Mothers, Mothering and Motherhood Across Cultural Differences - A Reader

By Andrea O'Reilly

Mothers, Mothering and Motherhood across Cultural Differences, the first-ever Reader on the subject matter, examines the meaning and practice of mothering/motherhood from a multitude of maternal perspectives. The Reader includes 22 chapters on the following maternal identities: Aboriginal, Adoptive, At-Home, Birth, Black, Disabled, East-Asian, Feminist, Immigrant/Refuge, Latina/Chicana, Poor/Low Income, Migrant, Non-Residential, Older, Queer, Rural, Single, South-Asian, Stepmothers, Working, Young Mothers, and Mothers of Adult Children. Each chapter provides background and context, examines the challenges and possibilities of mothering/motherhood for each group of mothers and considers directions for future research. The first anthology to provide a comprehensive examination of mothers/mothering/ motherhood across diverse cultural locations and subject positions, the book is essential reading for maternal scholars and activists and serves as an ideal course text for a wide range of courses in Motherhood Studies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Demeter Press
• Release date: May 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781927335772

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Reader

Mothers, Mothering and Motherhood Across Cultural Differences: A Reader

Copyright © 2014 Demeter Press

Individual copyright to their work is retained by the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for its publishing program.

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Mothers, mothering and motherhood across cultural differences: a reader/ edited by Andrea O’Reilly.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-927335-39-0 (pbk. )

1. Motherhood–Cross-cultural studies. 2. Mothers– Cross-cultural studies.

I. O’Reilly, Andrea, 1961-, editor

HQ759. M92 2014 306. 874’3 C2014-902319-7

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Table of Contents

Dedications

Introduction

Andrea O’Reilly

1 Aboriginal Mothering: Honouring the Past, Nurturing the Future

Jennifer Brant

2 Adoptive Mothers-Mothering

Jennifer Katz and Emily Hunt

3 Recomposing Maternal Identities: Mothering Young Adult Children

Jenny Jones

4 African American Mothering: Home is Where the Revolution Is

Andrea O’Reilly

5 Birth Mothers

Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy

6 Disabled Mothers

Gloria Filax and Dena Taylor

7 Mothering in East Asian Communities: Challenges and Possibilities

Patti Duncan and Gina Wong

8 Feminist Mothering

Andrea O’Reilly

9 Mothers on the Move: Immigrant and Refugee Mothers

Julia E. Curry Rodríguez

10 Representing and Transforming Latina/Chicana Mothering

Dorsía Smith Silva

11 Migrant Mothers: Distant Mothering by Choice, Motherly Loss by Force

Shu Ju Ada Cheng

12 Non-Resident Mothers: Refining Our Understandings

Diana L. Gustafson

13 Older Mothers: Trendy and Stigmatized

Karin Sardadvar

14 Mothering in Poverty

Heather Jackson

15 Queer Mothering and the Question of Normalcy

Margaret F. Gibson

16 Rural Mothers

Ellen Buck-McFadyen

17 Her Cape is at the Cleaners: Searching for Single Motherhood in a Culture of Self-Sufficiency

Elizabeth Bruno

18 Contextualizing South Asian Motherhood

Jasjit K. Sangha

19 Stay-At-Home Mothers

Elizabeth Reid Boyd and Gayle Letherby

20 Step Mothers

Patrycja Sosnowska-Buxton

21 Working Mothers: Performing Economic and Gender Ideologies

Roberta Guerrina

22 Young Mothers and the Age-Old Problems of Sexism, Racism, Classism, Family Dysfunction and Violence

Deborah L. Byrd

23 Contributors’ Biographies

Dedications

To the Mother Outlaws of Demeter Press

Lyndsay Kirkham

Angie Deveau

Sharon Marks

Luciana Ricciutelli

Nicole Doro

Tracey Carlyle

Kaley Ames

Adrienne Ryder

Introduction

ANDREA O’REILLY

In the introduction toUntil Our Hearts are on the Ground: Aboriginal Mothering, Oppression, Resistance and RebirthAboriginal scholar and activist Memee Lavell-Harvard, when discussing the cultural difference and specificity of Aboriginal mothering, shares with the reader a memory from her own childhood as a young Aboriginal girl growing up in the 1970s in Canada:

According to my father, I once claimed that I did not have the mother I would prefer. She regularly sent me to school with sandwiches of moose meat or venison or partridge on fried bread. I longed for the normalcy of peanut butter and jam on white bread. . . . My mother’s food choices and preparation methods were always out of sync with those promoted by Betty Crocker and Uncle Ben. Not only did my mother grow all of our own vegetables, raising our own pork, poultry and on occasion a side of beef or two (while the other families bought theirs at the store in colourful packages) but she and my father insisted on doing so organically. While the indignity of eating homegrown organic foods was enormous, worse still was the fact that in an era when babies were being fed scientifically-fortified infant formula in sterilized bottles my mother went about breastfeeding. We did not even had a ‘pen’ for the baby to ‘play’ in. and I am sure none of us were Ferberized. People were amazed we survived at all. (3)

She goes on to write: Clearly we were different. We were ‘not white’ and it showed (3). Indeed, as Lavell-Harvard emphasizes, If (aboriginal peoples) have nothing else in common, we share the experience of being different from (and often fundamentally opposed to) the dominant culture, which has a significant impact on our ability to mother as we see fit, according to our own values and traditions. The Aboriginal mother who adheres too closely to her traditions has historically found it difficult, if not impossible, to meet the standards of the ‘good mother’ as set out by the dominant patriarchal culture (2).

