Working motherhood across generations
This chapter examines the influence the generations of mothers and grandmothers have upon their daughters' views about combining work with motherhood. It explores the continuities and discontinuities in intergenerational transmission of attitudes about work and hours of work through the lens of differences in historical, biographical and maternal time. Almost all the daughters and ‘daughter mothers’ intend to emulate, or are emulating, their mothers in continuing to work after motherhood. Moreover, many conversations take place about working motherhood between the grandmothers and ‘daughter mothers’, because female generations become closer when the generational chain acquires another link. This is a moment in the biographies of the daughters when they are most receptive to their mothers' influence. The chapter then addresses why the grandmothers encourage or discourage commitment to work.