COM 207 ASU Motherhood through Relational Dialectics Theory Bibliography

In preparation for your literature review paper (and referring back to your Coding Sheets Packet assignment), you will now on summarizing the key elements of the research studies you found related to your selected communication theory (a minimum of 5

primary research

articles published in Communication journals since 2010 required for this annotated bibliography assignment; that is at least half of the minimum required for the final literature review paper).

For this assignment, you will compose an annotated bibliography that includes (for each source): the APA citation, followed by a summarizing paragraph written in your own words (do not copy or quote from the study). Include toward the beginning of each summarizing paragraph an in-text parenthetical citation that refers to the source study, and describe each of the following (using past tense) in the paragraph:

1. The purposeof the study – describe what the researchers were trying to find out.2. The research methodsof the study – explain how the researchers conducted their study; specifically: 

type(s) of research data– quantitative, qualitative, or textual.

method(s) of data collection– how they collected the data.

method(s) of data analysis– how they analyzed the data.

3. The conclusions of the study – describe what the researchers found out.

4. Study limitations– describe what the researchers identify as the limits of the study.

5. Directions for future research– describe what the researchers identify as the directions/suggestions for future research.

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288684224
Money as Relational Struggle: Communicatively Negotiating Cultural
Discourses in Romantic Relationships
Article in Communication Studies · December 2015
DOI: 10.1080/10510974.2015.1121158
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Communication Studies
ISSN: 1051-0974 (Print) 1745-1035 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcst20
Money as Relational Struggle: Communicatively
Negotiating Cultural Discourses in Romantic
Relationships
Lynsey K. Romo & Jenna S. Abetz
To cite this article: Lynsey K. Romo & Jenna S. Abetz (2016) Money as Relational Struggle:
Communicatively Negotiating Cultural Discourses in Romantic Relationships, Communication
Studies, 67:1, 94-110, DOI: 10.1080/10510974.2015.1121158
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Date: 06 September 2016, At: 08:38
Communication Studies
Vol. 67, No. 1, January-March 2016, pp. 94–110
Money as Relational Struggle:
Communicatively Negotiating Cultural
Discourses in Romantic Relationships
Lynsey K. Romo & Jenna S. Abetz
Using the lens of Relational Dialectics Theory, this study sought to uncover how competing U.S. cultural financial discourses are negotiated in people’s everyday conversations
with their romantic partner. The investigation uncovered that in multiple and varied
ways, participants understood money to be a major source of tension in their romantic
relationships. One overarching discursive struggle animated participants’ financial talk
with their partners: “money is everything” versus “money isn’t everything.” Within this
struggle, participants communicatively negotiated the cultural value of money in an
attempt to marginalize its power and potential negative influences on relational and
economic well-being. Although money is critical in helping people meet their basic needs,
this study suggests that deemphasizing the importance of money as all-consuming and
omnipotent has the potential to alter couples’ financial and relational well-being.
Keywords: Financial Communication; Interpersonal Communication; Romantic
Relationships; Cultural Discourses; Relational Dialectics
In romantic relationships, interaction about money is unavoidable, as couples must
determine how they will (and who will) earn money and manage assets, how they will
address mundane and major consumption decisions, and how they will manage
economic success and struggles (Papp, Cummings, & Goeke-Morey, 2009). A lack
of financial knowledge results in poor decisions that can lead to bankruptcy, debt, and
financial crisis (Greenspan, 2005). As most Americans do not consider themselves to
Lynsey K. Romo (PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 2013) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Communication at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Jenna S. Abetz (PhD, University of NebraskaLincoln, 2013) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the College of Charleston.
Correspondence to: Lynsey K. Romo, Department of Communication, North Carolina State University, 201
Winston Hall, Campus Box 8104, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA. E-mail: lkromo@ncsu.edu
ISSN 1051-0974 (print)/ISSN 1745-1035 (online) © 2016 Central States Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/10510974.2015.1121158
Financial Discourses 95
have a high level of financial literacy (Godsted & McCormick, 2007) and many are
struggling to make ends meet (Cunningham, 2012), it is not surprising that in
romantic relationships, financial disagreements are extremely common (e.g., Papp
et al., 2009; Stanley, Markman, & Whitton, 2002).
Money arguments most commonly involve differing ideas of “needs” versus
“wants,” unexpected expenses, and lack of savings (American Institute of CPAs Harris
Interactive Survey, 2012). This conflict can stem from opposing interpersonal goals
and spending styles (Rick, Small, & Finkel, 2011), partners’ unique interpersonal
ideologies about money (e.g., separate histories, set of experiences, and patterns of
interaction; Fitch, 1998), as well as a shortage of financial resources, economic strain,
and uncertainty surrounding the management of finances (Conger et al., 1990; Fincham, 2003). As “money is a product of culture” (Wuthnow, 1996, p. 139), people’s
financial mind sets and interactions are also likely shaped by society’s opposing
cultural financial discourses (e.g., “save for a rainy day” but also “keep up with the
Joneses”). In this study, consistent with Fitch’s (1998) and Carbaugh’s (1996) conceptualizations, culture refers to shared beliefs, attitudes, and values that affect a larger
group of people and are reflected in and through language. While romantic relationships have their own meaning systems, they are not cultures in and of themselves—
rather relationships are deeply influenced by and embedded within broader society.
Knowledge of how spouses negotiate systems of meaning around money could
provide important insight into the role cultural messages play in shaping family
money management and relational and economic well-being. Such insight would
also shed light on the “taken-for-granted, usually invisible sense in which culture
operates as an influence on everyday interaction” (Fitch, 1998, p. 3). Thus, through
the use of semi-structured interviews and the lens of Relational Dialectics Theory
(RDT; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996; Baxter, 2011), this study’s goal was to examine
how broader U.S. cultural discourses pertaining to finances are discussed in people’s
everyday conversations with their romantic partner and how these systems of meanings interplay within participants’ voices. The following sections review the literature
on cultural financial discourses and relational financial communication before overviewing RDT and presenting the results of this qualitative study.
Cultural Financial Discourses
Americans are confronted with a variety of opposing cultural financial discourses that
make money management difficult. On the one hand, a money taboo exists (e.g.,
Wuthnow, 1996) that restricts people from discussing financial personal information,
such as salaries and debt, even with family members. Compounding matters, most
people do not receive any financial education in school (Mandell, 2008). While talk
about money is generally off limits, the quest for financial success, as reflected by the
Protestant Work Ethic (PWE; Weber, 1958) and the American dream, is a dominant
yet implicit foundation of America’s capitalist society (cf., Furnham, 1984). Americans
grow up learning that through hard work and self-reliance, everyone has the
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opportunity to achieve financial success and happiness. Americans are socialized to
desire material goods (e.g., Schor, 1998; Starr, 2007) and publicly display their wealth
to others. This keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality (Duesenberry, 1949) reflects
the notion that because status is reflected by spending, people seek to maintain the
same social position as others—even those who are wealthier—by buying similar
goods and services. Conversely, society and the media instruct Americans to purchase
discretionary items because they are worth it (Schor, 1998), to save for a rainy day
(Canova, Rattazzi, & Webley, 2005), and to maintain a cash reserve for unforeseen,
costly events. Americans also receive competing messages that they should seek
family, community, and spiritual fulfilment while at the same time pursuing financial
success (Burroughs & Rindfleisch, 2002). Additionally, a cultural ideology of men as
providers persists (Coughlin & Wade, 2012), even though nearly 40% of wives are
their family’s primary breadwinners (Mundy, 2012). In the United States, money can
be a source of freedom as well as oppression, pride as well as worry, and success as
well as failure (Mitchell & Mickel, 1999). Such competing systems of meaning
naturally surface in relational talk and may lead to conflict (Baxter, 2011), yet financial
discourses have not been examined in the context of romantic relationships.
Financial Communication in Relationships
Despite the important role of money both culturally and interpersonally, little is
known about finances from a relational communication perspective (Dew, 2008).
Limited communication research predominately involves parent–child interaction,
identifying the ways in which parents teach and model behaviors to their children
via consumer and financial socialization (e.g., Edwards, Allen, & Hayhoe, 2007), as
well as how family communication patterns can influence children’s discussion of
finances (e.g., Thorson & Kranstuber Horstman, 2014). Scholars have recently begun
examining financial disclosure—for instance, what motivates parents to reveal
financial information to their children (Romo, 2011), children’s perceptions of
their parents’ financial disclosure (e.g., Romo, 2014), and disclosure involved in
family financial caregiving (Plander, 2013). These findings reflect the cultural notion
of money as taboo, a belief that can endure across people’s lifespans (Petronio,
2002).