I open the introduction to this Reader on Mothers, Mothering and Motherhood Across Cultural Differences with Memee’s reminiscences as they illustrate well how pervasive the normative ideology of the good mother is and how thoroughly it can distort and pervert our own experiences of mothering and being mothered. I remember only too well the many times my now grown children were bullied and ostracized for being ‘different’ as a result of their feminist upbringing in our rural and conservative community. Only last month, I overheard my youngest daughter, now 24, sharing a memory of being taunted and excluded by her grade two classmates and told that she would go to hell when they learned that her parents were not married, and that she had not been baptized. But she also remembered, as she continued with her story, me, her mother, going to the school the next day demanding that the teacher of this grade two classroom give a lesson on difference and acceptance which I am pleased to say she did. The aim of this Reader is offer a similar lesson: to demonstrate and celebrate the diversity of mothers and mothering that are denied in, and by, normative images and narratives of ‘good’ motherhood.

For the past twenty years I have taught a third year Women’s Studies course on Mothering and Motherhood that examines how patriarchal motherhood is oppressive to women and how women may resist such through empowered mothering. Each year I open the course asking students to describe the good mother in contemporary culture: What does a good mother look like; who is she? Students comment that good mothers, as portrayed in the media or popular culture more generally, are white, heterosexual, married, middletoupperclass, able-bodied, suburban, thirtysomething, apolitical, in a nuclear family with one to two young children to whom she is biologically related and ideally is a full time, stay-at-home mother. I then ask how many in the room are ‘good’ mothers as defined by these normative images of motherhood (or if they are not mothers themselves, were they raised by this so-called ideal mother). Seldom has a hand been raised. Of course we know that mothers come from all races and ethnicities, that mothers are both young and old, that mothers are both urban and rural, straight and queer, partnered and single, that many women mother with disabilities, that many mothers are poor or working class, that most mothers work outside the home in paid employment, that social and political activism is a part of many mothers’ lives, that women mother older children as well as young children, that some mothers live apart from their children, that many women raise children with whom they have no biological relation as with adoption and in blended families and finally that all these mothers are good mothers who raise their children with love and care equal to that of the normative/idealized ‘good’ mother. However, we also know that normative motherhood, while representative of very few women’s lived identities and experiences of mothering, is considered the normal and natural maternal experience: to mother otherwise, is to be abnormal or unnatural. Mothers who, by choice or circumstance, do not fulfill the profile of the good mother, they are too young or too old, or do not follow the script of good mothering—they work outside the home, live apart from their children—are deemed ‘bad’ mothers in need of societal regulation and correction.

This book, the first-ever Reader onMothers, Mothering, and Motherhood Across Cultural Differences,includes twenty-two chapters representing the following maternal identities, organized in alphabetical order: Aboriginal, Adoptive, Mothers of Adult-Children, African-American, Birth, Disabled, East-Asian, Feminist, Immigrant/Refuge, Latina/Chicana, Poor/Low Income, Migrant, Non-Residential, Older, Queer, Rural, Single, South-Asian, Stay-at-Home, Step, Working, Young. Each chapter provides background and context, examines the challenges and possibilities of mothering/motherhood for each group of mothers, and considers directions for future research. The collection represents a wide and diverse range ofmaternalperspectivesandpractices, andseeksto‘talkback’tothenormative discourse of good motherhood; challenging, resisting, and dismantling its monolithic definition and representation of good motherhood.

Elsewhere, I have argued that normative motherhood is informed and maintained by ten ideological assumptions that cause mothering to be oppressive to women, which I have termed the essentialization, privatization, individualization, naturalization, normalization, idealization, bioligicalization, expertization, intensification, and depoliticalization of motherhood (O’Reilly, Matricentric Pedagogy, and Maternal Empowerment). Essentialization positions maternity as basic to, and the basis of, female identity, while privatization locates motherwork solely in the reproductive realm of the home. Similarly, individualization causes such mothering to be the work and responsibility of one person and naturalization assumes that maternity is natural to women, all women naturally ‘know how to mother,’ andthattheworkofmotheringisdrivenbyinstinctratherthanintelligence, and developed by habit rather than skill. In turn, normalization limits and restricts maternal identity and practice to one specific mode, that of nuclear family, wherein the mother is a wife to a husband, and she assumes the role of the nurturer, while the husband assumes that of the provider. Bioligicalization, in its emphasis on blood ties, positions the birth mother as the ‘real’ and authentic mother. The expertization and intensification of motherhood, particularly as they are conveyed in what Hays has termed intensive mothering, and what Michaels and Douglas call the new momism, cause childrearing to be all-consuming and expert-driven. Finally, idealization sets unattainable expectations of and for mothers, while depoliticalization characterizes childrearing solely as a private, non-political undertaking with no social or political import.

This collection, in examining mothering/motherhood across a wide range of maternal perspectives, seeks to challenge and change these ideological imperatives of normative motherhood by foregrounding alternative, non-normativepracticesandmeaningsofmotherworkthatoftenserve to empower mothers. African American mothering, for example, challenges the individualization of normative motherhood in its practice of other and communal mothering as do Queer mothers in their practice of co-mothering. Step and Adoptive Mothering resist the biologization of normative motherhood while Non-Residential and Migrant mothers oppose its privitization by mothering their children across households and families. Immigrant, Rural, Poor mothers, as well as mothers from racialized identities—East and South Asian, Chicana—often disregard the intensification of Western and middle-class mothering practices while Working mothers often refute its essentialism and naturalization by sharing parenting with their male partners. Aboriginal Mothering likewise contests its expertization in its reliance on traditional beliefs and practices of motherwork while Feminist mothering negates its depoliticalization in its view of maternal practice as a socially/politically engaged enterprise and a site of power wherein mothers can and do affect social change, both in the home through feminist childrearing and outside the home through maternal activism. And all the chapters in this Reader challenge the normalization of patriarchal motherhood in their refusal to restrict maternal identity and practice to one specific mode or model.

