List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Foreword
Acknowledgments

PART I: THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY MOTHERING

Chapter 1. Intensive motherhood and identity work

An anthropology of parenting?
Parenting and/as kinship
The UK context
Intensive mothering
Intensive motherhood: ‘Local moral world’
Historicising intensive motherhood
Mothering as identity work: Narrative processes of self-making

Chapter 2. Infant feeding and intensive motherhood

Breastfeeding
The scientific case for breastfeeding
The context of infant feeding 1900-present
Infant feeding and policy
Choosing to breastfeed: Informed choice?
Infant feeding and maternal identity

PART II: LA LECHE LEAGUE

Chapter 3. Contextualising ‘full-term’ breastfeeding

La Leche League
Research sample
Demographic profile: Who comes to LLL meetings?
Non-participant observation
Accounts
Experiences
Case-study
Contextualising full-term breastfeeding
Breastfeeding, body boundaries and individuality
Defence strategies

Chapter 4. La Leche League: Philosophy and community

A typical meeting
La Leche League’s philosophy
The founding of LLL Great Britain (LLLGB)
Paradoxes of appeal
LLL and attachment parenting
LLL for all mothers?

Chapter 5. ‘Finding my tribe’

Why do people come to La Leche League meetings?
‘Finding my tribe’
Norms
La Leche League as purposeful network
Norms
Activism
Resistance

PART III: ACCOUNTING FOR FULL-TERM BREASTFEEDING

Chapter 6. ‘It’s natural’: some cultural contradictions

Types of natural: Some accounts
Natural parenting
Evolutionary narratives: Primates and ‘primitives’
‘Natural’ mothering: Feminism and fathers
Cultural contradictions of going natural
A return to anthropology?
Postscript

Chapter 7. ‘What science says is best’: Science as dogma

The scientific claim for full-term breastfeeding and attachment parenting
Psychological evidence
Neuroscience: ‘Real evidence’
‘The Science’
‘The Science’ and ‘informed choice’

Chapter 8. ‘What feels right in my heart’: Hormones, morality and affective breastfeeding

Because of the hormones: ‘It feels right’
Affective breastfeeding
Instinct and intuition: Some contradictions
Agency when you ‘just know’
A moral good?
Affect sensuality and breastfeeding
Non-nutritive sucking, or, The affective residue

PART IV: CONTEXTUALISING INTENSIVE MOTHERHOOD

Chapter 9. Mothering as identity work in cross-cultural perspective: The case of France

Making selves: Separation and attachment
Paris: A comparison
LLL France
Doubled reflexivity
French parenting: Non-intensive motherhood?
It’s natural? Feminism and (full-term) breastfeeding in France
‘Réunions à théme’: Attachment mothers in Paris
Expressing milk: The French way?

Conclusion

Appendices
Appendix I: Short term and long-term health benefits of breastfeeding for the child and mother in developed countries
Appendix II: Summary of demographic results from questionnaire responses

Notes
References
Index

Militant Lactivism?

Attachment Parenting and Intensive Motherhood in the UK and France

Charlotte Faircloth

278 pages, 5 illus. & 1 table, bibliog., index

ISBN 978-0-85745-758-5 Hb Published (March 2013)

eISBN 978-0-85745-759-2 eBook

Details

“This is a fascinating topic and a very interesting study and would be a worthwhile and relevant read to those interested in research linked to motherhood, parenthood, family and gender. The book is well written, and the author adopts an engaging writing style that is easy to follow…The quotations used in the book provide a useful and real insight into these women’s experiences, as their mindsets and attitudes towards breastfeeding really brought the book to life…The appeal of this book is clearly far reaching, be it from an individual and general interest in the subject matter, or to gain a more theoretical knowledge and understanding of the debates it touches on and explores.” • Sociological Research Online

“This is an attentive ethnography of women in London and Paris who are members of the international breastfeeding support organisation La Leche League (LLL)… The book is written in a clear and engaging way and can be recommended to students and scholars interested in kinship and family studies, as well as for those looking for a good anthropological study on contemporary motherhood.” • Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale

“This is a captivating, original, and methodologically sound study, which will make an important contribution to anthropological work on contemporary motherhood. It deserves to be much more widely read, however, by scholars in many other disciplines and outside the academy.” • Ellie Lee, University of Kent

“The cross-cultural dimension is one of the things that make this book unique and especially valuable…Overall, the book is on an important topic, based on sound research. This is a major contribution to scholarship on parenting, and a compelling study of a subject now in the forefront of public debate.” • Linda Layne, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute/University of Cambridge

Following networks of mothers in London and Paris, the author profiles the narratives of women who breastfeed their children to full term, typically a period of several years, as part of an 'attachment parenting' philosophy. These mothers talk about their decision to continue breastfeeding as 'the natural thing to do': 'evolutionarily appropriate', 'scientifically best' and 'what feels right in their hearts'. Through a theoretical focus on knowledge claims and accountability, the author frames these accounts within a wider context of 'intensive parenting', arguing that parenting practices – infant feeding in particular – have become a highly moralized affair for mothers, practices which they feel are a critical aspect of their 'identity work'. The book investigates why, how and with what implications some of these mothers describe themselves as 'militant lactivists' and reflects on wider parenting culture in the UK and France. Discussing gender, feminism and activism, this study contributes to kinship and family studies by exploring how relatedness is enacted in conjunction to constructions of the self.

Charlotte Faircloth is Associate Professor of Social Science in the UCL Social Research Institute, UK.

Series: Volume 24, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

Subject: Medical Anthropology Gender Studies and Sexuality

Area: Europe

LC: RJ216 .F35 2013

BL: YK.2013.a.15041

BISAC: SOC010000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Feminism & Feminist Theory; SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; HEA044000 HEALTH & FITNESS/Breastfeeding

BIC: JFSP1 Age groups: children; JFSJ1 Gender studies: women

berghahn New York · Oxford

Contents

Militant Lactivism?

Attachment Parenting and Intensive Motherhood in the UK and France

Charlotte Faircloth

Series: Volume 24, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

Subject: Medical Anthropology Gender Studies and Sexuality

Area: Europe

Home -> Title

Contents

Militant Lactivism?

Attachment Parenting and Intensive Motherhood in the UK and France

Charlotte Faircloth

Series: Volume 24, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

Subject: Medical Anthropology Gender Studies and Sexuality

Area: Europe