Much of the research pertaining to money and finances within romantic relationships comes from family and consumer sciences, family studies, psychology, sociology,
and economics. This literature has explored such issues as asset management and
financial conflict. Financial conflict is “one of the most important problems in
contemporary married life” (Dew, 2009, p. 27). For both husbands and wives, arguments over money are the biggest predictors of divorce (Dew, 2009). Despite the
negative consequences that can result from financial disagreements and stress, studies
indicate that not all couples facing economic struggles or strain are destined for
relational dissatisfaction or irreconcilable, relationship-terminating conflict. During
periods of economic pressure, high marital social support and effective problem
Financial Discourses 97
solving can reduce the risk of economic stress and conflict (e.g., Conger & Conger,
2002; Conger, Rueter, & Elder, 1999). It is also likely that relational outcomes can be
affected by the broader cultural financial discourses that are manifested in partners’
talk, as the positioning and privileging of competing meanings can influence couples’
mindsets (Baxter, 2011).
In the wake of the recent recession, specifically examining how people in romantic
relationships negotiate financial discourse could lend critical insight into how everyday financial communication can affect relationships and shape important behaviors
and outcomes (Berger, 2005). A useful framework for understanding this dynamic is
Relational Dialectics Theory (RDT; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996; Baxter, 2011).
Relational Dialectics Theory
Relational Dialectics Theory (RDT; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996; Baxter, 2011) posits
that throughout relationships, people are constantly drawing on and invoking systems
of meaning, or discourses,1 to make sense of their values, feelings, and decisions
(Baxter, 2011). People are confronted with numerous cultural discourses in everyday
life (Carbaugh, 1996). These multiple discourses may interact, compete and struggle
with one another in any given moment (Baxter & Braithwaite, 2008). Indeed, social
life is characterized by this multivocality—numerous voices from broader culture,
family, and relationships (Baxter, 2011) that can make people uncertain about how to
manage their relationships. For instance, RDT-framed research has found that,
although U.S. culture emphasizes the importance of openness, people often want to
keep certain information private in order to protect themselves or others (e.g., Baxter,
Braithwaite, Golish, & Olson, 2002). Baxter (2011) recently refined RDT to focus
more specifically on the role of discourses in people’s talk by focusing specifically on
two concepts: the utterance chain and the centripetal-centrifugal struggle.
Utterance Chain
RDT posits that meaning emerges from the words people have voiced or intend to
voice at any given time. These turns at talk form an utterance chain. The utterance
chain contains existing discourses that circulate in culture and in people’s relationships, as well as anticipated discourses (Baxter, 2011). One critical link on the chain
includes the distal already-spoken link: culturally influenced discourses that couples
grapple with in their relationships (e.g., openness versus closedness; individualism
vs. community). The distal already-spoken link reflects the notion that people “talk
culture whenever they open their mouths” (Baxter, 2011, p. 157).
Centripetal-Centrifugal Struggle
In addition to understanding meaning-making by identifying and analyzing the
multiple discourses invoked in a given utterance, the extended version of RDT argues
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that meaning also derives from a battle between dominant (i.e., centripetal) and
marginalized (i.e., centrifugal) discourses. This centripetal-centrifugal struggle sheds
light on how discourses interact or interplay with one another, vying for position in
people’s everyday conversations (Baxter, 2011). Examining how cultural messages are
privileged or eschewed illuminates how people construct meaning in talk. For example, an analysis of the discursive interplay within the negotiation of forgiveness found
that not bringing up a family member’s relational transgression emerged as dominant
(centripetal) in participants’ talk, as opposed to the less powerful (centrifugal) frame
of openly discussing the violation, demonstrating that participants privileged relational closeness (Carr & Wang, 2012).
Understanding the ways in which discourses are centered or relegated informs how
meaning is constituted in talk and is especially important in the context of finances, a
topic that can greatly influence well-being. Thus, using the lens of RDT, this investigation explored the following research questions:
RQ1: What cultural financial discourse(s), if any, animate participants’ talk with their
romantic partners?
RQ2: How do participants negotiate these discourses?
Method
Participants
As part of a larger study on financial communication, adults living with their spouse
or domestic partner in a small, historically economically and racially diverse Midwestern town were recruited. Although the recession officially ended two years prior
to data collection, high unemployment, lower wages and benefits (Mishel & Shierholz,
2011), and perceived job insecurity (Gould-Werth & Burgard, 2012) persisted nationally. Conditions were particularly unstable in the participants’ rural community,
which had struggled for years prior to the economic downturn. Participants were
recruited through flyers posted at stores and restaurants, notices disseminated via the
community e-newsletter, e-mails to local leaders who were asked to forward the
message to their contacts, and snowball sampling. To minimize recruitment challenges, one partner in the couple was interviewed by the first author. Interviewees
received a $10 grocery store gift card for their participation.
Forty people were interviewed for this study. Sixty percent of the participants
(n = 24) were women and 40% (n = 16) were men. Ninety-five percent (n = 38)
was heterosexual and, of these participants, approximately 84% (n = 32) were married.
Two (5%) of the participants were members of cohabitating lesbian relationships. The
amount of time participants had been together or married ranged from 10 months to
53 years. Of the total participants, 67.5% (n = 27) identified as Caucasian or White;
12.5% (n = 5) were Black or African American; 7.5% (n = 3) were Hispanic or Latino
(a) and Other respectively; 2.5% (n = 1) labeled themselves as Asian or Pacific
Islander; and 2.5% (n = 1) was American Indian or Alaskan Native. Participants’
Financial Discourses 99
ages ranged from 25 to 76 (M = 50.8). The participants’ highest educational level
ranged from some high school (n = 1; 2.5%) to doctoral degree, including a law degree
(n = 3; 7.5%), and annual incomes ranged from $0–24,999 per year (n = 12; 20%) to
$200,000–249,000 per year (n = 3; 7.5%).
Procedure
The interviews ranged from 16 to 71 minutes (M = 31), not including time to
complete a demographic survey. Interviews were conducted at a public location of
the participant’s choosing, for example, at the local public library. Questions included
financial topics participants and their partners did and did not discuss and why,
sources of difficult financial conversations, participant and partner views about
money, and financial topics that had been the biggest source of conflict in their
relationship. The interviewer followed a standardized interview schedule but asked
follow-up questions as opportunities naturally emerged. Participants were interviewed
individually to ensure openness of responses. Data collection ended when subsequent
interviews ceased to provide new ideas or insights and it was determined that
theoretical saturation had been attained (Charmaz, 2006). Interviews were fully
transcribed upon completion.
Instruments and Analysis
Data analysis began by listening to each interview, comparing the audio recording to
the interview transcript to ensure accuracy of transcription, and taking notes on initial
impressions of the data. To protect the participants’ privacy, pseudonyms were
assigned. The authors then analyzed the data using contrapuntal analysis (Baxter,
2011). Contrapuntal analysis is based on the premise that interviews are a speech
event in and of themselves and interviewers and interviewees are engaged in the coconstruction of meaning-making (Baxter, 2011). Contrapuntal analysis is used to
isolate discourses and detail how participants create meaning through the struggle
of competing discourses (Baxter, 2011; Norwood, 2012).
Contrapuntal analysis involves two steps: (a) identifying the discourses in the text
(i.e., this study’s transcripts) and (b) identifying the interplay among discourses
through which meaning is created in the text (Baxter, 2011). The researchers began
the contrapuntal analysis by conducting a thematic analysis, as themes are considered
“the constitutive elements of discourses” (Baxter et al., 2012, p. 60). The authors
independently read and reread the transcripts to familiarize themselves with these
data, noting initial coding categories and general impressions and coming together
throughout the process to discuss overarching findings, such as spending versus
saving, money as representative of self-worth, money as power, and money is a
battle/competition. The authors returned to the transcripts throughout data analysis
to organize these data, eventually noting one primary struggle present in the text:
“money is everything” versus “money is not everything.” Using constant comparative
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techniques, they refined the thematic categories (which constituted each discourse)
and isolated relevant participant exemplars from the transcripts. In this way, the
authors embraced the idea that analysis is an iterative process (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
Once the authors identified the discourses, they sought to determine how the relationship between discourses created meaning in the lives of participants (Baxter, 2011) by
focusing on identifying synchronic polemic interplay. Synchronic polemic interplay
occurs when people involve multiple discourses at any given point in time, privileging
some discourses while silencing or marginalizing others. It can be manifested via negation, countering, and entertaining. Countering is accomplished when a speaker replaces
an expected (i.e., mainstream) discourse with an alternative (i.e., nonmainstream) discourse. Countering is indicated by such markers as “however,” “but,” “surprisingly,” and
“on the other hand.” Negating, on the other hand, serves to deny a discourse or argue for
its irrelevance. Negating is not signaled by certain key words but via participants’ invoking
of a discourse in order to reject it. Last, entertaining is achieved when a speaker
demonstrates that a discourse is one of several possible worldviews. Common linguistic
markers of entertaining include “may,” “might,” “could,” “it seems,” and “it is possible
that” (Baxter, 2011). Examining how participants favored certain discourses while marginalizing others enabled the researchers to uncover how participants positioned and
created meaning through this discursive interplay.