In my work I argue that patriarchy resists non-normative mothering precisely because it understands its real power to bring about a true and enduring cultural revolution. Researchers agree that motherhood, as it is currently perceived and practiced in patriarchal societies, is disempowering if not oppressive for a multitude of reasons: namely, the societal devaluation of motherwork, the endless tasks of privatized mothering and the impossible standards of idealized motherhood. However, what I have discovered in my many years of teaching and researching motherhood is that while normative motherhood oppresses women, non-normative mothering serves to empower women. Non-normative mothers, whether they be defined and categorized as such by age, race, sexuality, or biology, can never be the ‘good’ mothers of normative motherhood so they must rely on and develop non-patriarchal practices of mothering to raise their children. Such practices whether they be the shared parenting of working mothers, the comothering, communal/other mothering of Aboriginal, African-American, Queermothers, theextendedfamilyhouseholdsofChicana, EastandSouth Asian mothering, the maternal activism of Feminist mothers, fictive kin of Step Mothers, all challenge and change the various ways that the lived experiences of patriarchal motherhood causes mothering to be limiting or oppressive to women. The many non-normative mothering practices listed aboveanddescribedinfullthroughoutthechaptersthatfollow, oftenmake mothering more rewarding, if not empowering for women, because these non-normative mothers seldom mother alone or in isolation as they would in patriarchal motherhood and the work and responsibility of mothering is seldom solely that of the biological mother (again as would be mandated in patriarchal motherhood).

This is not to say that non-normative mothering is always rewarding or empowering, but rather it is to emphasize that non-normative mothers who, by choice or circumstance, cannot be the ‘good’ mothers of patriarchal motherhood must imagine and implement non-patriarchal mothering practices that in their very otherness open up new possibilities for mothering. Lavell-Harvard concludes the chapter cited above with these words:

We, as Aboriginals, have always been different, we have always existed on the margins of the dominant patriarchal culture, and as mothers we have operated outside of, if not in actual opposition to, their definition of acceptability. We are to use the words of Adrienne Rich, the original mother outlaw (qtd in O’Reilly Rocking 35). (6)

I would suggest that these words are equally applicable to the many and diverse mothers presented in this Reader: in operating outside, if not in actual opposition to, normative motherhood, these mothers in their very unacceptability show us more acceptable ways to mother and be mothered.

WORKS CITED

Douglas, Susan J. , and Meredith Michaels. The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Has Undermined Women. . New York: Free Press, 2004.

Hays, Sharon. The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Lavell-Harvard, D. Memee and Jeannettee Corbiere Lavell. Until Our Hearts are on the Ground: Aboriginal Mothering, Oppression, Resistance and Rebirth. Bradford, Ontario: Demeter Press, 2006.

O’Reilly, Andrea. Rocking the Cradle: Thoughts on Motherhood, Feminism, and the Possibility of Empowered Mothering. Bradford, Ontario: Demeter Press, 2006.

O’Reilly, Andrea. ‘It Saved My Life:’ The National Association of Mother Centres, Matricentric Pedagogy, and Maternal Empowerment. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative. Volume 4, Number 1 (2013): 185-209.

1.

Aboriginal Mothering

Honouring the Past, Nurturing the Future

JENNIFER BRANT

INTRODUCTION

She:kon, Jennifer Brant Ionkiats. Kenhté:ke nitewaké:non tanon Kanien’kehá:ka ni’ ni:’i. Wakeniáhton :ni. (Hello, my name is Jennifer Brant. I am from the Mohawk Nation with family ties to Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory and Six Nations of the Grand River Territory).

In honour of Aboriginal ways of contextualizing knowledge, I begin by introducing myself in this manner to honour my ancestors who support me throughout my journey as a mother, an academic and a writer. I also share this to place myself in connection with the readers of this chapter. As a Yakonkweh n:we (Mohawk woman), and mother of two young boys, I am honoured to contribute to this reader on mothering and motherhood by offering my understandings of Aboriginal Mothering. ¹It is a balance of both the personal experience I can share as a mother of two boys, along withtheknowledgeIhavegainedthroughmyresearchandworkwithother Aboriginal mothers that I will share in the following sections.

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

Given that a large component of my Master’s thesis focused on Indigenous ideologies of mothering, and advocated for culturally relevant pedagogy that embraced the mothering roles of Aboriginal women in the university setting, my thesis supervisor asked me about my own experience of learning how to be, and what it meant to be, an Aboriginal mother. It was a question that I certainly could not answer right away, and so it left me with something to reflect upon. In writing this chapter, I found that I kept coming back to this question and my subsequent reflections. Now well into my PhD, as I continue to learn new lessons about my own Aboriginal mothering my thoughts on what Aboriginal motheringis continues to expand and shift. My supervisor wanted to know if Aboriginal mothering was something I learned in my own experience as an Aboriginal girl, or was it something ingrained and instinctive that derived from a deeper sense of knowing and being. I wondered,Was it part of my blood memory? or Was it an instinctive ‘sense of being’ echoing the maternal energies that guide my spirit? (Acoose).

Through reflection, I realized that my professor posed an interesting and very complex question considering much of the loss Indigenous communities have suffered, especially when it comes to mothering, as a result of residential schooling and continued child apprehension. Not only did residentialschoolshaveanimpactonthechildrenintheschools, alongwiththe families who lost their right to parent their own children, but it also had a traumatic impact on parent-child relationships that is now widely acknowledged as the intergenerational trauma of the residential school system (Ing; Smith, Varcoe & Edwards).

Any understanding of Indigenous parenting would be incomplete without deconstructing the impact of colonization on Indigenous mothers, families, and communities today. Collectively and individually Indigenous women have had to resist what Janice Acoose refers to as the whiteeurocanadian-christian-patriarchal (weccp) institutions, and seek out ways to reclaim our identities as Indigenous mothers. Also of consideration is what Indigenous mothering means today, and how has it changed from a time when women were revered for their roles as mothers (Cull) and honoured as the life-givers of our future generations (Anderson) to a time when Aboriginal women have become unquestionably the most oppressed members of our society (Lavell-Harvard & Corbiere Lavell 4). Indigenous peoples have always adapted overtime to survive and flourish in their physical and social environment. The same can be said of Indigenous mothering presently. Aboriginal women have certainly adapted to survive and have had to work hard to maintain their roles as mothers fighting against numerous odds that I discuss throughout the chapter. Part of that survival is to resist the colonial forces that historically and presently attack Aboriginal mothering and to reclaim the mothering roles that governed traditional pre-contact societies.

