Resisting Intensive Motherhood? Women's Accounts on Infant Feeding in Spain

Research has shown that mothers reproduce intensive motherhood norms, either by conforming to the expected behaviors in their mothering activities or by using intensive motherhood as a reference to account for their behavior when it is not conforming to the norm. How mothers resist the principles of intensive motherhood remains underexplored. In the case of infant feeding, previous studies point to mothers not questioning the main tenets of the model. This paper analyzes 57 interviews conducted with first‐time mothers in Spain in 2013 and shows that, in the case of infant feeding practices, some mothers do oppose one of the main principles of intensive motherhood, the idea of child centrality. Mothers do so by using two main tropes: their enjoyment of breastfeeding and the priority given to other activities. By doing so, mothers overcome invisibility as subjects and undo intensive motherhood.