The authors employed two techniques to determine the validity of the study. First,
member checking was conducted (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) by e-mailing the findings to the
3 participants whose contact information was available, in order to learn whether the
results aligned with their experiences. These participants reported that the findings were
consistent with their reality. Second, the authors partook in peer debriefing (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985) by sharing the study’s findings with a colleague who, while an expert in RDT
and qualitative methods, was not involved in the investigation. This colleague reviewed
the article and offered feedback and revisions, which enhanced the soundness of the piece.
Results
The goal of this study was to identify the cultural financial discourses manifested in
participants’ talk in an effort to understand how people negotiate these systems of
meaning within their romantic relationships. Across the data, participants articulated
one overarching discursive struggle: “money is everything” versus “money isn’t everything.” This struggle took shape as participants indicated that in the United States it
was normal and natural for people to place great importance on money. In multiple
and varied ways, participants voiced how wider cultural systems of meaning surrounding money entered their romantic relationships and could be detrimental to
their happiness and long-term partnerships if not addressed and negotiated. While
interviewees acknowledged that because money is so critical for survival, discussions
about money can become heated and cause conflict and they simultaneously
attempted to marginalize this discourse of “money is everything” by illustrating that
in their own relationships there was more to life than money.
Financial Discourses 101
Below, the presence of the discourses in the participants’ talk is detailed (RQ1).
Next, an emergent struggle between the discourses is illustrated via analysis of the
centripetal-centrifugal positioning of these discourses (RQ2).
Discourses Animating Participants’ Talk
Money is everything
The discourse of “money is everything” took the form of cultural and relational messages
indicating that in the United States, it was normal and inevitable for people to value
wealth, to fight over power and control of money, and to equate financial status with selfworth. Participants simultaneously described how opposing views about spending,
materialism, openness, and the value of money infiltrated everyday conversation with
their romantic partners, often resulting in relational stress. Due to the high stakes
involved in finances and the wider societal values assigned to money, participants
spoke of financial conflict with their spouses. They commonly reported that during
money fights, their partner suddenly turned into an opponent, recounting interactions
marked with such language as “stalemates” as well as the need to “stand my ground,” to
“pick your battles,” and to give way on one another’s “turf. This competitive war
discourse emerged when participants referenced financial decision making and money
management in their relationships and took the form of battles to be won and lost, as
they often positioned one another as opponents battling for the all-important resource of
money. In a culture in which money is often viewed as “everything”—critical to
economic and relational success—participants grappled with divergent views and cultural pressures that seeped into their relationships. However, at the same time, participants articulated resistance to the cultural value placed on money within their
relationship, creating a counterdiscourse of “money is not everything.”
Money is not everything
The discourse of money is not everything was rooted in participants’ expression of the
idea that the power, control, and cultural admiration of wealth were not only frivolous
but harmful to personal and relational well-being. Participants adamantly drew on
cultural notions of “you should never allow money to make you,” “you can’t take it
with you,” and “money can’t buy happiness” as the building blocks of this discourse. As
Martin, 55 (self-described as “poor”), stated, “People look at me and they feel sorry for
me. I say, ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, I feel sorry for y’all. I don’t want them bills you got.’”
Other participants articulated how the discourse of “money isn’t everything” consisted of
a belief that they could have a fulfilling relationship even without the possibility of wealth.
Centripetal-Centrifugal Positioning of Discourses
Though all participants reported both discourses at play in their relationships, they
overwhelmingly embraced the discourse of “money is not everything” as centripetal in
their communication. This positioning of discourses between the two competing
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systems of meaning was present in participants’ talk as polemical interplay, which
occurs when one discourse is centered in participants’ talk while others are resisted
(Baxter, 2011). The following section reports the ways in which this discursive battle
was manifested via three communicative struggles participants negotiated with their
partners (RQ2): (a) Money is worth a fight versus money is secondary to relational
well-being; (b) money is self-worth versus money does not define us; and (c) more is
better versus less is more.
Struggle 1: Money is worth a fight versus money is secondary to relational well-being
From the struggle for financial freedom to the relational stress surrounding retirement, participants recounted conflict that sometimes ensued during financial conversations. However, while participants articulated that culturally money is everything,
they displaced the notion that money is or should be everything relationally by
articulating ways that money was secondary to relational well-being. Participants
voiced “money fights” were not worth the relational headache and stress and did
little to solve the couple’s different perspectives. As Lori, 57 (who described their
financial status as “tight”), maintained:
Money is an important thing but it’s not everything. There are some things in life
that are more important than money, like people. Money is a nice thing to have, it’s
a good thing to get your bills paid, but above getting your bills paid, money isn’t
everything.
Participants commonly employed countering when attempting to voice how they
came to the realization that money was not worth it. In this way, while participants
acknowledged that money was important—and that power and control over money
can infiltrate relationships—they used a variety of conjunctions and connectives to
indicate that it came secondary in their relationship. For example, participants consistently positioned their relationship in opposition to the cultural normalization of
“money fights” by using language such as “but that’s not a part of our relationship” or
“we don’t even do that.” Throughout the interviews, participants overwhelmingly
privileged relational happiness by drawing on notions of partnership, cohesiveness,
and teamwork. In doing so, interviewees attempted to shift the importance placed on
“getting their way” to the periphery and instead focused on how money was not worth
fighting over because arguing was detrimental to their partnership and caused unnecessary harm. Participants prioritized unity with their romantic partners as a way to
combat struggle and competitiveness. As Tom, 62 (who described their financial status
as “not wanting for anything”), stated, “[My wife] and I, there is no fight, there is no
alpha and beta, it’s just we do things together and that’s just how it is, that’s just how
it is. We are comfortable with it, she’s comfortable with it.” Invoking the comfort and
cohesiveness of his own marriage, Tom countered notions that financial discussions
must be framed as a battle with victory or defeat as inevitable outcomes. Some
participants marginalized the battle-like discourse within their romantic relationships
in favor of viewing one another as allies and by stressing that they were “team
players.” Indeed, these participants emphasized that their relationships worked best
Financial Discourses 103
when participants emphasized one another’s unique strengths. As Ellen, 48 (who
described their financial status as comfortable), explained:
When things are tight, and if we’re concerned… we’ve kind of have this agreement
that I’m taking charge, calling up, canceling things, and getting a little bit more
hands-on…we figured out very early his instinct was always to buy and spend; mine
was to save. He’s like the gas and I’m the brakes.
Ultimately, many participants shifted power away from the idea that money was
worth fighting over by arguing that relational happiness trumped winning a fight.
Participants’ language argued for resisting the temptation to fight about money by
choosing to avoid worrying about the minute details of partners’ spending. Rose, 61
(who described their status as “fine”), recalled, “Years ago, I’d think, ‘Excuse me!’
[during disagreements with husband over spending] I don’t think that anymore. I
could worry about this, that, or all different things, I could make myself crazy
worrying but why bother?” For Rose, as for many participants, arguing about
money was futile. As a whole, participants articulated that relational well-being largely
came from unity and partnership in financial decisions and money management. The
idea of approaching finances as a team and confronting hardship together is reflective
of communal coping (Afifi, Hutchinson, & Krouse, 2006), in which people interdependently manage individual and/or collective stressors.
Struggle 2: Money is self-worth versus money does not define us
The second struggle participants negotiated surrounded the ongoing cultural message:
“You are what you earn.” In other words, because money was everything, it was
inherently tied to self-worth. As Lee, 36 (who described their financial status as “not
good”), remarked:
There’s that whole concept of the value that’s placed on [money]. We look at people
who make money and we equate that with some level of success, with some level of
status and achievement. Let’s not even talk about the reverse of that. We look at
people who don’t have money and we demonize them, and it’s all their fault. That
whole Horatio Alger’s concept of, you know, “My goodness, you can’t pull yourself
up? What’s wrong with you?” And then it becomes something that’s not just
monetary. It’s actually placing the value on the person.
Because one’s value was so intimately attached to financial prosperity, participants
suggested that an inability to achieve a high financial status signified failing at
professional, personal, and relational levels. Lee acknowledged his lack of financial
success made him question his worth as a person and as a provider for his family. As
he explained, “I hate the fact that I can’t provide…It’s frustrating because there’s not
just myself to be my own letdown, but then I’ve got this family that’s dependent.” In
many cases, money was not only a proxy for self-worth but for masculinity. Indeed,
for many participants, who discussed traditional expectations of male-as-breadwinner
(e.g., Prince, 1993), financial success was inescapably tied to gender.
In the wake of the recent economic downturn, participants encountered the
difficult realization that they would have to scale back on purchases and, subsequently,
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they were forced to reevaluate their worth as people. In the face of immense cultural
pressure connecting money to self-worth, participants discursively grappled with how
to distance their self-worth from the amount of money they earned. Because the
majority of these participants were working class, attempting to center a discourse that
privileged self-worth as independent from financial status was crucial to helping them
cope with the reality of their everyday life.