It was not only these complexities that left me feeling inadequate or unqualified to respond to such an inquiry. I also wondered, who am I to write about such a large and diverse group of women, especially when I am on my own decolonizing journey as an Aboriginal woman and mother? Kim Anderson shares her own story as a new mom attempting to learn more about Indigenous mothering and traditional Native parenting, pointing out there were no books on this in the parenting section of my local bookstore,oratanyofthespecialtyIndigenousbooksellers. Sheadvisesas with most traditional knowledge, the place to go looking was among older women who were able to speak about their own experience and the knowledge they had gained from oral tradition (Brant & Anderson 202). Anderson continues by pointing out that there is not some kind of neat package that can offer teachings about Aboriginal motherhood, rather knowledge aboutparenting, anystyle, comesthroughthemessystuffofpracticeandreflection (203). As experiential learners it makes sense that our knowledge about mothering would largely stem from the day-to-day practice of parenting, and also from the lessons we gain from our children through our work as parents. Beyond this, Anderson also shares her understanding of the complexity of Indigenous mothering would involve years of study about the histories of our peoples, and research into the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs of our present (203). Thus, by advancing an understanding of the complexities of the histories (pre-contact and colonial) and contemporary realities (ongoing colonization and processes of decolonization) of Aboriginal women, deeper insights of Aboriginal mothering can be gained.

Diversities and Commonalities

In the introduction to their anthologyUntil Our Hearts Are On The Ground: Aboriginal Mothering, Oppression, Resistance and Rebirth, Memee Lavell-Harvard and Jeannette Corbiere-Lavell discuss the difficulty of presenting a universal reality of Aboriginal mothering by drawing attention to not only the diversity that exists among our communities such as differing worldviews, values, and traditions, but also inequalities and differences that exist within individual communities. Surely as they point out, there is a range of Aboriginal women’s experiences existing somewhere be tween ‘traditional’ and ‘modernized’ (2) that is inextricably connected to the diversity in our experiences as Aboriginal mothers. Moreover, demographic portraits of Aboriginal mothers would include, young mothers, older mothers, and single mothers, mothers living in poverty, incarcerated mothers those who live on reserve, and those who live off-reserve, and so on. Lavell-Harvard and Corbiere-Lavell draw on the work of Devon Mihesuah to identify a commonality of difference that connects all Indigenous mothers:

Indeed, if we have nothing else in common, we share the experienceofbeingdifferentfrom(andoftenfundamentallyopposedto)thedominantculture,whichhasasignificantimpact onourabilitytomotherasweseefit, accordingtoourownvalues and traditions. The Aboriginal mother who adheres too closely to her traditions has historically found it difficult if not impossible to meet the standards of the good mother as set out by the dominant patriarchal culture. (2)

This commonality of difference from the dominant culture, especially from the concept of patriarchal mothering, is reflected in the three words they choose to describe the Aboriginal mothering experience in the title of their anthology: Oppression, Resistance, and Rebirth. Despite the diversity among Aboriginal communities, and our varied experiences of motherhood, one need spend only a short time in an Indigenous setting to see that we share much more in common than our shared difference to the dominant culture. In her article Giving Life to the People: An Indigenous Ideology of Motherhood, Anderson also describes the difficulty in defining Indigenous motherhood but acknowledges our shared commonalities:

Writing about an Indigenous ideology of motherhood is of course, an exercise in making generalizations about peoples whoareextremelydiverse. Evenwithinournations,thelifeexperiences and perspectives of one individual may be radically different from another. This being said, Indigenous peoples on the whole do share many common values, epistemologies, and worldviews. (761)

Anderson continues by pointing out that as Aboriginal peoples we share a common history of interference. While this history has significantly altered our communities, Anderson writes about the experiences of empowered Indigenous mothering that she describes as strategies of resistance, reclamation, and recovery (762).

Before an understanding of a commonality of difference from the dominant culture and the shared commonalities of Aboriginal cultures can be achieved, the historical and socio-cultural context of Indigenous mothering must be considered.

HISTORICAL AND SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXTS

Patricia Hill Collins advises that for Aboriginal women, and other women of colour, motherhood must be understood within the contexts in which certain realities exist:

Motherhood occurs in specific historical situations framed by interlocking structures of race, class, and gender, where the sons and daughters of white mothers have every opportunity and protection, and the coloured daughters and sons of racial ethnic mothers know not their fate. Racial domination and economic exploitation profoundly shape the mothering context. (311)

This statement is especially true for Aboriginal women whose collective experiences of mothering can only be understood within specific historical and socio-cultural contexts whereby assimilation efforts have controlled, and in many cases completely eradicated, the right of Aboriginal women to be mothers. Cull explains how stereotypes about Aboriginal mothers being uncivilized and uncivilizing had become so deeply entrenched that, in turn, they were used to justify and legitimize attacks on Aboriginal motherhood. These attacks include the Indian Act of 1876, the residential school system, theeugenicsmovements, thesixtiesscoop, andthecurrentoverrepresentation of children in protective services. The social context of Aboriginal mothering today must be understood through the above policies that haveinfringedontherightsofAboriginalwomentomothertheirownchildren. Cull demonstrates the importance of understanding the connection between contemporary Aboriginal mothering within a colonial context by drawing attention to the realities faced by Aboriginal women today:

PROBLEMS experienced by Aboriginal women—racism, addiction, poverty, precarious social and medical sta tus, violence, chronic social and legal persecution, and discrimination—need to be appreciated as being the tip of the iceberg, the body of which was developed a long time ago when Canada’s colonization took root. (150)

Long-term and recent history in Canada involves a number of legally sanctioned initiatives that were significant in defining and controlling the social status of Aboriginal women. These initiatives came to surface in the late 1800s when the binary images of the Indian princess or the Indian Squaw were becoming deeply embedded into the Euro-Canadian consciousness (Carter). As a result of the Industrial Revolution, the public and private spheres of the Western family were also being introduced. This time is described as one where there was a shift from family-centered working environments towards environments where men worked away from the home while women were mainly responsible for the domestic duties of the home (Anderson). The characteristics of the middle class ideals of motherhood that surfaced during this era served to justify the moral regulation of Aboriginal women who were viewed as dirty, dissolute, and dangerous, and the governing of traditional Aboriginal family practices that were viewed as uncivilized and uncivilizing (Anderson; Carter).

