5 The Mothers’ Perspectives and Motivations
5.1 Benefits and Rewards
5.1.3 Transforming the traditional mother beliefs
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same time. So, I asked my family to help me. I feel fearless with the support of my family.”
As an entrepreneur, Annie started her business when she was only 19. At such a young age, it was problematic that Annie did everything on her own. Annie revealed that it was challenging for her to embark on a business without family help in her start-up. The pursuit of her dream required a considerable sum of money. It would be hard to achieve if her family did not give her any financial support. The excerpts revealed that Annie’s family was comparatively well-off in this system. With financial support, Annie succeeded in fulfilling her dream as a CEO of a jewelry brand. Along with Annie’s background of living in a wealthy family, her achievement elevates her status under the hierarchical structure today. Annie’s success shows that women can also start their own business and achieve on their own. The case reminds us of that participants’
self-presentation should be also taken account into when transforming the traditional mother beliefs in patriarchal systems. In the next part, I will speak of how the participants transformed the traditional mother beliefs into new mother impressions according to their motivations.
5.1.3 Transforming the traditional mother beliefs
Women have historically suffered the most among deprived groups in the world (Mandal, 2013, p.17). Mothers are underestimated for their achievements in life, in which their glorifications are only signified by the presence of children. I recall Cara’s assertion of her identity. First, Cara bestowed a specific identity on herself: “On Instagram…I think I’m a modern woman.” Surprisingly, Cara has a specific image of herself when sharing on Instagram. Cara’s image leads to the preference of manifesting herself primarily on Instagram. On Cara’s Instagram profile, she does not share her children frequently. Most of her pictures are portrait pictures taken by others or selfies,
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which are different from the other mother influencers’ profiles. Cara continued that her aim of sharing herself is not easy to achieve:
“I share my travel photos on Instagram; sometimes, my followers are curious about my children and whether they came with me or not. I am kind of speechless when seeing the comment. I just want to share the moment, about myself, on ‘MY’
profile.”
When facing questions of curiosity from her followers, Cara’s struggle of primarily revealing herself becomes explicit. Her followers’ constant surveillance on Cara inflicts more significant pressure on revealing the mother-children relationship on her profile. Applying Foucault’s (1977) theory to this case, Cara’s followers serve as a specific power to “control, transform, and condition an individual” by “rules, norms, checks and surveillance” (as cited in Currie, 2004, p.225). Furthermore, the followers’
questioning of Cara lubricates the belief of patriarchal motherhood. Valuing the presence of children, mothers should stay focused on their children subconsciously and simultaneously. Making an emphasis on herself, Cara’s implicitly reaffirms that mothers are experiencing identity loss when they are married and have kids. According to Cara, being a modern mother means the capacity to retain her own life and even her identity.
The theme about transforming the traditional mother beliefs emerged in other participants as well. Some participants aim to transmit specific messages through their self-presentations. As discussed, the mother influencers share their relaxing outdoor experience, personal styles, or beautiful appearances. These images result from their will to spread self-love and self-care concepts. Correspondingly, Rose shared her views upon these mother impressions with me:
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“You can see lots of mothers dressed up beautifully on Instagram, including me. I feel it’s okay to stay with your friends more often, dress up for yourself, or travel around. Do not sacrifice for anyone, even after you get married.”
At the time of the interview, Rose was divorced. She acknowledged what that kind of loss might be when getting married. In addition to being fully devoted to family, Rose valued her lifestyle, even after she got married. In a similar vein, Katie also explained such an idea with her transition into a mother: “I will not abandon the things I love, even if I become a mommy.” The statement indicates that she could keep her hobbies, even if she was the caregiver in the family. Katie was a former fashion buyer.
Her attitude towards mothers’ sacrifice is similar to Rose’s. Katie’s thoughts over herself are also expressed through her photography, as she shares numerous fashion outfits and items:
“I like fashion. I can still share it with my followers. I can still be a fashionable mommy like I used to.”
Katie’s impression of being a fashion mother was explicitly conveyed during the interview. More than that, Rose and Katie transmitted the idea that mothers today can still embrace the things they love through their manifestations. The underlying reason could attribute to the traditional mother beliefs as a caregiver or homemaker in a family.
