i.e. who is entitledto, and accountable for, the doing and the management). Inlooking at the operation of these wider norms and expectationsboth at household level and wider societal level we haveattempted to account for the transformative aspects of doinggender, and not simply the conservative aspects of it. We lookat how Tracey reflects upon and understands her role inrelation to her family members’ expectations and sense ofentitlement. We have explored the materiality of the practicessurrounding the work of feeding Tracey’s family elsewhere(Cappellini and Parsons, forthcoming 2012a; forthcoming 2012b)and hence in this case we focussed on the changes of the

distribution of labour in household over time and Tracey’sfeelings and understandings of such changes in relation toother family members.

The Shifting Responsibilities of Motherhood: ExaminingTracey’s household over time

The distribution of work in Tracey’s household changedsignificantly over the time period we studied (see table 1).When we first met Tracey in 2008 she was a PhD student workingfrom home most of the time. Prior to this she worked longhours in a managerial role for a big firm. As the mainhousehold breadwinner she was away much of the time, while herhusband (Mark) had taken redundancy from his lower paying roleto look after the children full time. During this period whileTracey was not at home much of the time, she appeared toremain in charge of the task management of the household. byintroducing a diary planner which she placed in the kitchen.She used the planner to record tasks to be completed on adaily basis, including the menu for the dinner, the shoppingand the cleaning tasks. Mark was responsible for accomplishingthese tasks, while Tracey was at work.

When the children came along he [Mark] took the redundancy. I was on abetter wage at that point. He stayed home and looked after the kids. […] Iwas in charge of everything, but I gently started to put in routine with thediary […] he was running everything but I was doing the input, there wasalways the element of me organising. Things changed when I was doingthe MBA. Part of me felt that …I realised that I not ever being of any sportdays I felt a bit …I thought ‘ I am going to be a mum’.

Table 1. Distribution of labour in Tracey’s Household overTime

Before 2008 2008 2011

Tracey has a managerial role in alarge company and is

Tracey is full time MBA and then PhD

Tracey is a full time lecturer at a

the main breadwinner student at a local university

local university

Tracey is at home late at night and weekends, she travels a lot with work

Tracey is at home most of the time

Tracey is at home at 3.30 most days

Mark took redundancyto take care of the children. He is at home full time.

Mark is at homefulltime

Mark starts hisown business

The children (Albertand John) are both under 11

Albert and Johnare 11 and 13

Albert and Johnare 14 and 16

Task performance (Mark)

Task performance (Mark and occasionally Tracey)

Task performance (Mark/Tracey but children have to performsome tasks during the week)

Task management (Tracey) using kitchen paper diary/planner

Task management(Tracey) using kitchen laptop

Task management(Tracey) using kitchen laptop

Here we see the impact of Tracey’s ideas of ‘good mothering’on her decisions. Despite being in charge of the householdroutine – she felt that simply managing tasks was not “enough”she felt that she had to be much more hands on in her role as“mum”. Here, her presence both at home and in public wasimportant. In terms of her presence at home she mentioned‘doing family’ activities such as making Christmasdecorations and writing Christmas cards, as well as moremundane tasks like cooking, shopping, cleaning and ironing.

Her presence at public events like sports days was alsocentral to her ideal of ‘doing family’ outside home and hence‘display family’ and ‘display mothering’.

The striking thing about table 1 is that it demonstrates thatdespite significant changes to both Tracey and Mark’s paidemployment and therefore time spent at home; Tracey maintainedsole control over task management. This control also extendedbeyond the household routines to planning holidays:

I make most the decisions. I am the instigator. It is me saying “Shall wethink of doing this? Shall we think of going on holiday? I will not doingthings without discussing, but if I say things chances are that is going tohappen. I tend to be the instigator of changes […]I still do very much theplanning and I work out what we are going to eat in the next week or nexttime I am going to do the shopping

This control (and as we argue later, conferred responsibility)of both ordinary and extraordinary household decisions is notalways perceived in a positive light by Tracey. At points inour interview she reflected on a desire to share some of thisresponsibility with the others members of the family.