Moreover, while these middle-class ideals contrasted with traditional Aboriginal mothering practices, the moral regulation of Aboriginal women and their segregation to reserves severely limited their access to resources. Carter advises that basic sanitary items such as soap and wash basins were not available to the women, and the lack of textiles and yarn made clothing scarce as well. Despite acknowledgement that Aboriginal women had no meanstoacquirethesebasicneedsthetendencywastoascribeblametothe women rather than to draw attention to conditions that would injure the reputation of government administrators (150). Not only were Aboriginal familiesforcedtorelocateontosmallpiecesoflandwithlimitedresourcesso settlers could benefit from the rich and vast landscapes that could support ranching and farming, but the development of the stereotype of Aboriginal women as dangerous and immoral governed their movement off reserve. Legislated policy made it difficult to go into town to acquire basic resources and as a result conditions of poverty and lack of sanitation made it easy for Aboriginal mothers to be viewed as bad parents. The following section outlinesthislegislatedpolicyanddescribeshowitspecifically controlledthe lives of Aboriginal women and attacked Aboriginal motherhood.

The Indian Act of 1876 was designed to create a patriarchal family unit in First Nations societies that already had a variety of kinship systems, including many matrilineal and matrilocal ones (Sangster 307). This Indian Act has been described as being one of the most influential and intrusive acts of legislation in Canadian history (Cull 147). It was part of an assimilation framework in which every aspect of life for Aboriginal peoples was regulated as they were forced into a state of dependency. Throughout varioussectionsofthisIndianAct,Aboriginalpeopleswerediagnosed,through a colonial imagination, as inferior and uncivilized. Extending this notion, Aboriginal women were deemed unfit mothers who were not only uncivilized, but also uncivilizing. The marriage laws under this act and Bill C-31 (see Fiske) were significant to the regulation and subjugation of Aboriginal women. The customary marriage practices of Aboriginal societies were viewed as suspicious and less genuine than the legal marriages of the church. As a result, women who lived with men and were not legally married according to the state could be charged with immorality under the Indian Act and this could result in a jail term (Fiske). Presumably, this had significant implications for the stability of traditional Aboriginal societies as it led to the suppression of traditional family planning practices such as customary marriage ceremonies. Further, it is likely that it was a deterrent for women and men to live together for fear of being charged under the Indian Act and possibly serving jail time.

The pass system was also sanctioned under the Indian Act. Under this system, the freedom for Aboriginal women to be seen off the reserve was limited. This was justified by the assumption that Aboriginal women went into the town only to work as prostitutes and therefore they must be confined to the reserve in order to keep the cities clean. The residential school system severely limited Aboriginal women’s access to resources (such as textilesforclothingandsoapforwashingasdescribedearlier)andemployment opportunities (Carter).

The residential school system sanctioned under the Indian Act was significant to the repression of the traditional family practices of Aboriginal communities. The residential school system involved legally sanctioned church run institutions in which Aboriginal children were taken from their families and home communities and placed in boarding style schools where they were given European names and forbidden to speak their languages and/or practice their cultures. This was a deliberate attack in attempt to erase Aboriginal cultures, languages and traditions, and to civilize the Indian. The first residential school to open in Canada opened in the 1880s. Between 1910 and 1930, 75% of Native Children were in residential schools (Anderson). In 1980, residential school students began disclosing sexual and other forms of abuse. The last residential school closed in 1996, the Gordon Residential School in Saskatchewan (Assembly of First Nations). The children in these schools were subject to sexual, physical, and emotional abuse; they were taught to be ashamed of their cultures; and they were cut-off from their families and home communities. The abuse experiencedbythesestudentshaddevastatingeffectsforAboriginalcommunities. Children left the residential schools without parenting skills and without the knowledge of their family traditions (Anderson). Entire languages have been lost, cultural shame is prevalent, and there are significant feelings of mistrust towards the public education system.

This system was significant in the moralizing campaign of Aboriginal women whose mothering practices were deemed unfit and uncivilized. The residential school system entailed training women for their exclusively domestic roles. Residential schools took on the job of providing a gendered education that would foster a male breadwinner family model. Boys were trained in trades and farming and girls were schooled in domestic science (Anderson 763). Moreover, these boys and girls were taught to be ashamed of the traditional family practices of Aboriginal communities (Anderson). While the residential school system was sanctioned to solve the Indian problemithasactuallycreatedmanyoftheproblemsthatAboriginalcommunities face today, including the shift away from traditional family planning practices, and these problems are often used to justify the stereotypes of Aboriginal mothering practices as inferior.

The deliberate attack on the right of Aboriginal women to mother their own children continued during what is referred to as the Sixties Scoop. ThisinvolvedthemassremovalofchildrenfromAboriginalhomes and into state care. Children were relocated away from their families and communities and siblings were separated. Many children were sent from CanadatotheUnitedStatesandanyrecordsthatidentifiedtheirhomecommunities were destroyed. Many of those children, now middle-aged adults, are trying to find out where they came from, unaware of their nation and home communities. While in 1959 only 1 per cent of children in state care were Aboriginal, it has been estimated that there were 30 to 40 per cent of children in state care by the end of the 1960’s even though the Aboriginal population of Canada was less than 4 per cent (Anderson). Indeed, it was risky business to be an Aboriginal mother during this time period.