To achieving the maternal role as someone who kept a family organized, the mothers in this system could sacrifice themselves and forget their previous lifestyles. Rose and Katie disclosed that their concept of sacrificing themselves has gradually faded.
Being a mother influencer could also be purposeful. Anna aimed to become an influencer to perform a new mother impression on Instagram. She tried her best to transform the traditional mother belief: “…I told my followers that mothers should be
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independent, financially, and mentally.” Through Anna’s conversation, I could see her strong desire to transmit her value to other Taiwanese mothers. Anna emphasized:
“Just like I said, I share many values about self-care and self-love. I regard this as one of the purposes of being a mother influencer online. I want to tell all the women and mothers out there that they deserve more love for themselves, and they should care more about themselves.”
Anna had a specific purpose when presenting herself online. She carries out a new maternal image of mothers when she presents her pictures. As introduced in the last chapter, Anna writes more extended captions than other mother influencers interviewed in this research. Her enthusiasm for transforming women’s motherhood mindset has become the primary reason she writes for her followers on Instagram. Furthermore, Annie wants to convey a specific message through her content:
“I want to be a fashionable mommy. Even in my at-home photos, I want to present myself more fashionably. I don’t want to look too awful when I’m home. I want to tell people that we can still stay fashionable when we’re home.”
According to Annie, she urges that mothers can still be beautiful even if they are just at home. After experiencing marriage and pregnancy, mothers are more likely to forget to dress up for themselves. The emphasis focuses on mothers who can dress up for themselves, even though nobody is watching. Annie tries to establish this impression among mothers, which further promotes her image of self-love. The participants all shared their goal of manifesting themselves with me since they believed they could particularly transform the traditional mother beliefs.
Among the above excerpts, one can see that these mothers have advocated reforming the mother identity by preserving their original identity. In a sense, women
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that the process of altering women’s identity into mothers’ identity involves “fracturing”
or “reformation,” which makes it hard for them to preserve their “established identities”
(Laney, Hall, Anderson & Willingham, 2015, p.131). Consequently, women face self-loss when they become mothers (Laney et al., 2015). The self-self-loss that most mothers experience results from the beliefs in this patriarchal system. Mothers in a patriarchal systems are praised for being child-centered and family-oriented, in which motherhood should include their own sacrifices.
5.2 Summary
The participants’ perspectives have granted me overwhelming implications of their presentation on Instagram profiles. These mother influencers’ self-presentations have helped them to overcome their mother isolation by connecting with other mothers online. The mother influencers have also benefited economically through presenting themselves. Moreover, their presentation of self has visualized their goal of transforming the traditional mother beliefs without great cost. As mother influencers online, their efforts in creating new mother impressions highlight the contrasting meanings behind their images constructed on Instagram. The motivations and factors that have spurred the construction of their images deserve more exploration. In the next chapter, I will provide the findings with a profound sense related to the socio-cultural aspect.
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Chapter 6
Do New Images Mean New Mothers?
The previous chapter has dwelled on participants’ motivations and perspectives to discuss their self-presentation. The participants’ curation of content has contextual meanings on their motherhood and maternal identities, albeit relatively new. The participants’ effort in constructing their relatively new mother impressions is also rather impressive. Nevertheless, in the journey of soliciting the participants’ perspectives of their online maternal images, I find there is more to tell behind their manifestations.
Relevant themes emerge to implicate the social expectations of motherhood in this system. Unveiling the pressure and influence inflicted among participants is the premise of this chapter. Scholars found that motherhood is “increasingly subjected to surveillance” (Grant, Mannay & Marzella, 2018, p.431). Therefore, this section’s analysis will cover the overarching severe surveillance and social scrutiny among mothers nowadays.
