The themes developed in this chapter suggest a broad basis from which to embark on a more focused analysis of the discursive relationships between mothering and literacy. Bringing together children’s literacy and the regulation of mothering suggests the need to move beyond the notion of a unitary mothering discourse for the purposes of this research. When applied to the relationship between mothering and children’s literacy, the mothering discourse can perhaps be more usefully described as three inter-related but distinct discourses of intensive mothering, domestic pedagogy and the normal family. The diverse strands of scholarship reviewed in this chapter suggest that these are distinctive discourse formations because they have different institutional affiliations and different effects. They often conflict with and contradict one another; there are different strategies associated with them that reflect their affiliations to competing institutions of the family, school, and state. While considering these discourses separately is more cumbersome, it also promises a richer and more textured conceptual framework to analyze the interplay between mothering and literacy, both as situated experience and institutional truth. The definition of these discourses for the purposes of this study is provided below.
The discourse of intensive mothering is linked across diverse institutions including health care and child development. It normalizes forms of mothering that place children at the centre of women’s attention and energies, assumes that mothering work should be constant, time intensive, and materially expensive, and dependent upon professional level expertise and knowledge which needs to be continuously updated. Of interest in this thesis is if and how literacy advice normalizes practices associated with intensive mothering as preconditions for children’s literacy acquisition. For the purposes of coding data, the discourse of intensive mothering is considered to be in play if advice recommends constant attention between an individual mother and child as a pre-condition for literacy acquisition, and when advice assumes and promotes culturally-bound concepts of maternal sensitivity and attachment as pre-conditions for literacy. The discourse of intensive mothering will also be in evidence if advice advocates and assumes that mothers possess para-professional knowledge of literacy and reading, and advocates the dedication of significant material resources and mothers’ time to children’s literacy acquisition.