Undoing or Redoing Gender Practices? Ambivalences among First-time Professional Mothers in Spain

Abstract

This article analyses the mothering practices explored in a longitudinal qualitative study which focused on the dynamics within non-traditional, heterosexual, dual-income couples’ relationships, leading up to and following the birth of their first child. Each parent was interviewed separately twice. The first time during the pregnancy and the second approximately 12 months after their baby’s birth. It was found that for professional women, their first experience of motherhood brought with it both dilemmas and ambivalences. As a result, it became difficult to maintain the non-traditional interactions that occurred between the partners before their child’s birth. This paper also defines the concept of new motherhood, discusses the concepts of doing gender and undoing gender, and proposes a link between partially undoing gender in interactions and new motherhood practices in Spain.