Professional Instincts: Professional Mothering Rhetoric and the Revision of Maternal Labor

This article examines the nineteenth-century movement to professionalize motherhood by revising the rhetoric used to describe maternal expertise and training. On the surface, this revision appears to modernize maternal labor and articulate its value to a capitalist, democratic society. I argue that in practice, however, it demonstrates a double standard of professionalism that limits women’s social mobility while elevating the value of the maternal institution. To illustrate this argument, I analyze three articles that construct the rhetorical framework of professional mothering that emerged in the Progressive Era and demonstrate the continuity of their arguments with contemporary rhetoric regarding mothers and work. To this end, I offer suggestions for how we might better address the goals of professional mothering rhetoric in ways that disrupt traditional characterizations of motherhood, maternal labor, and professional identity.