Write a research article that explains the meaning of the phrase “motherhood.”
2. In “On Anger and Tenderness,” Adrienne Rich recounts feeling overwhelmed by the expectations placed on her by “the institution of motherhood”–the disproportionate responsibility she had to care for her children compared to her husband, the expectation that she love them at all times, and the feeling that she was a failure if she did not give her “whole self” to them in all circumstances. In parts of All About Love, bell hooks argues that many, if not most, people do not experience healthy love in their early childhood life, and that this deficiency is part of the reason that most adults in the contemporary U.S. have damaging misconceptions about love.
What expectations does hooks have of parents, and how are those expectations similar and different from the ones that Rich reported feeling overwhelmed by and anxious about? How do both hooks’ and Rich’s accounts of the responsibility of parents compare to those proposed by Aristotle and Aquinas? In your opinion, are any of these expectations fair?
