50 years of Becoming a Mother

In the last decades of the 20th Century, Professor Ann Oakley's ground-breaking Becoming a Mother project reshaped thinking about motherhood, established a multi-disciplinary area of academic research, and provoked a sea-change in practice and policy around maternity care. In a time of accelerating social change, this project takes forward that legacy. We take an inter-generational, longitudinal, and historically comparative approach to understand better the lasting implications of women's transition to motherhood, as well as the continuities and changes in women's experiences over the last 50 years in the UK. We will do this through both the re-analysis of Oakley's previous research and new data-collection. In a phased process, and carried out by a team based at the leading UCL Social Research Institute (including Oakley herself) this 4.5-year project has the following archival, methodological, data collection and engagement-based aims: To compile, digitise, transcribe, catalogue, archive and re-analyse data from the original Becoming a Mother study (and associated studies). This will be in collaboration with the British Library (our official partner) as part of their acquisition of Oakley's archive. Based on (1), conduct follow-up interviews with those original mothers (and any grand/daughters who have become mothers) to identify intergenerational changes in the transition to motherhood, potentially over three generations. Based on (1) and (2), in combination with a historical policy review, develop a new interview schedule and conduct a methodologically similar study with an intersectionally diverse sample of mothers recruited via the same hospital in London to reflect and reveal historical change in the experience of first-time motherhood '50 years on'. Drawing on (1) (2) and (3), to develop and share our findings with a wide audience through: academic and non-academic publications, including policy briefs; an embedded television documentary and podcast; and a launch event (in the House of Lords) and dissemination event (at the British Library) publicised in The Times, Mumsnet and BBC platforms, including Radio 4's Woman's Hour. Substantively, this project will contribute to understanding the transition to (and experience of) motherhood, contextualised by changes to parenting culture (Faircloth 2013, 2014, 2021). It will also strengthen social science methodology, showcasing ways of collecting and analysing qualitative data over time, ensuring the legacy of historically important data-sets. In curating a research-ready data-set for re-use, the project serves not only as a study of motherhood, but as a study of the study of motherhood. We anticipate our '50 years on' study will be equally impactful as the original: providing landmark evidence, and enhancing the capacity of social science to inform policy and shape the development of equitable and efficient services. In addressing early motherhood holistically (rather than through 'maternity care' or 'Early Childhood Education') we offer an innovative perspective on women's well-being and fertility trends. Improvements in this area have an unusual capacity for far-reaching effects: promoting family and community health, responsible citizenship and the potential to enhance human flourishing. In collaboration with the our media collaborators; politicians in both Houses of Parliament; leading activist groups and charities, and with the British Library as our partner, this project will produce significant and wide-ranging outputs for a variety of users and generate new knowledge around motherhood. This will have a lasting impact on public discourse and social policy, offering us a timely portrait of how motherhood - and indeed Britain - have changed.