When Mathilde Franziska Anneke and Mary Booth found their lives crumbling in 1860, they packed up their three youngest children […]
Will We Ever “Have it All”? Examining the Career Woman of the 1980s and in the COVID Era
The US government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis has illustrated just how divided the country has become on the topic […]
“The Mommy Instinct” and Vaccinations
“Mommy instincts:” that’s what Jenny McCarthy called them.1 You know, those innate feelings you get about your kids when they’re […]
The Baby as Scientist and the Parent as Gardener: Alison Gopnik’s Inspiring Views on Childhood
There’s nothing better than kicking back with a light read in the warm months of the year. Summer is a […]
Fears of a White Mother for her Biracial Son
My son could be Philandro Castile, the Minnesota cafeteria manager who was shot by police in July 2016 as he […]
The Problem with Fat-Talk at the Pediatrician’s Office
“His BMI is on the high side of normal. See?” The pediatrician showed me a chart. “This is something we […]
Mommy Wars of Yore: Classism and its Casualties
Most of us are familiar with the Mommy Wars. The Internet is the battlefield, and woman is pitted against woman […]
Premature Birth and the Right to Grieve
There are quite a few ways to experience loss of pregnancy. When I was expecting my own daughter, no woman […]
Parenting in Academia: New Mom + Nursing + Academic Conference = Weekend in Hell
Anyone who is a mom and an academic has one of these stories of academic travel from hell. I can […]
Motherhood, Expanded
By Rachel Epp Buller
I was a senior in high school when Vice President Dan Quayle delivered his soon-to-be-infamous diatribe against Murphy Brown while on the campaign trail. Quayle was supposed to be addressing the Los Angeles race riots, but along the way he ended up blaming single mothers for a decline in social values and blasting Candice Bergen’s fictional TV character for glorifying single motherhood as “just another lifestyle choice.”[1] Although the speech was viewed at the time as a political gaffe, Quayle and then-President Bush capitalized on the media frenzy to politicize the notion of “family values.” They sought to convey to voters that motherhood should be confined to the institution of heterosexual marriage; morally questionable single mothers endangered both the welfare of children and society as a whole. In the years since Quayle’s speech, journalists, sociologists, and historians have continued to write about the Murphy Brown incident.[2] Some argue that Quayle’s stance has proven prophetic and that single mothers do indeed wreak havoc on the social fabric.[3]
