What Kind of War? 'Mommy Wars' Discourse in US and Canadian News, 1989-2013

摘要

The Mommy Wars is a cultural frame asserting the existence of a battle between employed mothers and homemakers. We perform critical discourse analysis of U.S. and Canadian news articles using this term from 1989 through 2013 (N=402). Building upon the concept of symbolic annihilation, we highlight how the frame distorts and trivializes mothers' experiences. First, ironically, although some authors describe the Mommy Wars as not real, usage grows rapidly over time. Moreover, the meaning expands to include alternative wars on a multitude of childrearing differences and on disputes outside of mothering altogether (e.g., type of water used); this serves to equate trivialities like tap versus filtered water with work-family conditions, effectively rendering them equally inconsequential battles among mommies. Finally, the frame trivializes social problems through a focus on (middle-class) mothers' individual choices as a solution to Mommy Wars. Privileging maternal choice with only passing mentions of fathers and the state absolves these groups of responsibilities for the next generation. The use of Mommy Wars rhetoric acts as a divisive, symbolic wedge, ultimately perpetuating a war against mothers.