‘Chucked in the Deep End’: Mothering in the Early Postnatal Period

Abstract

Familiarity with childrearing practices is relatively rare for new (middle-class) mothers in late modernity, as the socio-cultural context in which these informal knowledges and skills are acquired is generally not available outside working-class and minority ethnic communities. In this sense, adolescent mothers may be perceived as having an advantage, although this is unlikely to be widely acknowledged.