I am the one who makes sure what is going on. Most of the times I amhappy, but sometimes I think can somebody take over? What would ithappen if I am not there? Most of the time is just routine. Somebody hasto make decisions and I do it

While Tracey feels that in her enactment of mothering shecannot delegate her task management role, task performancedoes shift between family members. When studying for her MBAand PHD in 2008. Tracey has more time at home and hence shereclaims some of the tasks from Mark. When she re-enters theworkplace in 2011 Tracey redistributes the tasks once more.Some of the tasks are allocated to Mark but now the two sons(Albert and John) are old enough to begin to play their partin the everyday work of the household. At present Traceydelegates specific tasks to her sons including making dinner(that she has planned in advance), doing some cleaning andputting away the weekly shopping. In 2008 Tracey replaces the

paper diary with a laptop which is again located in thekitchen, the hub of household activity. The computer softwareextends Tracey’s control facilitating an even more detailedbreakdown of tasks along with their exact timings. The plannedtasks extend from the daily feeding of the dog to the weeklyshopping and washing but also less frequent tasks such asdefrosting the freezer. Tracey manages the laptop schedule andcarefully records the variety of tasks to be completed alongwith the family member responsible for each task. This systemof task management is time consuming and requires lot ofeffort from Tracey, but she observes that in doing so she ismaking sure “everybody does their own bit”. For example theboys have grown up Tracey tries to encourage them to take moreresponsibility both for themselves but also in contributing tothe household:

When I take the shopping home I aspect them to put it away , I try to, Imake sure I do not get home before the school is finished[...] Weencourage them to take over a bit more. They know that they have tohelp themselves and feeding themselves.

This redistribution of tasks is not necessarily only aboutsharing out the work more equitably but rather socialising andeducating her children to be more independent and to take careof themselves. Therefore while clearly the organisation oftasks in Tracey’s household is intimately linked to her ownideals of motherhood it is also shaped by her understanding of‘sonhood’ and also ‘husbandhood’ as she requires other membersof the family to be accountable as sons and husband. Howeverthis more equitable distribution not only takes time in theplanning and inputting into the computer but also in thereorganisation of family time around tasks and the setting upof some of these tasks. For example in order for her sons toput away the shopping Tracey has to make sure she arrives homewith the shopping while the children are there and for hersons to cook a meal she needs to plan and shop for somethingsimple they can cook.. Thus Tracey’s mothering practices gobeyond feeding the family (DeVault, 1991) since she alsoeducates the children to contribute to the family meal. As

such she is keen to create and maintain a cohesive familyidentity. Here Tracey’s doing of gender is not simply relatedto her own performance of motherhood, but also herinteractions with other members of the family and herexpectations towards them (West and Zimmerman 2009).

The Tensions and Contradictions of Motherhood: Exploring thequestion of accountability

As we have explored above the organisation of tasks inTracey’s household is intimately linked to Tracey’s identityas mother. However this identity was not static, it changed asher family matured and as she moved in and out of theworkplace. In addition this identity was full of tensions andcontradictions. The quotation below illustrates some of theinternal struggles Tracey experiences over the amount of timeand energy she devotes to her family (in particular herchildren) versus her working life outside the home. She isalso aware that this is a particularly gendered dilemma, asshe reflects on the fact that she does not place the sameexpectations on her husband, Mark. She is aware that she takeson the lions share of responsibility for parenting and putspressure on herself to meets these responsibilities. Thesituation is complicated by a lack of time to meet theseresponsibilities as she also works fulltime and a feeling thatas the children are growing up she also ought to have somemore time for herself, as she observes ‘I have got to live mylife as well’. Thus feelings of entitlement mix with those ofguilt and responsibility.

You put pressure on yourself “I should be doing it, I should be doing it”but I never think that Mark should be doing it […] Should I force myselfto do more? [..] I can’t fit it in. Not being nasty but the total focus of mylife can’t be my kids. I have always said that, my friends would think“what a horrible parent” but at the end of the day I have got to live mylife as well. You always think that you have to do more, it is part of beinga mum, of being a woman.

