Research Catalog

Title

Missing voices : the experience of motherhood / Stephanie Brown ... [et al.].

Publication

Melbourne ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1994.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Brown, Stephanie

Description

viii, 303 p. : ill.; 22 cm.

Summary

• Motherhood is often portrayed as one of the most fulfilling experiences in a woman's life. Books on pregnancy, birth and motherhood not only tell women what they should do, they also encourage them to have high expectations of what is inevitably a 'journey into the unknown'. Missing Voices is different. It makes motherhood compelling and audible by telling the stories of almost 800 recent mothers. We hear about their experiences pregnancy and childbirth, and what they thought of the care they received.
• Ninety of these women were also interviewed in detail two years later. The result is a moving and a powerful insight into what is like to be a mother in Australia in the 1990s. How do women's daily experiences of motherhood compare with accepted wisdom about 'good mothers'? How is the work of caring for children, domestic chores, and paid employment divided within the family? How do women feel about juggling work - both paid and unpaid? One in seven women was depressed in the year after birth. In Missing Voices women talk candidly and with great feeling about why they were depressed, whom they turned to for help, and how they coped with depression.

Subject

• Mothers > Australia > Case studies
• Mother and child > Australia > Case studies
• Mothers
• Length of Stay > Victoria
• Mothers > Australia > case studies
• Mother-Child Relations > Australia > case studies
• Maternal Behavior > Australia > case studies

Genre/Form

Case studies

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Researching pregnancy, birth, motherhood, and depression -- Care in pregnancy -- Thoughts about the birth eight months later -- Childbirth classes : making a difference? -- Thrown into a new job -- One in seven : depression after birth -- Troubled thoughts on being a 'good' mother -- The experience of motherhood -- Depression : women's voices -- The social context of motherhood -- Balancing acts : work and family -- Three women's accounts of motherhood -- What women do about depression.

ISBN

019553378X (pbk.)

LCCN

^^^95115661^

OCLC

32294390

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library