6.1 The Maternal Identity Construction
Büyükkuşoğlu (2017) noted that “the motherhood identity gets ahead of any other possible identities of women after women have given birth” (p.53). In other words, the construction of maternal identity is closely associated with children. McMahon (1995) defined that children are “the social objects of great cultural worth,” which transmit the symbolic power of altering women’s identities (as cited in Gueta, Peled & Sander-Almoznino, 2016, p.2). Apart from the participants’ already established identities discussed in the previous chapter, their self-presentation still casts some traditional
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beliefs upon maternal identity. Cara regarded herself as a modern woman, reasserting her identity to me:
“I share the things related to my children, but I also share many things about myself, such as fashion, lifestyle, and other things I like. I think the image of myself presented is as a modern mother.”
As one could see, Cara’s self-identity shifted during the interview, from “woman”
to “mother” in the above excerpt. Cara’s followers have influenced her self-presentation on Instagram to some extent. The resolute tone of mainly sharing about herself has modified into a slightly gentle idea under her followers’ scrutiny. Serving as a force to spur her maternal identity, her followers have fortified the expectations of “good mother ideology” in this system. Without noticing the compliance of social expectations, Cara’s motherhood consciousness is a concrete example of maternal identity construction.
Cara’s modulated identity had me rethink patriarchal motherhood: Is a woman doomed to lose her self-identity when children signify in ideal motherhood? Cara’s case shows that the mothers themselves should be dismissed since their children serve as a more significant value for creating their self-presentation. In a similar vein, the other participants are stuck, muddling about trying to attain the ideal maternal role. The contents related to the mother-children relationship frequently appear on the participants’ Instagram profiles, which prompt their maternal identities ideally.
The images of a “good mother” appear to be the participants’ consensus. The mother influencers have poured enormous effort into constructing an ideal maternal identity by signifying their care and love for children. As cited in Currie’s study, women shared related features as being “consistent with ‘good’ or traditional mothering” (2004, p.225) - that is, mothers in this system aspire to attain their good mother certification.
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The criteria of being a “good mother” include “loving, good listener, in control, gives advice, patient, spends time with a child, supportive, role model, just and fair, responsible, organized, self-sacrificing, involved in child’s life, and knowledgeable about parenting” (as cited in Liss, Schiffrin & Rizzo, 2013, p.9). The above definition has sublimed motherhood by chaining it to the presence of children permanently.
The participants have demonstrated how they have attained their aspiration of being a good mother with their highly-commercialized career. Having been introduced in Chapter 4, Cathy likes to share helpful tips about nurturing. She identifies herself as an expert related to mothering life on Instagram. As someone who could provide professional advice with her followers, Cathy was willing to share more about her baby:
“Because I’m a nurse, people will seek nurturing or nursing information from me, especially from the photos of me nurturing my baby. I’m happy that I can help them. You know, doctors in the hospital are busy, so the mothers prefer to ask me.
I can provide instant and helpful information for them.”
According to Cathy, becoming a mother influencer means helping mothers in this society. She could relate to her followers’ worries and understand the mothers’ concern about not obtaining instant assistance from the professionals.
Followers’ inquiries explain the mothers’ pursuit of becoming a “good mother.”
Cathy’s followers have honored her with the title of professional influencer, which prompted her mother-children content. Namely, the followers’ engagement in seeking professional information has incarnated Cathy as a role model for motherhood and resulted in the structure of ubiquitous patriarchal mother beliefs. In a similar case, Katie also revealed that she needed to be responsible for providing accurate information.
“Since I am a mother influencer, I need to be more aware of what I post online.
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to be extra careful about what I shared and provide a useful and real experience with my followers. I feel responsible for them.”
Katie has asserted her identity as an influencer, which makes her more careful about what she shares with her followers online. When she shares infant products, she attempts to provide real feelings and helpful instructions about using them. The motivations behind Cathy’ and Katie’s sharing deserve more exploration of the social context. To achieve this, I shall look into the internalizations of the mother belief among the participants. Two participants shared their firm beliefs of being a mother in the patriarchal system:
“I think it is because I am the one who gives birth. It’s our nature. So, I think it is more appropriate for me to look after the baby compared to my husband.” (Cathy)
“Men just can’t take care of the kids. I believe that we, mothers, should take care of our children. It’s our nature.” (Emma)
According to the excerpts, Cathy and Emma agreed on being the primary caregiver in a family. Cathy and Emma were both ones who willingly left the workforce for child-rearing duties. Cathy and Emma internalized the specific motherhood concept to justify their presence as a mother and reinforced the “function” of being a mother in this system.
