5 The Mothers’ Perspectives and Motivations
5.1 Benefits and Rewards
5.1.1 Overcoming the mother isolation with social support
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5.1 Benefits and Rewards
Several participants’ presentations of self are considerably associated with the benefits and rewards they can obtain from manifesting themselves. Their goals of overcoming the mother isolation, benefiting economically, and transforming the traditional mother discourse are explicitly conveyed through interviews. Furthermore, their profiles have become a means of empowering mothers nowadays. To grant a more profound explanation of their viewpoints, I will continue with the mother influencers’
impressions and expand upon several issues accordingly.
5.1.1 Overcoming the mother isolation with social support
Two participants mentioned that the reason why they present themselves on Instagram is to engage with other mothers on Instagram. The first participant, Rose, mentioned that her sharing helps blossom the connections with her followers:
“I’m happy that I can share myself on Instagram. When I became a mother, I felt depressed a lot. Meanwhile, my husband had to work. I stayed alone with myself pretty often. Instagram has become a place where I can share my feelings and get acquainted with other mothers.”
Rose’s pregnancy was unplanned. She did not expect that she would be pregnant at the age of 24. Rose’s wedding was arranged in a rush, which resulted in a lack of communication with her husband. She revealed that she shared herself, because of her isolation from the world. The sharing of herself has improved the predicament of staying alone, for which she could receive support in the virtual world with no boundaries. Similar to Rose, Katie also shared her mothering life frequently with her followers:
“I share everything close to the ‘ME’ in reality. I also like to share random
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even established a hashtag called negative energy (fu neng liang) for him. Many mothers sent messages to me, saying they felt the same way and complained about their husbands. I feel connected to them.”
Receiving feedback from other mothers is Katie’s motivation for sharing herself.
Self-presentation is a way to bond with other mothers online. The contents Rose and Katie have generated are not solely about sharing their lifestyles, but are also about being supportive and connecting to mothers in the virtual world. These two participants reveal their stories and connections with other mothers since they regard themselves as their followers’ friends. In return, the participants’ mental health has also benefited from presenting themselves online. As mother influencers are under tremendous pressure, they might not share specific things online, but they still share their personal stories with their followers. When I asked Katie and Rose why they post specific content, they revealed that their self-presentation is mentally beneficial.
Sharing their stories on social media is about creating bonds with other mothers and empathizing with other mothers’ worries or exhaustion in their mothering life. The factor that triggered Rose and Katie to share their mothering life with other mothers in the virtual world resulted from mother isolation, which most mothers confront in a patriarchal system like that in Taiwanese culture. As reviewed in Chapter 2, women suffer from isolating themselves when they become mothers. Mothers feel an inability to be social since they are bound to their kids (Campbell & Hart, 2019), especially those who are “geographically or socially isolated from friends and family” (Madge &
O’Connor, p.17).
More scholars have granted relevant insights to explain the situations of the above two participants. Since mothers are hard to find new connections with other parents in the real world (Campbell & Hart, 2019), they seek support by utilizing social media
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communication. The instant communication in the electronic environment facilitates the emergence of a virtual community. Baum (2004) suggested that information exchange through online groups for social support is a form of establishing communities and relieving. As cited in Nielsen, social support serves as an indispensable element of successful parenthood and can led to better maternal health (2015, p.7). Social support includes the structure of one’s social life, such as family and other functions like emotional support (as cited in Nielsen, 2015). Specifically, in social media, social support is “appraisal support” and “social integration,” which mean the availability of someone to talk to and the network of individuals who share interests and concerns (as cited in Nielsen, 2015, p.6). Through connecting with other mothers, mothers can maintain a healthy mental state.
As a Taiwanese society phenomenon, the participants’ isolation and tendency to seek online support are accompanied by the ideology that exists in the patriarchal systems. A traditional household pattern exists in the Taiwanese system. A Taiwanese traditional household pattern means “an adult son to live with his parents and a ‘marry-in’ daughter-in-law (Sandel, 2004, p.367). As a marry-in daughter, the tight connection between herself and her family is gradually loosened by physical distance. Moreover, isolation could occur when so-called “mother duties” occupy the mother’s life, since mothers’ discourse in patriarchal systems glorify their obligations and sacrifices throughout history. The duty of nurturing children and doing chores, or even compromising by leaving the workforce, worsens the isolation. Rose shared an incident related to this situation:
“One time my husband was looking after our daughter since he took a day off.
However, I found out he was sleeping in bed all day. My mother-in-law asked me
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that’s women’s job.’ I was perplexed about the response from my mother-in-law.
If my husband doesn’t know how to raise kids, he can learn. I’m not born to be a mother, either.”
In a patriarchal system, mothers follow particular traditional beliefs. Rose explained that she felt it to be unfair to have such thoughts about women. Women are not born to be mothers. Women learn to be a mother. Rose believes that the job of nurturing a kid does not belong to mothers only. Namely, Rose still suffers from the traditional beliefs since her mother-in-law disagrees with her. The traditional belief has remained embedded in the previous generation like Rose’s mother-in-law. According to Rose, it is evident that her thoughts on motherhood are very different from those of her mother-in-law. However, she has chosen to obey since she thinks she should listen to the elders, especially her husband’s mother. This belief has something to do with Confucianism as well.
As discussed in Chang’s study, Chinese culture influenced by Confucianism seeks
“social harmony” among social connections, especially when the system is practicing the ideology of “familial obligations” and “social propriety” (2001, p.156). Namely, Rose feels the need to comply with her mother-in-law. The relationship between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is intense in patriarchal systems. Gallin (1994) investigated the relationships between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, mentioning that a mother-in-law often disciplines a daughter-in-law severely and bitterly when she has into the home of her husband. Taiwanese daughters-in-law sacrifice their welfare to avoid conflicts and the condemnations of not behaving morally. More importantly, Taiwanese women desire acceptance from their mother-in-law (Sandel, 2004). The system has perpetuated women’s desire to be a favorable person when living with their husband’s family as a married-in person.