A central aim of motherhood studies is to examine and theorize normative motherhood. Where does it come from? What are its defining features and demands? How does it work as a regulatory discourse and practice across differences of age, class, race, ability, sexuality, and region? What is the impact of normative motherhood on women’s lives? What does an intersectional analysis of normative motherhood reveal? How is normative motherhood reflected and enacted in public policy, workplace practices, family arrangements and so on? How is normative motherhood represented and resisted in literature, art, photography, and film? How do or may women resist normative motherhood? This collection explores these questions of normative motherhood under three interrelated topics: Regulations, Representations, and Reclamations.

Dr. Andrea O’Reilly is internationally recognized as the founder of Motherhood Studies (2006) and its subfield Maternal Theory (2007), and creator of Matricentric Feminism, a feminism for and about mothers (2016) and Matricritics, a literary theory and practice for a reading of mother-focused texts (2024). She is full professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University, founder/editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative and publisher of Demeter Press. She is co-editor/editor of thirty plus books on many motherhood topics including: Feminist Mothering, Young Mothers, Monstrous Mothers, Maternal Regret, Normative Motherhood, Mothers and Sons, Mothers and Daughters, Maternal Texts, Academic Motherhood, Mothers on Finding and Realizing Feminism and Mothering and Covid-19. She is editor of the Encyclopedia on Motherhood (2010) and co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Motherhood (2019). She is author of Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart (2004); Rocking the Cradle: Thoughts on Motherhood, Feminism, and the Possibility of Empowered Mothering (2006); and Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, and Practice, The 2nd Edition (2021). Forthcoming titles include: The Mother Wave: Theorizing, Enacting, and Representing Matricentric Feminism , The Missing Mother, and Revolutionizing Motherlines. She is currently completing her monograph Matricritics as Literary Theory and Criticism: Reading the Maternal in Post-2010 Women’s Narratives. Matricritics as Literary Theory and Criticism: Reading the Maternal in Post-2010 Women’s Narratives. She is twice the recipient of York University’s “Professor of the Year Award” for teaching excellence and is the 2019 recipient of the Status of Women and Equity Award of Distinction from OCUFA (Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations). She has received more than 1.5 million dollars in grant funding for her research projects including two current ones: “Millennial Moms” and “Mothers and Returning to ‘Normal’: The Impact of the Pandemic on Mothering and Families.”

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