Untangling the double bind of carework in green motherhood: An ecofeminist developmental path forward

Abstract

“Green motherhood” describes the rise of a predominant form of mothering ideology in Western culture that emphasizes environmental values and an ecoconscious lifestyle as a central part of mother work (AbiGhannam & Atkinson, 2016; Atkinson, 2014; Ray, 2011). Within this ideology, mothers experience a “double bind” regarding their environmental carework (Atkinson, 2014, p. 554) or the efforts they take to make sure the environment is safe and nurturing for their children. Green mothering as a practice emphasizes an individualized, consumption-based maternal identity and gendered, human-centered advocacy as a solution to environmental degradation. Mothers are charged with more responsibility to save the earth but pushed towards solutions that only hurt the planet and the future generations that rely on healthy mothers and a habitable earth. In this way, green motherhood represents a distortion of the psychoecological growth possible in matrescence, the developmental period of motherhood (Athan & Reel, 2015; Raphael, 1973). The goal of this paper is, therefore, to offer an ecofeminist psychoecological approach to carework that illuminates an alternative to the double bind through a “deep” and “warm” relationship between humans and nonhumans. To that end, I outline the principles of an ecofeminist developmental approach that connects maternal and planetary wellness and apply this lens to shift carework from environmental to ecological. In untangling the double bind mothers might be better able to move beyond this distortion of their psychoecological growth for their own health and the health of their human and nonhuman ecosystem.