Participants distanced themselves from “money is self-worth” in favor of “money does
not define us” in several ways. They stressed that a focus on the material was incompatible
with being emotionally present, finding joy in people, and in prioritizing quality time with
loved ones. For example, April, 36 (who described their status as “comfortable”), had
struggled with the decision of whether to quit her job to stay home with their children.
While she voiced that her salary had made her feel accomplished and important, she
determined that she preferred to be defined by caring for her children:
When I was trying to make the decision to stay home, it was just like I knew you
gotta stay at home. You gotta take care of those kids. It’s not about money, it’s about
doing what you love, and if that’s what you want to do.
Challenging economic times meant that participants often had to make sense of
priorities and hold tight to what fostered their relational well-being. Participants also
attempted to relationally cope with the cultural pull to equate money with self-worth was
by drawing on religious authority. As interviewees attempted to reject money as selfworth they emphasized the peace they found as a couple when they relinquished their
stress to a higher power. Heidi, 39 (middle class), asserted that her relationship endured
because faith allowed her and her husband to press forward in the midst of financial
turmoil. As she recalled: “When I lost my last full time job…. I came home and that’s the
first thing we said was, ‘Okay, God didn’t want me there for some reason. Let’s move
forward.’” Invoking religion gave some participants a sense of relational direction and
reassurance amidst the cultural pressure to let money struggles define their sense of worth.
Struggle 3: More is better versus less is more
The third struggle participants negotiated surrounded the cultural notion that “more
is better” that encapsulated how the more material goods one consumed, acquired and
spent then the better life would be. Participants voiced how achieving the American
dream was intricately interwoven with material acquisition. Many interviewees viewed
material goods as tangible evidence that they had gotten ahead—or were at least more
successful than the socioeconomic status they were born into. This mindset was
particularly true for low-income or formerly low-income participants. They described
yearning for “want” items and not wishing to “deprive” themselves of them, despite
potential negative economic consequences. Charmaine, 45 (who described their economic status as “newly middle class”), said that, although they could not afford them,
she and her husband wanted, and proceeded to buy, their “toys.” As Pauleen, 69 (who
described their financial status as “sound, I think”), stated, “When you come from a
place where you never had anything, and then you start a job and you get money, oh
God, you know, I got this money! I can buy clothes! I can buy this!”
Financial Discourses 105
Conversely, within the counterdiscourse of “money isn’t everything,” participants
marginalized the idea that more is better by emphasizing that “less is more.” These
participants acknowledged that the omnipresent cultural message to acquire material
goods resulted in unnecessary strain. As April asserted, in the United States, “You
have to drive a certain car; live in a certain house, be around certain people, and so all
of that can stress people out.” The pursuit of the newest or fanciest product temporarily satisfied participants’ “wants” but often led to years of debt and financial turmoil.
Martin explained that a desire for expensive goods left him poor:
When I was a policeman…man, I had the world by the tail. You know, overtime,
holiday pay, comp time, raises. Guess what I did? Made myself a slave: credit
cards…trying to keep up with [the Joneses]…I’ve been through that. Um, you
know what got me [poor]? The wants.
Participants countered the discourse of “more is better” with the notion that “less is
more.” Less is more embodied ideas of nourishing minimalism, resisting materialism,
and seeking contentment with simplicity. Participants commonly voiced the importance of distinguishing between needs and wants. For example, Jack, 68 (who described
their financial status as “very comfortable”), asserted that, although many people think
they need to buy the latest car or clothes, “In my book, that’s not life. You know, the
things that matter—friends and family and stuff—they’re not as much materialistic.” By
foregrounding the notion that “less is more,” participants positioned the drive for
material goods as a quest that would ultimately lead to relational emptiness and
resentment. In doing so, many positioned “more is better” as taken-for-granted but
countered that their current possessions satisfied them. When attempting to favor the
idea that less is more, participants largely engaged in discursive entertaining, illustrating
that multiple opportunities and possibilities for relational happiness existed. For example, Jane, 36, (who described their status as middle class), was grappling with the role
material goods and wealth should play in one’s relationship:
I think I could be really happy in a modest home and just, you know, our relationship is not built on money and security that way. I would imagine sometimes, you
know, people get together because they think maybe somebody’s wealthy or…I
don’t know. People value things differently. And for me that’s not…it’s not…I don’t
aspire for my relationship to be about that [materialism].
By using the linguistic markers of “I could,” “I would imagine,” and “maybe,” Jane
underscored that multiple paths could bring fulfillment. Jane distanced her own
relationship from a focus on material goods while at the same time acknowledging
that the value placed on money varied from person to person. In doing so, Jane
positioned a relationship built on wealth as one option among many.
Discussion
Framed by Relational Dialectics Theory (RDT; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996; Baxter,
2011), the goal of the current study was to uncover whether and how broader U.S.
cultural financial discourses emerged in people’s everyday conversations with their
106
L. Romo and J. Abetz
romantic partner and how participants’ negotiated these discourses. Such insight is
important to shed light on how financial meaning is made in relationships. After all,
how people communicatively negotiate financial discourses—including the value they
ascribe to finances—likely affects how families make financial decisions and manage
monetary concerns.
Participants expressed contradictory cultural financial discourses situated within
larger systems of meaning they encountered from American culture. Participants were
well aware that culturally “money is everything” was dominant and a common
relational struggle they themselves experienced. Indeed, they articulated the societal
value placed on money as constituted by three struggles: (a) Money is worth fighting
over; (b) money is self-worth; and (c) more is better. However, participants simultaneously created a counterdiscourse of “money isn’t everything,” in order to distance
their romantic relationships from money’s societal importance. In this way, participants constituted the discourse of “money isn’t everything” as expressed by (a) money
is secondary to relational well-being, (b) money does not define us, and (c) less is
more. The interplay that ensued between the two discourses indicated that, in the face
of cultural pressure and the financial conflict they sometimes personally experienced,
participants attempted to marginalize “money is everything” in their relationships and
to award “money isn’t everything” the centripetal position. Despite its cultural power,
participants’ talk that privileged that “money is everything” was detrimental to their
personal and relational lives. Indeed, far from being a message to internalize, across
income levels, the cultural value placed on money as almighty emerged as a value to
be overcome. Even this study’s many working-class participants rejected the cultural
value placed on money, perhaps in part to help them accept their lower means. Several
participants explained how their occupation or struggling financial circumstances
made others pity them and they strongly rejected this way of thinking. Participants
may have been poor financially but they wanted people to know they were not poor in
spirit—there was more to life than money.
The findings illustrate how cultural values and romantic relationships exist as a
web, constituted by interwoven threads of meaning that emerge in everyday interaction. How individuals come to understand the role money plays in their lives and
financially communicate with romantic partners is co-constructed with discourses
circulating in the culture at large. For example, when viewing money as everything or
not everything, the systems of meaning participants encountered may serve to
embrace and resist dominant narratives about providing, self-worth, and the American dream, not just verbally but through actions. In other words, a dominant
discourse that money is everything could result in arguments about money or conspicuous consumption. The converse could result in participants collectively managing financial stress and uncertainty and viewing finances as secondary to relational
well-being.
As the discursive struggle surrounding the rejection and privileging of meaningmaking around money may reflect and be indicative of financially triggered relational
struggle, this study offers practical strategies that can be incorporated on both an
interpersonal and societal level.
Financial Discourses 107
Practical Strategies
Interpersonal applications
As a dialectical lens assumes people are agentic forces in their own lives and make
choices about how to best function in their interactions, this study informs practical
ways partners can communicatively mitigate the relational strain of finances. First, as
relational conflict can ensue when partners have different understandings of the role
money should play in their lives, partners should strive to reject materialism. Partners
should focus on giving rather than receiving, valuing one another rather than “things.”
In this way, people’s everyday communication with their romantic partner may serve
as a vehicle to relationally reframe the cultural salience surrounding money. This
communication may translate into (in)action, as people may be less likely to purchase
items they are unable to afford in hopes of bolstering their self-worth at the expense of
their financial well-being.
Relatedly, spouses should be sure to value their partners’ unpaid work; this would
especially help stay-at-home-parents maintain a sense of relational dignity and equality and would help deemphasize the importance of money over nonmaterial worth.
After all, by one conservative estimate, stay-at-home parents’ work is valued at
approximately $100,000 a year (Goudreau, 2011). Reinforcing the idea that there is
more to life than money would serve to highlight the unique strengths each partner
brings to the relationship outside of their paid labor.
Additionally, partners should view money management not as a battle but as a
team effort, in which financial responsibility should be jointly negotiated or responsibilities divided in an agreed-upon manner. Instead of conceiving of money as
inherently stressful and something that pits spouses against each other, perceiving
money management as a collaboration—even during tumultuous times—could enable
partners to cope communally and to more effectively manage their finances—and
their relationships.
