Ideal maternity in debate: a study of the meanings attributed by children to the term toxic mothers

Abstract

This research aims to understand and analyze the meanings attributed to this new nomenclature to which some children today refer to their mothers: toxic mothers. We will seek to understand what toxic mothers are in the eyes of their children, the senses that they attribute to this nomenclature and how they articulate it to the demands related to mothering and to the social ideals and imperatives that surround motherhood. It is an exploratory-descriptive qualitative research, which will use semi-directed interviews as an instrument for data collection. Interviews will be conducted with ten children who call their mothers "toxic mothers" who are willing to voluntarily participate in the research. The sample will consist of ten children, young people between 18 and 30 years old, who participate in the facebook group called by the fictitious name "Toxic mothers" and who complain about their "toxic" mothers. The analysis of the data will take place through an articulation between the data acquired through the interviews and the studies carried out on the topic, categories of analysis will be organized, based on the proposal of Bardin (2011) of content analysis. We hope that the results of this research will contribute to the discussions on motherhood, the mother-child relationship and studies on family ties today.