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Alienated Motherhood And The Quest For Certainty, Sue Ellen Henry

Sue Ellen Henry

“Man (sic) who lives in a world of hazards is compelled to seek for security.”

-John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty

The age of “scientific motherhood” has dawned. Inundated and overwhelmed with the enormous stakes of new motherhood, contemporary mothers are likely to seek what little “certainty” there is in caring for newborns by relying heavily on “expert” texts and parenting advice books. This paper examines my first experience in new mothering and the false sense of security that emerged from my own “quest for certainty.” Following Dewey’s critique of a bifurcated view of knowledge and belief, this argument exposes …