For many Aboriginal women, the opportunity to become a mother was denied through the forced and legal sterilizations that took place during the eugenics movement. Supported by women’s suffrage advocates Nellie McClung and Emily Murphy, the eugenics movement allowed for the legal sterilization of women who were deemed unfit to mother. This procedure was often done without the consent of the woman and in some cases with womennotevenknowingsterilizationhadtakenplace. Forexample,asCull reports, in 1959 at the age of 14 an Aboriginal woman named Leilani Muir was sterilized without her consent. Muir was unaware of this procedure until she began having difficulty conceiving. Little attention was drawn toward the impact of the eugenics movement on Aboriginal women, until Leilani Muir successfully sued the government of Alberta (Cull). While more research needs to be done in this area, studies suggest that between 25-50% of Aboriginal women in Canada were sterilized involuntarily during the height of this act (Anderson).

CENTRAL ISSUES: REVISITING THE COLONIAL AGENDA

A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong their weapons.

- Cheyenne Proverb

The above oft-quoted proverb captures the essence of a colonial agenda threatened by the ability of Native women to reproduce the next generation of people who can resist colonization (Smith 78). Beyond reproduction, the power Native women held in pre-contact societies also threatened the advancement of patriarchal motherhood. Thus, as Smith asserts, the colonization of Native women served as a strategy to strengthen the patriarchal family unit within settler society. Noting that white women were in awe of the peaceful and egalitarian nature of pre-contact families, Smith maintains that the demonization of Native women, then, is part of white men’s desires to maintain control over white women (8). The demonization of Aboriginal women and control over their reproduction rights continues today in less overt forms. Smith draws attention to the use of dangerous contraceptives among Native women without FDA approval. Native women are also over exposed to toxic radiation poisoning that threaten healthy reproduction and contaminate breast milk.

The aforementioned legislative policies along with the continued disregard and abuse of Native women’s bodies and reproduction rights expose the extent of colonial attacks on Aboriginal mothering and reveal the contemporary incursions of Aboriginal families. While most would think policies restricting the right of Aboriginal women to mother their own children have changed significantly, a number of scholars suggest this is not the case (Cross and Blackstock; Cull; Gosselin; Lavell-Harvard and Corbiere Lavelle). Rather, contemporary realities of many Aboriginal women suggest that their roles as mothers continues to be viewed through the colonial imagination positioning Native women as dirty, uncivilized and uncivilizing. Cull maintains, the theme that links the state’s past and present treatment of Aboriginal mothers involves the non-empirically supported, implicit notion that Aboriginal women are unfit parents in need of state observation, guidance and at times, intervention (141). Gosselin echoes this sentiment by noting the experiences of Aboriginal mothers today must be analyzed against the backdrop of colonial and current neo-colonial practices and discourses (198). Gosselin writes about the policing of Aboriginal mothering by sharing an example of a woman in Quebec whose case was brought to the Human Rights Tribunal. Gosselin draws attention to the interrogations that took place during the trial where the woman was questioned about why the kids had different fathers and why one son was always sick (201), concluding that her Aboriginal mothering was policed through a colonial and nationalist construction of the good mother vs. the bad mother. This is an important case for further reflection in light of the current over representation of Aboriginal children in state care. As CullcontendsAboriginalmotherscontinuetolivetheirlivesunderastatecontrolled microscope and no one’s life or behaviours look acceptable under that type of unnatural and unjust scrutiny (153). Not only are Aboriginal mothers viewed under the critical glare of the state and marked with thesamestereotypesthatwereusedtojustifythelegislativepoliciesoutlined above, butnow the traumainflicted on Aboriginalwomen who were stolen from their own families and communities serves as a double mark against them as they mother their own children, many fighting for their right to do so. Gosselin describes this as the continued legacy of residential schooling that impacts on successive generations of mothers and their abilities to nurture(199). AsGosselinpointsout,theseintergenerationalwoundsare used by current neo-colonial discourses as justification to mark Indigenous parents as neglectful and abusive as well as [for] the removal of children from their home environments (199). Evidently the same moralizing campaign that was designed to attack the very heart of Aboriginal communities continues to threaten the most vulnerable of Canadian society; Aboriginal mothers and their children.

A Changing Demographic

In reference to the colonial attacks against Aboriginal mothers described earlier Kim Anderson states:

All of these experiences build terror through individual and collective memory, instilling in parents and communities a profound insecurity about children and a fear of further personal loss. More generally, there is a strong awareness that, as peoples, we face ongoing threat of extinction. Aboriginal peoples have recent memory, collective/historic memory and everyday experiences that continue to feed these insecurities. There is always the threat of someone coming to take the children away, someone scheming to erase us permanently. The political, social, emotional and practical response to these issues has been to reproduce in spite of it all. (176)

Aboriginal women have been doing just that. In fact the Aboriginal population is the youngest and fastest growing segment among the Canadianpopulationwith50%ofthepopulationbeingundertheageof25. This trend is also expected to continue based on a recent study that measured population projections. Currently representing 3. 9% of the Canadian population, the Aboriginal identity population is expected to reach 4. 0% to 5. 3% by 2031. A younger age structure along with higher fertility rates are described as the natural causes of the Aboriginal population growth (Statistics Canada). Moreover, early motherhood is also associated with high fertility rates among Aboriginal youth. The fertility rate of Aboriginal teenage girls aged 15-19 is six times higher than non-Aboriginal girls. For those girls under age 15 it is up to 18 times higher than non-Aboriginal girls (Big Eagle and Guimond). Accompanying these demographics are the contemporary realities in which many Aboriginal women are raising their families. Present day Aboriginal families are described as being younger and larger than non-Aboriginal families. One third of Aboriginal mothers are raising their children single handedly. The average annual income of single Aboriginal mothers is $16, 000 and one third of these mothers are raising three or more children (Anderson). Thus, poverty, hunger, and homelessness are disproportionate among Aboriginal families (Lavell-Harvard and Corbiere Lavell).