Feeding the family is a particular source of guilt for Tracey.When she was at home fulltime while studying for her PhD andMBA degrees she was able to spend time cooking family mealsfrom scratch. When she returned to the workplace in 2011, asshe observes, ‘jars start to sneak in’. This image of jars ofpre-prepared sauce starting to sneak in nicely capturesTracey’s sense of guilt in not preparing them herself anymore:

T: I feel as if I am getting more selfish. It can’t be for everybody you canstop and do things for yourself. […] A big different from last time, I nowuse pasta sauces and curry sauces, I used to make them from scratch.Jars start to sneak in.

E: How do you feel about it?

T: It suits at the moment. I do not know, everybody seems happy it is justa phase that I have to get through. I can do it. I always found that if Ihave spare time I do not want to spend it in cooking, I would rather dosome marking. It gently sneaks in there, it is priority.

Tracey is clearly far from being selfish since we discoverelsewhere in the interview that one reason for using the pre-prepared sauces is so that she can satisfy the tastes ofindividual family members, often cooking two different dishesto keep everyone happy. The way in which she describes thischange as ‘just a phase,.. ready sauces sneaking in’ also reveals theconflicting feelings Tracey has about her juggling between herwork (doing some marking) and her role as mother in keepingeveryone happy at mealtimes. Others (Carrigan and Szmigin,2006; Mosio et al. 2004) have illustrated the complexity ofthe compromises women make on an everyday basis and the guiltthey feel over these decisions. Here Tracey has compromised(in her opinion) by feeding the family with a form ofconvenience food in order to find time to engage in activitiesoutside the home (i.e. working and having a social life).

Tracey’s feelings of guilt are also often compounded by theactions of other family members, in particular her two sonswho often require Tracy to perform according to the particularviews of motherhood. Despite Tracey deliberately encouraging

her sons to be independent and feed themselves, they stillfeel entitled to ask Tracey to provide food for them:

‘He [her son Albert] comes to the kitchen and “Feed me”[Tracey motionspointing her finger into her open mouth] . He thinks that is what Mumshould be there for. I try to teach him otherwise.’

In observing that she ‘tries to teach them otherwise’ Traceyis not only referring to her attempts to instil a sense ofindependence in her sons as they grow up but also a morebalanced and equitable view of gender roles in the household,as she observes below:

‘It is interesting because they still come to Mum. I say “Ask you Dad, youDad is cooking tonight”, “Yes but what are having? You know what we arehaving” […] Last week Mark did the shopping and I put roast on the listwithout specifying which roast. I thought he would remember thatRichard doesn’t eat beef, he bought beef. Richard came around “what arewe having?” I said “beef” he said “what am I having?” I said “ you have tohave beef” he said “but I don’t like beef” and I said ”you have to ask yourDad he has done the shopping”. But he come to me, he never brought itup with his Dad. They always come to me, it is always my fault’

This beef incident shows how her children’s feeling ofentitlement towards Tracey can create tensions. Her childrendo not recognise their father as an “instigator” who has to“make everybody happy”, instead they view him as the executorof tasks planned by Tracey. Therefore when something goeswrong (i.e. they feel their needs are not being adequately metfor whatever reason) they feel entitled to call Tracey toaccount for these events. Despite the fact that Tracy’shusband performed the tasks of shopping and cooking for theSunday roast, the children do not consider him accountable forthe overall management of the Sunday lunch, which in theireyes, remains entirely Tracey’s responsibility. In doing so,her children place demands on Tracey to perform a version ofmotherhood which is concerned with keeping everybody happy,and thus providing an alternative meal for her son. Whatcould also be going on here is Tracey attempting to put some

pressure on Mark to learn the boys’ food preferences. Shementioned later in the interview that Mark really ought toknow by now that Richard didn’t like beef. By deliberatelynot specifying the type of meat on the shopping list in asmall way she is trying to share some of her task managementand decision making responsibility with him.

Tracey’s mother also requires a specific enactment ofmotherhood, which seems more focused on “doing” rather thanmanaging.