Cultural applications
Although opposing cultural discourses exist, as a society, deemphasizing the importance
of money as all-consuming and omnipotent could alter the ways in which people
understand money and interact with one another and reinforce interpersonal communication. Culturally emphasizing the discourse that money is critical to survive but will
not buy happiness could change people’s money mindsets. Public service announcements, sponsored as part of financial literacy efforts, potentially through the National
Endowment for Financial Education, and plastered on city buses and bus stops, could
work to make the notion of “money is not everything” culturally centripetal.
Limitations and Future Directions
This study has several limitations. First, it relied on secondhand self-reports of one
romantic partner. Although “speaker utterances are animated by competing
108
L. Romo and J. Abetz
discourses whether they are addressed to a researcher or a relationship partner”
(Baxter, 2011, p. 122), preferably the authors would have interviewed partners
together or examined talk as it naturally occurred. Observing naturally unfolding
talk would lend greater insight into understanding if and how these systems of
meaning impact romantic relationships and financial decisions. Additionally, future
research could quantitatively examine the ways in which individuals’ privileged
financial discourse is related to positive or negative relational and/or financial outcomes, such as relational satisfaction, debt, savings, and stress. This more nuanced
approach would lend richer insight into cultural influences and the ways in which
financial discourses affect partners’ relational outcomes.
Note
1.
Cultural discourse is the “historically transmitted expressive system of communication
practices, of acts, events, and styles, which are composed of specific symbols, symbolic
forms, norms, and their meanings” (Carbaugh, 2007, p. 169).
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Making Sense of Dissatisfaction during the Transition to Motherhood through
Relational Dialectics Theory
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DOI: 10.1080/15267431.2019.1590364
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Making Sense of Dissatisfaction during the
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Valerie Cronin-Fisher & Erin Sahlstein Parcell
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JOURNAL OF FAMILY COMMUNICATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/15267431.2019.1590364
Making Sense of Dissatisfaction during the Transition to
Motherhood through Relational Dialectics Theory
Valerie Cronin-Fishera and Erin Sahlstein Parcellb
a
Department of Communication, Governors State University; bDepartment of Communication, University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee
ABSTRACT
Motherhood is a complicated experience as well as concept in U.S. society, and
while several notions of motherhood circulate in U.S. culture, they are not
equally accepted. Their unequal circulation is the focus of our study. Using
relational dialectics theory, we sought to identify dominant and marginalized
discourses evoked by new mothers who are dissatisfied with their transition to
motherhood. Twenty women with a first child under the age of two years old
shared their experiences during semi-structured interviews. These mothers’
talk reflects a variant on dominant discourses of motherhood – the Discourse
of Motherhood as Innately Desired (DMID) where wanting to be, as well as
looking like, a “good” mother are subthemes. However, the Discourse of
Motherhood as Learned (DML) served as a counterpoint for sense-making
that offers space for alternative, albeit marginalized, understandings of
motherhood where it is not assumed as the primary goal for women nor
a natural extension of their womanhood.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 18 July 2018
Revised 18 February 2019
Accepted 28 February 2019
Turing points and transitions have been widely studied within family communication (Sahlstein Parcell,
2013), but unlike many important familial and personal markers (e.g., getting married or starting a new job)
motherhood begins without courtship or professional training. Although typically a celebrated time in their
lives, women often do not feel prepared or confident in their new roles as mothers (Afiyanti & Solberg,
2015; Miller, 2007). While for many the prospect and reality of becoming a mother is an exciting part of life
that is intentionally undertaken, women are constantly reminded about their biological clocks, questioned
about their ability to balance work and home life, and compared to society’s definition of a “good mother”
(Foster, 2005). From pregnancy forward, mothers give up their private space and face unsolicited advice
from strangers including what is safe for them to eat and drink, how much rest they need, and what work
they should do (Byrom, Edwards, & Bick, 2009). Once they give birth, mothers often feel as though they
continue to lose their identities as the focus shifts from them as individuals (i.e., pregnant women) to their
babies (Foster, 2005) and them as mothers to their children (Basden Arnold, 2014). Although mothers have
been held up as the kinkeepers of their families and the linchpin in the emotional labor force of the familial
system (Gerstel & Gallagher, 1993; Leach & Braithwaite, 1996), American culture naturalizes the skills and
challenging work mothering involves while undervaluing its worth (Everingham, Heading, & Connor,
2006). These are just a few examples of how new motherhood is variably constructed in U.S. culture, which
inevitably results in contradictory understandings that are debated both publicly and privately.
In line with recent calls for critical interpersonal and family communication research
(Braithwaite, Suter, & Floyd, 2018; Moore, 2017; Moore & Manning, 2019; Suter, 2018), we sought
to explore the complicated constructions of new motherhood in American culture and bring the
personal in connection with the social/cultural. Previous research has examined new parenthood
through dialectical tensions (see Stamp, 1994), but little research includes the crucial aspect of
CONTACT Valerie Cronin-Fisher
© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
vcronin-fisher@govst.edu
Department of Communication, Governors State University
2
V. CRONIN-FISHER AND E. SAHLSTEIN PARCELL
cultural influences on meaning making around these relationships (Baxter, 2011; Senior, 2014). We
sought to “critique this historical public/private split as a false binary; arguing that culture, society,
and family are not discrete phenomena but rather mutually influential domains” (Suter, Seurer,
Webb, Grewe, & Koenig Kellas, 2015, p. 459) and employing relational dialectics theory (RDT)
(Baxter, 2011) to expose culturally dominant systems of meaning shaping new mothers’ talk about
their dissatisfaction with the transition to motherhood.
Discourses of motherhood
Motherhood in the United States is, and has been, a complicated, contradictory concept in American
history. As Scharp and Thomas (2017) explain, the discourse of “traditional” motherhood has
dominated U.S. culture since the early 19th century, and while its defining power continues,
“intensive mothering” (Hays, 1996) has taken a foothold in how mothers are judged.
There are three main tenets of “intensive mothering,” to which all women must adhere if they are to be viewed
as “good” mothers: (a) child care is primarily the responsibility of the mother; (b) child care should be childcentered; and (c) children “exist outside of market valuation, and are sacred, innocent and pure, their price
immeasurable.” (Dillaway & Paré, 2008, p. 441 citing Hays, 1996, p. 54)
Not living up to these criteria often leaves mothers feeling as if they are not good enough (Miller, 2007;
Scharp & Thomas, 2017). The dominant view is that mothers are the best people to understand and nurture
their children, and they should always be present for their children and continuously put their children’s
needs above their own, but these ideals constrain women’s autonomy and personal identities (Gattoni,
2013; Seurer, 2015). Intensive mothers are expected to leave behind individual aspects of their pre-mother
lives (e.g., interests and hobbies) and instead dedicate their time to their role as a mother and meeting the
needs of her family while simultaneously “bouncing back” to their pre-pregnancy bodies (O’Brien
Hallstein, 2015). Also, as an intensive mother a woman should be able to care for her children regardless
of her other responsibilities. Any woman who works full time cannot fulfill the requirements of being an
intensive mother and is seen as putting her own successes (e.g., getting a promotion and buying material
things) over her children (Dillaway & Paré, 2008) and her marriage (Bergen, 2010). If a mother does work
full time, the dominant cultural discourse suggests women should cut down on the amount of time spent
away from children by engaging in what Dillaway and Paré (2008) define as “extreme parenting” behaviors,
such as nighttime parenting (e.g., bed-sharing and prolonged night nursing), taking advantage of all
opportunities for quality time, and limiting time away from children through careful scheduling as
suggested by popular parenting books (Sears, 1999; Sears, Sears, Sears, & Sears, 2003). Defining and valuing
intensive mothering as an activity that only women can do in the home isolates them in their efforts to raise
their children and be employed (Arendell, 2000; Bergen, 2010; Hays, 1996). Moreover, women should
adopt these expectations as a “good” mother with grace and complete fulfillment, otherwise they risk not
being viewed as “good” mothers (Baxter, Scharp, Asbury, Jannusch, & Norwood, 2012; Hays, 1996). The
dominant discourse of intensive mothering guides women in how they should act and feel about motherhood, yet the reality of their experiences does not necessarily reflect it (Huisman & Joy, 2014; Seurer, 2015).
We argue it is imperative to elaborate our understanding of how motherhood is constructed in
society and what, if any, counterpoints to dominant discourses exist. We sought to identify cultural
discourses called upon when women make sense of their (new) motherhood as well as how these
discourses might constrain the meaning of motherhood in contemporary society. A theory wellsuited for researchers embarking on such an endeavor that is gaining a critical volume of family
communication scholarship is relational dialectics theory (Baxter, 2011).