Demographic snapshots of the conditions in which many Aboriginal mothers struggle to raise their families are socially specific and must be understood in the historical contexts outlined earlier (Lavell-Harvard and Corbiere-Lavell). The intersection of persistent colonial attitudes of the past, present day social services that marginalize and oppress Aboriginal women, along with the realities outlined above create a layer of barriers that firmly plant Aboriginal mothers in dire situations. As Lavell-Harvard and Corbiere Lavell declare given the situation facing Aboriginal mothers as they struggle, often as the sole provider, to raise their children in less than idealcircumstances, thecorrespondinglydisproportionatenumberofAboriginal children apprehended by child welfare authorities is not surprising (107). The risks associated with the very act of being an Aboriginal mother are abundantly clear.

CHALLENGES

Child Apprehension: A Continued Threat

As Anderson advises, assimilation policies have served as a real threat of extinction for Aboriginal peoples. In addition, as evidenced by present day realities, the right for Aboriginal women and communities to parent Aboriginal children continues to be threatened. In my own experience as an Aboriginal mother I have personally felt this threat on more than one occasion. I will share one experience here as I believe it speaks to the power relations involved in the continued threat of child apprehension among Aboriginal peoples. This incident occurred during the time that I was completing my Master’s degree and had both of my children enrolled in childcare. I was questioned about a suspicious bruise on my infant son and the daycare worker demanded to know where it came from. The marking that was thought to be a bruise was actually from a flu related diaper rash that discoloured my son’s sensitive skin. I believe that my position as a student and Aboriginal single mother—filtered through the colonial imagination I described earlier— precipitated the treatment I received from the daycare worker. Interestingly enough as an educated Aboriginal woman doing research on Aboriginal mothering, I still felt the threat immediately. Given thenatureofmyresearch, Iwaswellpositionedtoseekadvocacyinresponse to the interrogation. I wondered, however, if this situation could have de terred other women from completion of their post-secondary education. So when I read Anderson’s work cited above I could personally connect to the threat of someone coming to take the children away. I also sense this inastorysharedbyMohawklawyerandProfessorPatriciaMonture-Angus. She shares her own experiences with the child welfare system, describing the most painful one being the time her infant son was taken from her for eight days. She had taken her son to the hospital for a broken arm that was later found to be the result of a bone disorder. Noting that the doctors at the hospital vigorously pursued the abuse allegation and laughed when they heard [her] professional credentials, she described her experience as being of layer upon layer of racist treatment (208). Monture-Angus noted the fear of taking her children to the doctors knowing how easy another allegation of abuse can occur. Monture-Angus also draws attention to the unnecessary trauma that was created by the false allegations noting that she saw fear in her son’s eyes for the first time when he was taken for those eight days. These examples demonstrate that, for Aboriginal mothers, regardless of our professional credentials, we continue to be over scrutinized and the right to parent our own children continues to be under attack. Therefore, as Anderson points out, while the very act of reproduction is a risk for any Aboriginal woman, it may also be part of a movement towards regaining control over the right to be both an Aboriginal woman and a mother.

Contemporary challenges to Aboriginal mothering must be understood within the contexts of a continued moralizing campaign that attacks the very right of motherhood. For Aboriginal women, mothering will always involve resisting the forces that marginalize, demoralize, and oppress Aboriginal mothering practices. The extent of these challenges surface in the lived realities of Aboriginal mothers, many of whose daily lives involve navigating a number of obstacles with limited access to resources that most Canadian women take for granted. Many of the conditions that plagued Aboriginal families in the late 1800s described by Carter cannot be forgotten and are certainly not a mere moment of Canada’s shameful past. Unbeknownst to many, such deplorable circumstances remain one of the country’s dirty secrets. It may come as surprise then that as Lavell-Harvard and Corbiere Lavell point out the circumstance under which many Aboriginal peoplearelivinginCanadaareunacceptable,evenbythestandardsofThird World countries, there are disproportionately more Aboriginal women and children living in poverty and facing hunger and homelessness (107). Unfortunately, as in the past, it is Aboriginal women who take the blame for these conditions. The moralizing campaigns of a not so distant future con tinue to justify state intrusion in the homes of many Aboriginal families.

The persistence of child apprehension among Aboriginal families is amalgamated by multiple challenges that also extend the rippling effects of the tip of the iceberg of a colonial past and neocolonial present. As Greenwood and De Leeuw point out, the over representation of Aboriginal children in care has to do with the association between impoverishment and neglect rather than abuse. This is especially dangerous for Aboriginal mothers who are single and raising children in conditions of poverty. For many Aboriginal women significant barriers to employment provide limited options to poverty reduction. While race, class, and gender contribute to employment barriers for Aboriginal women, lower educational attainment and childcare limit job opportunities. This is further complicated by the fact that Aboriginal women are more likely to find low paying and seasonal jobs that make it difficult, if not impossible, to secure childcare placements (Cull; Greenwood and de Leeuw). Limited employment opportunities and low educational attainment make it difficult for Aboriginal women, especially young Aboriginal mothers to move beyond the very conditions that tend to be associated with neglect. Again, the very moralizing campaigns of the 1800s that attacked Aboriginal motherhood persist, and extending this cycle Aboriginal children continue to be apprehended in disproportionate numbers.