My mum makes it worse you know because if she sees Mark doing thehousework she says ‘What’s he oooh...’ you know ‘Oh he’s doing all thehousework again, what are you doing?’ ‘Oh I’m actually doing some workyou know’. Like when I was doing the PhD, I was doing quite a bit ofsessional teaching but that ‘wasn’t a job, I should be there to be ahomemaker’ so little bits of that stick with you

Tracey’s mother measures Tracey’s behaviour against heragainst her own received ideals of mothering which in partstem from her own experiences. Elsewhere in the interviewTracey notes that her father rarely completed any tasks in thehousehold leaving the housework entirely to her mother.Tracey’s mother is holding her accountable to these sameideals of mothering. While Tracey is clearly rather cynicalabout her mother’s criticism observing her mother’s view thatworking as an academic ‘wasn’t a job’, she still retains aburden of guilt from these views observing that ‘little bits…stick with you’. Tracey’s feeling that she should be takingon responsibility for household tasks is apparent from herfollowing observation:

Sometimes I get annoyed because he [her husband, Mark] does it, and Ishould be doing it [...]I think it should be my job, other times I think thatit’s great. Again with the meals sometimes I think it’s I that should bedoing this, it should be my role […] We almost compete on getting the jobdone. I don’t know why but we compete on sort of “I am going to do this”“I am going to do that”, “ I am going to be the martyr”.

The above comments contrast significantly with Tracey’searlier observation that ‘the total focus of my life can’t bemy kids’. In the above observation Tracey seems to be atpains to reclaim some of the task performance in the home.Here she seems to take on board her mother’s ideals of thestay at home mother performing all of the tasks in the homeand sacrificing her own needs for the wider good of thefamily. However, at other times in our interview Traceyclearly resisted these norms and claimed a distance from them.In the course of our interview Tracey frequently contradictedherself revealing a pendulum swing between the desire toadhere to a prevailing existing gender order, and the normsand conventions of being a mum and a wife, and her desire tomaintain a certain distance from this order by making time andspace to live her own life and pursue her independent desires.Tracey’s contrasting understating of her enactment ofmothering shows how feeling of entitlement and gratitude arenot static, but they change over time in relation to the ageof the children, the time spent at home and work commitments.They also change in relation to Tracey’s interpretation of theexpectations of different members of the family (i.e herchildren, her mother). When it comes to the division ofhousehold tasks and feelings of entitlement in the homeSullivan (2004) observes a very slow but nonetheless positiveshift towards a greater gender equality in the home. Howeverwe find it extremely difficult to interpret Tracey’sexperiences in this manner. Our findings demonstrate howpainful it is for Tracey to juggle between work and familycommitments (see also Thompson 1996): trying to pursue her owncareer (which she describes as work for herself! rather thanwork for her family) and at the same time accomplishing thedoing and displaying of mothering that others demand from her.

Discussion and conclusion

In returning to our initial assertion that there is a dearthof research which explores the dynamics of labour division in

the household over time we have found a series of changes thatimpact on task performance in the home. We have explored thechanging employment statuses of the parents and the childrengrowing up as having impacts on the management andorganisation of task performance. The time spent at home byparents impacts on the volume of tasks they perform, howeverthe management of (and responsibility for) these tasksremained the preserve of Tracey throughout the period studied.Tracey’s observation in her email to us that she must be a‘control freak’ is certainly bourn out by the evidence fromour subsequent interview with her. However we think that thisis not, as Tracey is probably alluding to, merely apersonality trait, but a response to wider structural changesin society. In a book which examines mothering in AmericaWarner (2006) observes the tendency of contemporary mothers tomicro-manage the household, in particular the children in thehousehold. In a chapter entitled ‘A Generation of ControlFreaks’ she describes the tendency of mothers to ‘privatiseproblems’ (p163) within the household and take on increasingresponsibility for their children viewing this as symptomaticof the rise of individualism and a decline in opportunities toshare the burden of raising a family more widely beyond thehome. As the boys grew up they also took on a slightlyincreased share of task performance in the home but thisseemed to be largely a reaction to Tracey’s attempts tosocialise them in preparation for the time they would beleaving the family home. As such their task performance didnot seem to reduce the workload for Tracey and Mark verysignificantly. Often the tasks they did perform were learningopportunities and they therefore required extra planning andsome instruction and help in executing them (in particularcooking). We also think that Tracey’s attempts here are aboutmaking sure that the boys felt that they were contributingconstructively to the family unit. These attempts to createand maintain a cohesive family identity and sense oftogetherness is in turn central to Tracey’s own identity as‘mother’