Mothers are a synonym for caregivers in a family.
It also has something to do with their motivation to be an influencer. As someone who frequently shares professional nurturing information with followers, Cathy sincerely believes that mothers are better at looking after children. Emma shares many pictures of the dishes she has cooked, the arrangements she has made in the house, and the errands she has ran during the day. She presents her homemaker life consistently with what she has revealed on her YouTube channel. The underlying meanings reside in the “selling of their motherhood.”
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Annie’s self-presentation interweaves with overwhelming amounts of her child’s manifestation. In Annie’s story, her husband even told her that the baby was her best accessory since she takes pictures mostly with her baby (please refer to Figure 21). The revealing of children on her profile is a significant maternal image for verifying her maternal identity. These mothers feel the need to maintain their maternal images as good mothers for their influencer career. Khanom (2010) referred to the traditional culture as a commodity. The participants’ commercialized images of being a good mother aim to attract more followers. Through the followers’ consumerism of ideal motherhood, their contents of mothering life have become a way to promote their prestige and increase earnings.
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In a nutshell, maternal identity construction is more straightforward than before, specifically through social media. More than just tangling the mothers themselves with the good mother ideology, the participants’ commercialization of maternal images is also the byproduct of their maternal identity construction aspiration.
6.2 The Mother-blaming Culture
In this research several participants unveiled the phenomenon that mothers are bound to meet certain social expectations. Moreover, they felt the need to adjust their self-presentation suitably. Cara, as the most famous influencer among the mother influencers interviewed, once shared with me her hesitation when manifesting herself:
“Sometimes I hesitate a lot when posting myself, especially when I am in my bathing suit.” She continues with the question that puzzled her: “I wonder if it will be too exposed.” Cara found that being careful about her images online is an obligation of being a mother influencer. Again, the mother influencers suffer from severe surveillance and scrutiny from their followers. To explain such a situation, Anna shared what she had been confronted with:
“There was one time I shared a conversation with my in-law. My mother-in-law dressed my daughter that day. It was a T-shirt with a Peppa Pig on it. I thought it was tacky. Moreover, a mother blamed me for the act of laughing at my daughter. I felt it was inappropriate. You can suggest to me, instead of attacking me.”
In Anna’s case, it is clear that she as a mother is prone to greater condemnation with matters concerning children. Anna admitted that being a mother influencer is tough for her, because people would come to her and tell her what to do. The blame is
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something she cannot not deal very well with as an influencer online. She feels sad when confronting such situations.
To deal with such surveillance, the mother influencers are inclined to present their content more carefully and deliberately, especially content related to their children. To be more specific, the mother influencers tend to avoid stigmatizations by curating what they present. Scholars examined mothers on Instagram and found that those who share problematical subjects suffer more criticism from the Instagram community (Djafarova
& Trofimenko, 2017, p.25). Mothers find it hard to disclose their motherhood problems since condemnation marks them as lacking a “maternal instinct” or failing to be mothers (as cited in Collett, 2005, p.333). The mother influencers’ attitudes towards presenting their children cannot be separate from mother-blaming. Mother-blaming refers to the judgmental culture based on mothers’ responsibility for “children’s action, behavior, health, and well-being” (as cited in Gueta et al., 2016, p.2).
Since society is continually imposing the pressure of being a “good mother” on mothers, modifying their presentation has become the primary rule among the mother influencers. Relating this issue to Cathy and Katie, they mentioned similar scenarios:
“I had shared an Instagram story of my baby sleeping face down. I acknowledged that once other mothers saw the situation, they would judge me. So, I immediately clarified myself in the next Instagram story. I clearly stated that I did keep my baby safe and made sure his face turned back to the upper side the next second.”
(Cathy)
“I remember that a friend of mine once shared content about her baby sleeping
“I remember that a friend of mine once shared content about her baby sleeping