Relational dialectics theory
Relational dialectics theory (RDT) is based in the idea that relationship experiences, such new motherhood, are understood through competing cultural norms and expectations known as discourses (Baxter,
2011). Discourses at any given time become dominant/centripetal, such as the discourse of intensive
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3
mothering, or marginalized/centrifugal (i.e., anything that deviates from the dominant discourse). RDT
researchers seek to identify such discourses and how they intersect to make meaning, “examin[ing] how
emergent marginal discourses resist dominant cultural ideologies to make meaning of a semantic object”
(Scharp & Thomas, 2018, p. 305). Specifically, we used RDT (Baxter, 2011) to explore the interplay of
discourses in new mothers’ meaning making about their dissatisfaction with motherhood.
The utterances speaking to a larger discourse are inherently relational, as relational communication is socially constructed (Baxter, 2011). The utterance chain consists of four utterance links where
dialectical tensions stem from: proximal already-spoken, proximal not-yet spoken, distal-alreadyspoken, and distal not-yet-spoken (Baxter, 2011). Each utterance is part of a chain that responds to
and is part of each utterance that came before it, as well as in anticipation of possible future
utterances (Baxter, 2011). Given our interests in how dissatisfaction with new motherhood is framed
in relation to the dominant discourse of intensive mothering, we focused our analysis on the distal
links of the utterance chain. The distal already-spoken links of the utterance chain pertain to
ideologies of motherhood that already inform the culture, whereas not-yet-spoken links anticipate
a cultural response. Both distal links facilitate and constrain utterances about a particular semantic
object, in our case, new motherhood and mothers’ (potential) dissatisfaction with it.
In addition to identifying competing discourses present in women’s talk about dissatisfaction with
the transition to motherhood, researchers who use RDT are interested in how discursive interplay
constructs their meaning. Social reality is created discursively through power (Baxter, 2011). Power
is located in the struggle between dominant and marginalized discourses. Discourses can interplay in
three ways: diachronic separation, synchronic interplay, and discursive transformation. Diachronic
separation occurs when discourses emerge in separate texts or locations and reflect changes in
dominance over time and space, while synchronic interplay suggests that discourses negate (total
rejection of competing discourses, often seen through comments of “wrongness”), counter (offer
limited legitimacy often seen through words such as: “but,” “although,” and “however”), and/or
entertain (consider multiple world views or general ambivalence statements including: “could,”
“may,” “might”) one another within the same utterance/moment in time (Baxter, 2011).
Discursive transformations occur when the interplay of discourses creates new meanings rather
than leaving them in opposition to one another (Baxter, 2011). These patterns of discursive interplay
are especially salient to this project as discourses inform new mothers’ meaning-making around their
challenges and dissatisfaction with the transition to motherhood.
A surge of RDT research in family communication has recently occurred (e.g., Baxter et al., 2012;
Baxter, Suter, Thomas, & Suerer, 2015; Scharp & Thomas, 2017, 2018; Suter et al., 2015; Thomas,
2017; Wenzel & Poynter, 2014), and several scholars have called for additional critical work using
RDT (e.g., Moore, 2017; Sahlstein Parcell & Baker, 2018; Suter, 2018). We were inspired and
sensitized by RDT studies that have identified dominant and marginalized discourses related to
intensive mothering (Ennis, 2014; Hays, 1996). For example, Scharp and Thomas (2017) identified
how mothers’ stories of pre and postnatal depression can de-center, but do not completely unseat,
the dominant discourse of self-sacrificing blissful moms (DBSM), a variant on the discourse of
intensive motherhood, by giving voice to the discourse of mothers as whole people (DMWP). Seurer
(2015) also explored constructions of motherhood but in the context of emerging adult-mother
relationships, where adult children voiced discourses of real and ideal (intensive) motherhood. We
wondered if new mothers who are dissatisfied with their transition to motherhood would also evoke
counterpoints to intensive mothering and offer other mothers and society alternative ways of making
sense of these experiences. Based on our review of the literature and choice of RDT as the theoretical
lens, we posed the following research question to guide our analyses:
RQ: What discourses animate the meaning of new motherhood when mothers are dissatisfied with their
transition?
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V. CRONIN-FISHER AND E. SAHLSTEIN PARCELL
Method
We chose to conduct semi-structured interviews with new mothers who experienced dissatisfaction
with the transition to motherhood. RDT scholars “often search out texts that are dialogically
expansive” (Scharp & Thomas, 2018, p. 306), meaning they have potential to reveal interplaying
discourses. According to Baxter (2011), texts are not equal on this point, and RDT scholars should
take care to identify and seek out communication contexts and genres “in which competing
discourses are likely to be etched in bold relief” which occur with “communicative enactments
that are commonly purported to be problematic or are sites of rupture, challenge, or change” (p.
153). Given new motherhood, and motherhood more generally, is a complicated experience and
dissatisfaction with it challenges the dominant discourse of intensive mothering, we believed new
mothers’ talk about such experiences would be a fruitful site for discursive competition.
Participants
With IRB approval, we recruited new mothers who experienced dissatisfaction with their transition to
motherhood through snowball sampling using social media (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) as well as
announcements during local new parenting class groups. The first author attended several “New Parents”
meetings where she recruited during their weekly meeting at a local hospital in the urban Midwest. As
a result, 20 new biological mothers (with children under the age of two years old) from across the
U.S. volunteered for the study. They ranged in age from 25 to 39 years old. Most of the mothers identified
as Caucasian (n = 19), but one woman identified as Asian. Their highest educational levels spanned from
associate’s degrees (n = 1), bachelor’s degrees (n = 10), master’s degrees (n = 6), and doctorate degrees
(n = 3). All mothers were in committed relationships including married (n = 18), domestic partnership
(n = 1), and partnered (n = 1), ranging from 1.5 years to 10 years in length, with a mean of 5.9 years.
Nineteen women had one child, and one woman had two children. Their children ranged in age from five
weeks to 24 months, with an average age of about one year.
Procedures
After arranging for a mutually agreeable time and date, the first author conducted one-on-one interviews
in a private office on campus, a location that worked well for the interviewee, or via phone or video call.
During each interview, she reviewed the study content and procedures and asked participants to read the
informed consent form. After addressing questions and concerns, each participant verbally consented
and agreed to the taping of the interview.
During the interview, we asked these new mothers to address several topics. First, mothers
discussed their experiences with pregnancy (e.g., “What was going on in your life when you found
out you were pregnant?”) followed by their birth experiences (e.g., “Who was in the room during the
birth and what did that communication look like?” and “How did you communicate with your care
provider?”). After sharing this background information, mothers described their transition to
motherhood and talking to others about it (e.g., “How would you describe your transition to
motherhood?” and “How do you talk about your new role as a mother?”). At the end of the
interview they offered advice for other new mothers. After the interview was complete, mothers
filled out a brief questionnaire (or answered as part of the interview if it took place over the phone or
via video call) regarding demographic information (i.e., age, race, education level, marital status, age
of children). Interviews lasted between 45 and 120 minutes (an hour on average) and resulted in 306
double-spaced pages of transcript. We changed names (unless the mother wanted to keep her name
instead of using a pseudonym) and other identifying markers during transcription to maintain
confidentiality.
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5
Contrapuntal analysis
We analyzed transcripts using contrapuntal analysis (Baxter, 2011), a type of discourse analysis
intended to identify the interplay of competing cultural discourses used in synchrony with RDT. Our
contrapuntal analysis primarily consisted of identifying competing discourses within women’s talk to
make sense of how women constructed meaning regarding dissatisfaction with new motherhood
(Norwood & Baxter, 2011).
First, we read over the interviews several times to become holistically familiar with the data prior to
conducting a series of open-coding procedures where we sought to identify discourses (Baxter, 2011). In
the initial stages of contrapuntal analysis, we treated discourses as clusters of sub-themes where each
segment of text must have responded to the general analytic question, “What does it mean to be
dissatisfied as a new mother?” During this stage of the analysis we used in vivo coding whenever possible
to maintain these women’s language choices and to stay close to their experiences (Strauss, 1987). After
we created our initial themes/discourses we engaged in data conferencing, a method of peer validation to
discuss analytic categories and theoretical considerations (Braithwaite, Allen, & Moore, 2017), with
others familiar with RDT and contrapuntal analysis, before moving forward.
We examined the interplay of discourses. First, by engaging in a process of “unfolding” (Baxter, 2011),
we located:
Previously voiced values and understandings to which a given text might be responding as well as the ways in
which future readers or hearers of the text might be anticipated to respond. Thus, this process of unfolding
illuminate[d] competition between – and power structures that guide – more apparent and more concealed
discourses. (Thomas, 2017, p. 358)
Next, we distinguished instances of diachronic separation and synchronic interplay. The former occurs
across time and space as discourses alternate in dominance. The latter is signaled when competing
discourses are present within the same text where one directly or indirectly refutes the other. We
specifically looked for discursive markers (e.g., “but,” “even though,” “however,” “just,” “still,” “surprisingly,” “may,” and “it seems”) to identify points of negating, countering, or entertaining in the mothers’
talk (Baxter, 2011). Our last step was to identify any potential instances of the “transformative struggle in
the form of discursive hybrids and aesthetic moments” (Scharp & Thomas, 2017, p. 406).