We also have a series of observations to make aboutaccountability and entitlement in the home which both impacton the division of household labour but also enable householdmembers to require labour from others. In this case we havefocused largely on the way in which other household membersrequire certain enactments, and their associated implicationsfor task performance and management from Tracey. Tracey wasconsistently required to account for her actions to others,both her sons and her mother called her to account if shewasn’t delivering on their own received ideas aboutappropriate mothering. Her mother directly questions Traceyabout the household division of labour (i.e. Tracey working inher study while her husband Mark does the housework). In asimilar way her son Richard is also drawing on a specificconvention of mothering when he asks her why his meal has notbeen tailored to his tastes even though his Dad cooked it.While these examples may seem disparate in both cases Traceyis called by other family members to account for her actions.Underlying these requests to account are highly normativeideas of mothering as sacrificing self (career, own tastes infood) for the wider benefit of the family (see also Cappelliniand Parsons, forthcoming 2012a). While Tracey is oftenrequired to live up to the norms and standards of motheringheld by others she is also clearly subject to wider norms ofmothering. However, viewing Tracey as entirely subject tothese requirements misses out on her own agency in theprocess. Many of Tracey’s actions, her attempts to retaincontrol over task management, as well much of the actualperformance of tasks, are undoubtedly efforts on her own partto both socialise her children and maintain her own narrativeof family togetherness (Gillis, 1996). Interestingly we alsoobserved an instance of Tracey and her husband Mark ascompeting to perform tasks as a form of self sacrifice. Eachwanting the other to acknowledge their input into thehousehold. The politics of recognition are vital tounderstanding the dynamics of the household. Indeed, thedivision of labour in the household and the allocation oftasks to household members is not without its tensions. Time

and again in the interview we saw Tracey struggling with therequirements of home versus workplace. In terms of heridentity she often framed her work commitments based outsidethe home as her more selfish activities, as contributing toher own career as an individual, rather than as benefiting thefamily collective. Hollway (2006) explores these tensionsbetween individuality and intersubjectivity in motherhood.While pressures on family time have increased with changingparticipation in the workforce as well as changes andfracturing of traditional family structures, norms andconventions surrounding the family have remained rather static(Daly, 2001; Cinotto, 2006). This mismatch results in a“structural contradiction” (Daly 2001:293) between the livedexperience of family time and the powerful ideology whichcontinues to govern it. As Gillis (1996: xvii) observes ‘Therehas always been tension between the families people live withand the families they live by’

There are also a series of power struggles constantly inoperation between family members, as they bring their ownneeds and expectations to their everyday householdinteractions. These needs and expectations are moderated by asense of the greater good of the family. However the nature ofthis shared sense of family, and the extent to which itimpacts on willingness to sacrifice individual needs, differsbetween family members. Tensions between individual andcollective needs are typically at the heart of power strugglesin the household. These struggles were most prominent betweenthe children and their mother (Tracey).As they grow up theytend to challenge Tracey more often as they seek to access asmuch resource as possible for their individual needs whilstalso asserting an increasing degree of independence from thefamily unit. This happens at the same time as Tracey attemptsto instil in them a sense of responsibility for their rolewithin the family. As they enter their teens, thinking aheadto a time when she knows they will have families of their own,Tracey feels a mounting pressure to socialise them as goodfuture husbands and fathers. Her attempts to socialise them

(in particular in teaching them cooking skills) are stronglyinfluenced by her own received ideals of family togethernessand shared responsibility in the home. As we have seen theseattempts may also be motivated by Tracey’s own genderpolitics, she is keen that her sons do not reproduce theunequal gender relations she observed between her own parents.These past experiences shape both her relations with her ownhusband as well as her aspirations for her sons’ futurerelationships. This highlights the power of receivedexperiences of family life, in particular power relationsbetween family members in shaping future ideas andexpectations about ‘doing family’ and ‘doing mothering’.

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