The Role of Parenting Online Resources Use in Mothers' Negotiation of Normative Prescriptions of Motherhood and Mothering Practices

This paper focuses on the role the use of parental online resources plays in the waya Russian mothers negotiate normative prescriptions of motherhood and individual mothering practices.Despite the expansion of the range of available models and practices of motherhood, in conditions of a child-centered society, the pronatalistic family policy and the dominance of the ideology of intensive motherhood, mothers are under great pressure. Women constantly have to choose from a variety of options and make the “right” decisions, since the responsibility for the well-being of the child lies with the mothers, and the standards of “good” motherhood are very high. In this regard, the likelihood of "failure" and the cost of mistakes in motherhood are especially high. Since the experience of previous generations is often rejected or unavailable, women turn to the Internet in search of answers. Drawing on the data of 22 semi-structured interviews with mothers who are users of parenting online resources and 10 online discussions from such resources, we found that the normative aspect of using parental online resources is represented by two processes: the normalization of individual experiences and mothering practices and the search for “our own”, and rejection and stigmatization of “others”. Using parenting online resources helps women normalize their experience through external validation and solidarity with mothers with similar practices. On the basis of data on the presence of other practitioners, the practice is controversial or not complying with the regulations of intensive maternity (or another ideology) is being reclassified to normal, and indications of the practices of one mother validate similar experience of the other, thereby forming a group norm. The process of normalization and mutual validation of each other’s experiences of women creates a “reverse” (to intensive motherhood) discourse. Parallel to the consolidating and unifying process of normalization in the social field of parental online resources, there are processes of distinguishing and building hierarchies, the search and selection of "our own" and the cutting off and stigmatization of "others." In the process of such distinctions gender-class hierarchies are constructed and reproduced. Presumably, the presence of these two processes explains that parental online resources, on the one hand, help women to cope with the difficult experience of raising children in the conditions of the dominant ideology of intensive motherhood, and on the other hand, they themselves contribute to its reproduction.