Mothering in the Context of Domestic Violence

Background and Purpose: This study aims to reveal the complexity of battered women's mothering and problematize the oversimplification of battered women's mothering stressing that battered women are either deficit (Featherstone & Trinder,1997) or successful mothers (Kelly, 1994; Mullender et al., 2002; Damant et al., 2008) without a consideration of mother's subjectivity (Krane & Davies, 2009). Given the importance of well-being of children who exposed to domestic violence and recognizing that mothering is an important source of oppression (Firestone, 1970; Rich, 1976; O'Reilly, 2004) and also positive identity for battered women (Lynch & Graham-Berman, 2004; Mullender et al., 2002), this study is to argue that existing studies on battered women's mothering serve to romanticize mothering/motherhood by idealizing an absolute mother who is supposed to take care or capable of taking care of her children at any adversity.

Method: Repeated, semi-structured, and in-depth interviews with twelve previously battered women in a mid-western metropolitan area who have at least one child were conducted by one of two qualified interviewers. Open coding strategy of grounded theory method was applied to maximize the categories of mothering, followed by axial and thematic coding strategies to theorize battered women's mothering. To achieve trustworthiness and to maximize the credibility of the findings, this study adopted investigator triangulation.

Results: This study discovered categories of battered women's mothering as follows: 1) Mothering was “a major source of emotional abuse.” Women in this study were almost always blamed for their parenting by the abuser, and thus mothering became a very sensitive issue to battered women. 2) Battered women's mothering was “weakened or interrupted” by the abuser or as a result of abuse. Women often could not focus on their children's needs or nurture them, or could no longer be an active mother. 3) Battered women's mothering was “distorted” under the abuse. Women showed abusive parenting to protect their children from the abuser in a form of verbal, emotional, or physical abuse directed to them. 4) Mothering/motherhood was “strengthened or enhanced” through domestic violence. The abusers used their children as tools to abuse women when they hold mothering as their priority. Women became ending the abuse when they recognized the abuse by the abuser risk their children.

Conclusion and Implications: It is note worthy that both the models of a deficit and a successful mother are insufficient to reveal the complexity of battered women's mothering as well as both of them may locate battered mothers in more vulnerable position while they idealize “a myth of perfect mother” (Thorne & Yalom, 1982). Further research to reveal complexity of battered women's mothering in the intersection of multiple oppression, domestic violence and institution of motherhood, is needed (Damant et al., 2009). Moreover, the result of this study provides necessary information to extend social work intervention for families experiencing domestic violence beyond the crisis focused intervention. Such intervention as parenting programs will be greatly helpful for battered women in their on-going help-seeking processes.