Aboriginal Women’s Access to Health Care and Social Services

Baskin, McPherson and Strike advise that the relationship Aboriginal women have with health care and social service workers tends to be oppressive and racist . To examine this relationship they use an anti-colonial frameworkthatunderstandstheexperiencesofAboriginalmothersthroughahistorical and colonial context. Browne and Smye advocate for a post-colonial analysisofhealthcaretoaddressthecolonizingimagesofAboriginalwomen embedded in healthcare discourses. They connect the delivery of healthcare services to neocolonial practices characterized by new forms of colonial ideology embedded in institutional policies and practices, for example, institutional racism, or racialised discrepancies in access to health care, education or economic opportunities (30). Browne and Fiske also report on the oppressive relationship Aboriginal women experience when dealing with health care professionals noting perhaps the most troubling consequences of the colonial legacy in health and social service sectors are the discriminatory judgments leveled against Aboriginal women as mothers (136). They shared examples of participants who understood their inadequate access to healthcare as treatment that is filtered through racialized and gendered stereotypes and of others who described extreme actions of hospital staff such as child abuse allegations. Carolyn Peters explored the experiences of Aboriginal mothers’ access to social services through a multi-layered power analysis. Through interviews with women from low income families, Peters found the women experienced multiple stressors such as poverty, inadequate access to affordable housing, lack of childcare, along with a lack of empathy and understanding from social workers. Their experiences were described as investigative and degrading and the women felt as if they were judged and blamed rather than supported. Peters also reported on the inequitable distribution of resources among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women noting that Aboriginal families are marginalized and offered fewer resources. Perhaps it is the effect of systematic oppression within the health care system that contributes to the low participation of Aboriginal women in prenatal care (Smith et. al). Unfortunately for many Aboriginal women who do receive prenatal care, the Western model may be experienced as culturally insensitive and disrespectful (Long and Curry).

There is much research that documents the need for health care and social service agencies to incorporate post-colonial perspectives that examine unequal power relations associated with access to services (Browne & Fiske; Browne & Smye; Peters). Browne & Fiske apply a cultural safety framework to examine the experiences of Aboriginal women with mainstream health care services. They explain that cultural safety extends analyses well beyond culturalist notions of cultural sensitivity to power imbalances, individual and institutional discrimination, and the nature of health care relations between the colonized and the colonizers at the micro, meso, and macro levels (127). Browne & Smye advise that cultural discourses and cultural sensitivity approaches can limit understandings about the barriers Aboriginal women have in access to services. As they point out, alongside cultural discourses there must be understandings of the way culture, history, and sociopolitical relations intersect and shape women’s health problems and access to health care (35).

Intergenerational Trauma

The need to understand the power relations associated with Aboriginal women’s access should also go hand in hand with an understanding of the need for healing and decolonizing approaches to care. Unfortunately advancements towards decolonizing mainstream services and holistic approaches to care remain undervalued. The need for Indigenous well-being is connected to our colonial legacy and the intergenerational traumas that we individually and collectively live through. Joanne Arnott’s story is one of the need to find healing to support her role as an empowered Indigenous mother. Her story, like the stories of all Indigenous women, cannot be separated from the impact of residential schools on Aboriginal families or the constant threat of state intervention:

When people become parents, and when parents become troubled, the threats can be overwhelming. I felt despair at my wobbling ability to master my anger. I felt resentment, despondence at the uneven skills I’d picked up from my family, and rage at the dearth of support. I felt shame at not having floated past the obvious traps of abusive behaviour and panic—I’m running out of time to get this right. More than everything else all together, I experienced a seemingly endless overflowing grief. (95- 96)

Many can relate to the experience described by Arnott above. And perhaps for Aboriginal women who are constantly under the state’s gaze (Cull), and who are simultaneously dealing with the personal, communal, and collective trauma of residential schools, when it comes to mothering, this experience is deeply layered. This presents the need for culturally relevant and holistic approaches to empower Indigenous mothers.

Attempts to regain control over our mothering practices involve resisting the stereotypical images that continue to oppress us, and reclaiming the traditions that prevailed at a time when Aboriginal women were revered for their roles as mothers(Cull). This is no easy task given the extent of multiple barriers and multi-faceted systems of oppression faced by Aboriginal women. Thus, solutions must also entail holistic approaches that offer equally multi-faceted responses and align with Indigenous parenting traditions. The following sections document this practice of resisting and reclaiming to showcase a movement towards empowered Indigenous mothering.

ENVISIONING POSSIBILITIES THROUGH EMPOWERED MOTHERHOOD

Through stories such as the one shared by Arnott we can begin to envision new possibilities to empowered mothering. For Aboriginal women, empowered mothering comes through a connection with Indigenous ideologies of motherhood. As Anderson advises Indigenous ideologies of motherhood are distinct from patriarchal western models of motherhood, and this means that strategies for empowered mothering are also distinct (775). According to Lavell-Harvard and Corbiere Lavell it is the very distinctiveness of Aboriginal mothering that is empowering:

The historical persistence of our cultural difference generation after generation (despite the best assimilative efforts of both Church and State) is a sign of our strength and our resistance. That we have historically, and continually, mothered in a way that is ‘different’ from the dominant culture, is not only empowering for our women, but is potentially empowering for all women. (3)

Extending this notion, Lina Sunseri draws on the work of Andrea O’Reilly to contrast the ideology of patriarchal motherhood (the good mother who puts everyone’s needs before hers) to that of empowered Indigenous mothering (pursuing one’s own needs and in doing so allowing your children to look up to you). Pointing out that an alternative to patriarchal mothering has always existed in Indigenous communities, Sunseri explains, empowered mothering recognizes that when mothers practice mothering from a position of agency rather than of passivity, of authority rather than of submission, and of autonomy rather than of dependency, all, mothers and children alike, become empowered (57). Indeed as Lavell-Harvard and Corbiere Lavell contend the voices of our sisters, and their accounts of our longstanding resistance to the imposition of patriarchal motherhood and all it entails, can be a source of empowerment in the struggle for revolution (5-6).

Anderson documents Indigenous ideologies of mothering as strategies of resistance, reclamation, and recovery (762) drawing attention to the resiliency of Native women who were able to hold on to traditional customs despite colonial influences, and the role that reclaiming those practices has in the healing and recovery of Indigenous families. The need to reconnect with pre-contact traditions is supported by the work of cultural identity theorists (Anderson; Hundleby, Gfellner, & Racine; Wilson; Yuen & Pedlar) as well as the wisdom of our Elders. On writing about pregnancy, Mohawk Elder Tom Porter tells us that if our tradition is strong, our children are also strong (243). Extending this understanding is the rise of programs and services aimed at rebuilding Indigenous families through traditional parenting strategies. Arnott discusses her experiences within several traditional parenting programs referring to them as a gift. She points out that programming that draws on the old ways and allows participants to see those traditional childrearing practices brought into contemporary