Reproductive ageism: Late fertility and the politics of good mothering in Chile

Late fertility is a growing global phenomenon, but midlife mothers continue to be subject to social prejudice. This article introduces the notion of reproductive ageism as an epistemic tool to explore the cultural age norms underlying reproduction and understand how midlife mothers receive, resist, and resignify social prejudice by framing their identities as good mothers and their childrearing practices as good mothering. Drawing on qualitative data produced through 40 interviews on the transition to motherhood with Chilean women, the findings reveal that age remains an important cultural marker of women's ability to be good mothers and that aging in the context of reproduction is often interpreted through risks of infertility, poor health, and bad mothering. In negotiating reproductive ageism, midlife mothers contest age as a marker of physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing while stressing how it improves their readiness for parenting and strengthens their desirability for motherhood. In doing so, midlife mothers both challenge and reinforce ideologies of stratified reproduction and normative hierarchies of motherhood.