Why ‘maternal’? And why ‘modern American motherhood’?

Focused and broad at the same time (can I do that?)

I tend to summarize The Maternal Stress Project this way:

The Maternal Stress Project is a multi-layered, exploratory initiative that aims to map and describe the web of stressors related to modern American motherhood.

In the title and description, there is a key word and a key phrase that deserve some clarification and expansion beyond their typical definitions: maternal and American motherhood.

Here is what I mean.

Maternal

I am using the term ‘maternal’ as a general catchall that can apply across the range of biological and societal experiences of women, caregivers, and those in birthing bodies. Starting from this definition, I want to emphasize that from a stress perspective, I recognize that there are stressors that directly relate to the experience of becoming pregnant, being pregnant, birthing a human, and physically recovering in the postpartum period; and there are also stressors that relate to identifying as woman or mother, or taking on the role of primary caregiver, whether you physically birth a baby from your body, or not. And, honestly, as the map expands to apply to women more generally, the caregiving role also relates to the disproportional expectation that women take on a bulk of the care work for aging and chronically ill family.

I know that the term ‘maternal’ is not ideal or applicable to everyone who associates with these stressors and I hope to continue the discussion around the term until we collectively come up with something better.

Modern American motherhood

In mapping the stressor web (and, keep in mind that this will evolve and change as the project rolls on), my hefty goal is categorizing stressors related to modern American motherhood. I know that this map can and does apply beyond the borders of the US, but, let’s be honest, this country has some issues in how we support women and caregivers — we lack federal paid leave, we have growing childcare deserts, we are losing abortion access, continued pervasion of patriarchy and racism in perinatal care… ugh, should I go on? These issues fuel the stress-related risks while also opening up opportunities for significant impact. Just pass a federal paid leave policy and make childcare universal and… Boom! So many stress-related issues solved! 

Not perfect terms and phrasing but we’re starting here… with more reflection to come. Open to any and all (constructive) feedback on this!