Paper short abstract:

Women in Australia today are frequently critiqued for their mothering choices, and their mothering values may put them at odds with (powerful) others. This paper explores the implications for women when "doing what feels right" may mean mothering against the grain.

Paper long abstract:

Women are frequently critiqued for their mothering choices, whether by their families, other mothers, or Australian society more broadly. It is a fraught endeavour, often accompanied by strong opinions about the 'right' (and 'wrong') ways to do it, and mothers are 'doing it' amidst an ever increasing amount of 'expert' advice and surveillance over their bodies and those of their children. But what happens if women value other forms of knowledge over the 'experts', or they want to limit surveillance? What happens if their mothering values put them at odds with (powerful) others? For some mothers, following their intuition or instinct and "doing what feels right" for themselves and their child(ren) may mean questioning conventional wisdom or constructions of the child. Prioritising embodied knowledges and trusting in the body's ability to heal or birth may mean their reproductive choices and/or approaches to (and understandings of) health and wellness challenge biomedical norms. Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Greater Adelaide region, this paper explores the implications of "doing what feels right" for a number of women who identify their style of mothering as natural or holistic (or similar). It foregrounds their perspectives and experiences as they navigate mothering in what can be difficult terrain, and considers the ways that they respond to and manage situations in which their values diverge from (powerful) others; where "doing what feels right" may mean mothering against the grain.