Across the data analysis process, we engaged in several practices to help ensure the trustworthiness of our findings: data immersion, audit trail, investigator triangulation, negative case analysis,
and exemplar identification. Before initiating our formal analysis, we each familiarized ourselves
with the data, reading the transcripts several times before making formal claims about their contents.
Once we established our facility with the data, we kept detailed notes known as an audit trail to keep
track of our coding and reasons for decisions made during the analysis (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
After we independently reviewed the transcripts and identified initial themes, we came together to
discuss the discourses we identified (i.e., investigator triangulation) and negotiate their labeling and
specific themes. We then established our findings through negative case analysis or what Kidder
(1991) calls, “a process of revising hypotheses with hindsight” (as cited by Lincoln & Guba, 1985,
p. 309). In this process we repeatedly refined and redefined our findings until it “accounted for all
known cases without exception” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 309). Lastly, we identified exemplars of
the competing discourses (i.e., thick descriptions) so that readers could discern the transferability of
our findings (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 316).
Findings
We sought to understand what, if any, competing discourses animate the meaning of motherhood in
cases when new mothers were unhappy with their experiences. Through contrapuntal analysis we
identified two primary competing discourses: the Discourse of Motherhood as Innately Desired
(DMID) and the Discourse of Motherhood as Learned (DML). Although the DMID was dominant,
the DML was a counterpoint to notions of what it means to be a “good” mother (e.g., having a “natural
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instinct,” making childcare their primary responsibility, and putting their child’s needs above their own
autonomy and identity). Their interplay revealed the complexity of meanings around dissatisfaction with
the transition to new motherhood.
Discourse of motherhood as innately desired
One of the inclusion criteria for participating in this project was current dissatisfaction with new
motherhood, and yet some women had a difficult time expressing that sentiment. Although women
noted feeling dissatisfied with their transition, they felt as though they should not complain because
they have always wanted to be a mother (as should all “good mothers”). The DMID is reflected by
two themes in these new mothers’ talk: women should (a) naturally want motherhood and (b) want
to be seen as good mothers.
Naturally wanting motherhood
A hallmark of the DMID is wanting to be a mother. The DMID is one of naturalization (Baxter,
2011, p. 171) where women are talked about being “born” to want the job, and even if it is
challenging, they will “naturally” express their maternal instincts. Giovanna, a mom of a sevenmonth of daughter, recounted her experience during her transition to motherhood:
I was always one of those people who was like, “I want to be a mother, I am going to be a mother”, and I really
think the transition was really easy and great…I was really proud of myself because, besides questions and stuff,
I personally wasn’t on the phone with my mom saying, “Can you come help?” because 1. [my mom is] an hour
and a half away, and 2. because, well, [my baby is] mine and I wanted to have a baby, so I can figure this out. I’ll
nap when she naps, and I’ll eat when she’s sleeping. I just figured it out. It was really just a smooth transition.
Giovanna talked about the pride associated with being able to do it all on her own. Though she
discussed her grueling schedule with a newborn, she framed her experience in a way that highlighted
her baby’s wants and needs as most important and addressing them as something she could naturally
“figure out.” Giovanna had a planned pregnancy and kept up with her baby’s needs without asking
for support, thus she considered it a “smooth transition.” Instead of talking about the difficulties she
experienced as a mother, she highlighted the ways in which she was succeeding as a new mother.
In another example of naturally wanting motherhood, Ella, mom of a ten-month old son, also
discussed her easy transition to motherhood and echoed Giovanna’s unquestioned desire to be
a mom as something that was “always” desired:
…my whole life I wanted to be a mom. This is always what I’ve wanted to do. It’s why I chose child care [as
a job]. It’s why I chose education [as my major]. I just love being around kids, so it was kind of like I felt like for
me, I didn’t at all honestly struggle in it. Like, he wakes up every three hours. “That’s okay. I’ll feed you.” I felt
like I just loved it so much. That I was like, “This is awesome!”…It just kind of worked for us, I felt like. It
wasn’t as much of a transition as I thought it would be.
Ella discussed her nurturing history and demeanor overall, and how she had an easier than expected
transition to motherhood. Specifically, Ella found herself meeting her son’s needs and experiencing
motherhood as rewarding despite considering herself dissatisfied.
Wanting to be seen as a good mother
In addition to innately desiring motherhood, good mothers should automatically want reflected
appraisal as a good mother. For example women might put their child’s needs above their own and
serve as the primary care provider for their children (even if that means sacrificing their own
individual goals). Women in our study supported this aspect of the DMID, in part, by silencing
negative feelings they experienced about motherhood (e.g., not liking or wanting motherhood) to
“look” like good mothers to others. Participants who felt unhappy with their new motherhood
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7
reported choosing to keep these “taboo” feelings to themselves instead of revealing their difficulties
because they wanted to be seen as good mothers. Linda, mom to a two-year-old son, recalled her
reasoning for silencing her dissatisfaction with new motherhood after she was unable to follow her
birth plan:
I avoid talking about myself though. When I was going through it, I avoided talking about how sad I was.…In
the beginning I was unable to talk about how I needed help. I felt like I was a failure in that moment, a massive,
massive failure. Everyone was doubting me during my pregnancy. I was unrealistic and wanted to prove
everyone wrong. I was going to [give] birth at a birth center without medication, and I was going to breastfeed.
In that moment [when my ideal plan wasn’t realized] I felt so broken. I was embarrassed. I just didn’t want
anyone to realize how broken I got from it all.
Linda presented herself as a strong and capable mother even though she was struggling immensely. She needed to prove her abilities as a mother after she had a difficult birth as well as
establishing a breastfeeding relationship. Holly, a mom to a two-year-old son, also chose not to
disclose her want/need to quit breastfeeding because “good” mothers should want to breastfeed
their children:
When I was upset I felt like I was failing. It was an internal physical disgust for being touched. There was no
worry about supply, but I needed to not be needed that much. It was the only way he would fall asleep. It was all
the time. It was dragging me down. I think I didn’t want to talk about it because I was a mom and he was my
child. It wasn’t like a toy–he needed [to eat]. It was a disgrace that I didn’t want to do it and would cry about it.
It strained my husband’s and my relationship. Since I was the only one to put [the baby down for sleep] I would
be annoyed.
Holly did not discuss her desire to quit breastfeeding with others because giving your baby formula
when you can breastfeed is not what “good” mothers do. Holly was thankful she was eventually able
to forge a successful breastfeeding relationship, but she expressed guilt when she needed her space,
kept her feelings to herself, and put the needs/wants of her child before her own. Julie, mom of a 10month old son, recounted her experience telling her close college friends about her difficulty during
the transition to motherhood, but due to their reactions she decided to stop communicating her
dissatisfaction:
Um because a lot of people would tell me, you know people always expected me to have a baby first and that’s
probably ‘cause I have a kind of like maternal instinct that seemed more natural than maybe some of my
friends…Um and I think they were just like jarred by how hard it was for me. Like there were so many days
where I texted them and it was like “I think I could die like of exhaustion. Like I think [being a mom] is a really
bad idea.” Or “I don’t think anyone should ever have kids because it’s really hard.” Um and because of that
I have stopped talking to them about it…they just simply can’t enter into the conversation in a way that’s
helpful for me. I don’t just need people telling me I’m a good parent. I know I’m a good parent. I keep my kid
alive. I take care of him. He’s not deprived. I know I’m a good parent. That’s not what I need to hear.
Unlike the previous two examples, Julie tried challenging the DMID by expressing her feelings of
dissatisfaction and seeking conversations that explored her frustrations with motherhood. Her friends
reacted with messages of “support” that minimized her concerns, so she stopped talking about the
challenges of motherhood with them. Julie’s experience with new motherhood was inconsistent with
what her network considered her “natural” maternal identity. Her network’s reactions to her expressed
frustrations, and her subsequent choice to silence herself in the future, reflects the power of dominant
discourses that frame women as being naturally good at motherhood and expecting them to perform the
role without questioning or expressing dissatisfaction with its responsibilities.
Discourse of motherhood as learned
A second discourse was at play in these women’s talk, which constructed the mother’s role as
acquired through experience (i.e., the Discourse of Motherhood as Learned). Three themes emerged
for the DML: new motherhood is (a) unnatural, (b) a job, and (c) a balancing act.
