a home for all the family by running the house. Among some of the teenage mothers
in the sample, like Naomi above, a primary identity as mother is also observable.
Perhaps this is not surprising if we follow McMahon’s (1995) argument that
commitment to one’s children diverts attention from challenging material conditions.
Moreover, young and often lone mothers have to contend with a frequently negative
portrayal of teenage motherhood in both the media and social policy contexts, which
may well serve to strengthen them in their resolve to display absolute dedication to
their children.
However, whilst we were able to identify certain patterns of negotiating mothering
and work pertaining to particular sub-groups, there was also evidence of fluidity.
Audrey, quoted above, used to work away from home but now very much embraces
the identity of being a mother who is at home full-time with her child. Practical
considerations and necessity influence behaviour and thus identity, as we have shown
with the example of the mothers who had recently arrived in the UK. As does policy,
the introduction of Tax Credits and the Childcare Element of the Tax Credit scheme
for example meant that mothers who did not work when their older children were
young now work outside the home, Alanis telling us: ‘I stayed off work until [older
child] went to school, which was when she was three, simply because childcare, you
didn’t get as much [financial] help as what you do now.’ (Alanis, two children, black
Caribbean, live-in partner, pt learning support assistant). This underlines that, as
Himmelweit and Sigala (2004) suggest, neither identity nor behaviour is fixed.
Overall, the idea, if not necessarily the practice, of being a mother and working
outside the home has been embraced by the women in our sample of urban working
class mothers.
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