Mothers, emotion work, and feeling rules: Achieving positive emotions for the sake of the child
- Author(s)
- Fabienne Décieux, Eva-Maria Schmidt, Ulrike Zartler
- Abstract
Objective: This paper examines how mothers deal with their emotions related to their mothering practices in the early phase of motherhood, and analyzes which practices they use to work on their emotions. Background: Emotions and emotion work are regarded as integral and highly gendered parts of family work, which includes mothers as primary caregivers. However, the complex relation between mothers’ emotions and their practices of mothering is yet to be fully understood. This study analyzes this relation by combining a social constructivist approach with a praxeological perspective. Method: The empirical results draw on an in-depth thematic and reconstructive sequential analysis of 23 semi-structured interviews with mothers in Austria whose youngest child was under the age of two. Results: Two bundles of practices of emotion work were identified: first, “changing conditions” (with practices of avoiding or preparing); and, second, “changing emotions” (with practices of suppressing, deep acting, and toning down guilt). Results explicate how mothers’ emotions and practices of emotion work are centered around the fundamental feeling rule of achieving positivity. This fundamental feeling rule includes numerous emotions that mothers work for with the aim of ensuring their child’s happiness and adequate development. Conclusion: Mothers’ practices of emotion work mirror subjectivation and (gendered) responsibilization, and are therefore related to neoliberal ideals. Mothers act as invisible emotion workers to ensure the happiness and development of their child.
- Organisation(s)
- Project: Family Studies in Austria, Department of Sociology
- External organisation(s)
- Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
- Journal
- Journal of family research : JFR
- Volume
- 38
- Pages
- 80-98
- No. of pages
- 19
- ISSN
- 2699-2337
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.20377/jfr-1287
- Publication date
- 02-2026
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 504011 Genealogy
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/74b25c36-7b06-471b-9f08-c415358fc2aa