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New motherhood is unnatural
Counter to the dominant narrative that characterizes motherhood as a natural expression and
realization of womanhood, motherhood can also be constructed as learned or acquired with
experience (i.e., unnatural). For example, Giovanna, mom to a seven-month old daughter, remembered conversations with her husband about how he avoided child-related duties because he thought
it came “naturally” to his wife. She felt otherwise and negated the DMID:
He always says, “You’re a mom. It’s natural to you. You carried her for nine months. You delivered her. It
comes naturally to you,” and I’m like, “But this is my first child. I’ve never done this before. As natural as you
think this is for me, it’s still brand new to me as it is to you!”
Giovanna did not experience motherhood as natural, or effortless. She did not see her experience as
a new mother as inherently different from her husband, regardless of if she gave birth to their daughter or
not. Though American culture suggests women should have maternal instincts and fall in to their mother
roles effortlessly, Giovanna remembered searching for connection and understanding with her husband,
as she felt they were both learning and adjusting to life with a new baby. Amy, mom to a four-month old
daughter, recognized how difficult it was to experience and express “unnatural” motherhood:
I think you expect that it’s going to be like. You’re going to immediately bond with your baby, and you’re going
to feel this overwhelming, painful love. And you know and I know it’s hard to say this, but I did not connect
with my daughter at first. I was so tired, and they were like, “Do you want to room in with your daughter
overnight?” and I was like, “Actually, uh no.”
Although she admits she expected the opposite, she did not form an instant attachment with her
daughter. She was exhausted from her birth experience and instead of keeping her newborn with her,
something a “good” mother would want to do, she voiced her individual needs as someone who just
endured an immensely difficult physical event (i.e., birth). Amy rejected her nurse’s assumption that
she would start putting her baby first (and in turn the dominant discourse of intensive mothering).
Rather, she recognized her own needs.
Other mothers countered the natural aspects with the unnatural aspects of motherhood. They
described how natural it was to become a mother, while also feeling uncomfortable with changes to
their identities. Erin, mom to a four-month-old son, countered the DMID as she considered the
changes she was going through as an individual:
So [parenthood is] like really good…It’s been really good fit for us. Um, in terms of that, but I did quit, quit the big
job. Which I’d say I haven’t even looked back on it. So, I think it was definitely the right decision for us and, um, I,
again I can talk for probably an hour on that but, um, it was a hard decision to do though. You know it’s like taking,
again, my identity at the time totally just flipping it, but I’ve really enjoyed staying at home. And I now, like I said,
I’m doing HR consulting stuff, and I do watch a really good friend’s baby once a week on average, as well.
Erin had always been busy with her career until maternity leave, when she decided to quit and stay
home with her baby. Although she did not regret her decision to be a stay at home mom, she
countered the dominant DMID by speaking to the DML, highlighting her individual goals and
responsibilities outside motherhood.
New motherhood is a job
A second thread of the DML emphasized the effort it takes to be a mother. Our participants talked
about the endless work of motherhood, which they learned did not go without individual consequences. Amy, mom to a ten-month old son, shared her need to take a break from the job of
motherhood:
It’s not like I want to walk away from her, but it’s like I don’t have the ability to go take a five-hour break or to
like sleep through the night or to um you know just have some time for myself. I think that just like surprised
me by having someone need you constantly. It’s like ultimately people can help you, but at the end of the day
you’re like the only real solution that there is.
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Amy spoke to the DMID when discussing her attentiveness and being the “only real solution.”
However, she countered this notion by mentioning that her motherly duties are not performed
without a desire for a break and/or alone time. Similarly, Lisa, a mom to eleven-month old son,
recounted how she had to “re-train” her idea of being a stay-at-home mother because her expectations did not match her reality:
Like, I kind of thought, like, being a stay at home mom that I’d have like more time to clean the house or make
dinner or go for walks. I couldn’t wait to like start working out again and all these things, but I didn’t realize
that like I couldn’t just set the baby on the floor with his toys and I could go do my own thing like five feet
away. I couldn’t work out, like I didn’t realize it. Babies are so…needy that I don’t ever get a break.
Before becoming a mother, Lisa thought once the baby arrived, she would make time for herself
while also being a stay-at-home mom. Meeting the demands of her baby made that impossible. Lisa
put the needs of her baby before her own, speaking to the DMID aspect of wanting to be a “good”
mother. However, she countered these notions by highlighting her desire to take a break and do
things that are personally fulfilling.
New motherhood is a balancing act
Women also highlighted the balance they tried to establish as both a mother and individual, which is
counter to the traditional narrative that “good mothers” devote themselves to their children. Cici,
mother of a ten-month old son, discussed how she kept her individual priorities after the birth of her
son and balanced them with her new responsibilities as a mother. She countered the tenants of the
DMID by not always putting her son’s wants before her own:
You know, people think that being a mom includes all of your priorities changing, and I think that’s kind of
sad. You know? Some of them definitely change, and like your kid is definitely important, but you know, I don’t
think any of the other priorities should just go away. You know, otherwise, I don’t think I would be happy if
I was 100% focused on, or obsessed with, him all the time. I kinda just do my own thing.
Cici valued her own happiness and did not need to become selfless to be a good mother, however not
all women saw this as clearly as her. Another mother, Jane, who had an eleven-month old baby, had
trouble balancing her work demands with being a good mom. She recalled entertaining the notion
that motherhood would be frustrating (i.e., not easy to do while also working):
Maybe I knew that going in, I was the kind of parent I thought I would be, which may have made it smoother.
I think I knew I’d be pissed that I can’t go have a glass of wine with a friend right now. I’d be irritated that
I can’t get as much work done as I want.
As she continued to recall her experience, she countered the DMID with the DML:
I knew I’d be making those sacrifices and I wouldn’t like that, but I am pretty realistic and pragmatic..I often
would choose my daughter over work, and then I would get really behind. I was like, “At least I’m being a good
mom, but I really need to grade.”
Jane felt like a good mom when she “chose” her baby over other individual responsibilities speaking
to the DMID, but she recognized that choosing to prioritize her daughter did not mean she was
disregarding her other responsibilities. Another mother, Gianna, discussed her reframing of the
word “balance” once she had two children under the age of two (a fifteen-month old son, and
a newborn daughter):
My sister actually sent me this blog about this mother who talks about how the word balance is a buzzword, and
how, prior to having two under two, she lived a pretty balanced life. So, to her balance was having structure and
you know, doing this and doing that, and how it kind of goes out the door when you have two under two.
Balance looks a lot different, and you have to set your expectations really low. And so, you know, sharing or
reading that blog was really helpful and encouraging just knowing that like I’m not the only one feeling
this way.
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Gianna spoke to the DML when discussing her difficulty with trying to find balance while having
two children under two. Finding out that other mothers did not feel balanced helped Gianna make
sense of her experience and gave her license to accept that she cannot accomplish her goals as
a mother and as an individual simultaneously.
Our contrapuntal analysis revealed two discourses: the culturally dominant DMID and the
marginalized DML. The identification of DMID and the DML sheds light on the complex
experience of dissatisfaction with the transition to motherhood. Particularly, these mothers’ talk
was largely constrained by the DMID and wanting to be a “good” mother. However, some
mothers evoked the DML and offered a more nuanced understanding of the transition to
motherhood. In the following section, we offer interpretations of these findings as well as
suggestions for future research.
Discussion
Informed by RDT, we sought to understand the discourses evoked in women’s talk about their
dissatisfaction with the transition to motherhood. Our contrapuntal analysis identified two primary
discourses at play: (a) the discourse of motherhood as innately desired (DMID) and (b) the discourse of
motherhood as learned (DML). The DMID is a thread of intensive mothering discourse (Hays, 1996)
identified in other motherhood research (e.g., Miller, 2007; Scharp & Thomas, 2017) but particular to
new mothers. Intensive mothering is rooted in self-sacrifice, selflessness, and presenting perfection.
These ideals permeate what many women construct as “good” mothering (Douglas & Michaels, 2004).
Women in our study who evoked the DMID highlighted their life-long desire to become mothers (i.e.,
“naturally wanting to be a mother”) and/or how others naturalized them as mothers. Once they became
parents they wanted to “look like good mothers” or felt the need to portray themselves as such even while
they spoke about dissatisfaction with the transition to motherhood. These mothers also evoked the
marginalized DML, which recognizes the complexity and frustrations of new motherhood, focusing on
the unnatural and demanding aspects of “the job” as well as how difficult it is balancing being a good
mother with other areas of life (e.g., work, fitness).
While the marginalized DML at times countered the DMID, the DMID was centrally positioned in
these women’s talk as evidenced by their discomfort in disclosing their dissatisfaction with new
motherhood. The DMID maintained its centripetal position, thus was consistently “legitimated as
normative, typical, and natural…a baseline against which all margins are positioned as nonnormative,
off-center, unnatural, and somehow deviant…herein lies its power” (Baxter, 2011, p. 123). Some women
in our study could not discuss their problems with family and friends, or they stopped doing so, for fear
of judgment or eliciting worry from their network. Others had difficulty reconciling their experiences
with the culture’s and/or their own expectations for a…