Haunted futures
The stigma of being a mother living apart from her child(ren) as a result of state-ordered court removal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3491540 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lisa Morris (0000-0003-1050-3149, University of Birmingham, corresponding author), Lisa Morriss (University of Birmingham) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 66 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 816-831 |
| Publication date | 2018-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0038026118777448 |
| OpenAlex | W2808279263 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 62 |
| References cited | 22 |
The notion of 'haunted futures' can provoke new understandings of the experiences of birth mothers living apart from their children as a result of state-ordered court removal. As 'abject figures', the mothers are silenced through the stigma and shame of being judged to be a deeply flawed mother, the justifiable fear of future children being removed, and court-ordered reporting restrictions. In this article, the author depicts how these mothers exist in a state of haunted motherhood: they are paralysed in anticipation of an imagined future of reunification with their children. The mothers are painfully aware that any future pregnancy will also be subject to child protection procedures; thus even their future motherhood continues to be stigmatised by the past. However, while the ghosts of removed children signify a traumatic loss, they also simultaneously represent hope and future possibilities of transformation through re-narrativisation. The creation of spaces for the mothers to speak about their experiences can foster a 'maternal commons'. This ending of enforced silencing can be a political act, countering the stigma caused by pathologising individual mothers and making visible how structural inequalities and governmental policies impact on the lives of the most vulnerable families in the UK
Criminology · Futures contract · Political science · Politics · Psychiatry · Shame · Sociology · State (computer science) · State of exception · Stigma (botany) · Child Abuse and Trauma · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
I Was an Incubator
Fears of Child Protective Services in a Disadvantaged Migrant Group
Something to just be ticked off on a care plan’
Reproductive justice, abortion rights and social work
A questão da ressocialização nas trincheiras do sistema prisional brasileiro
Inequities in child protective services contact among First Nations and non-First Nations parents in one Canadian province
Child removal as the gateway to further adversity
The couple paradox
They Tarred Me with the Same Brush”
Being made visible
Bound’ by grief post-adoption
A mobilisation of motherhood, babyhood and childhood sensing pasts
In this issue
Experiences of baby removal prevention
Understanding the mental health needs of mothers who have had children removed through the family court
Breastfeeding, social work and the rights of infants who have been removed
Giving up the ghost
Parents at war
Sylvia’s story
‘A home to dream love into’ – An autoethnographic analysis of mothering with mental illness
“Some days it’s like she has died.” A qualitative exploration of first mothers’ utilisation of artefacts associated with now-adopted children in coping with grief and loss
Tales of precarity
The Ghost of the ‘Y’
The Impossibility of ‘Good Mothering’ in Child Welfare Systems When Referred for Non-Traditional Harms
I Had No Hope, I Had No Help at All”
Recognition and Justice? Conceptualizing Support for Women Whose Children Are in Care or Adopted
Hauntology
Imagining a future family
On hope, loss, anger, and the spaces in between
A qualitative exploration of parenting representations amongst mothers with young children on the edge of care
When they were taken it is like grieving’
The panopticon looms
I was putting her first’
Handcuffed Parenthood’
Exploring moral injury among parents with children in out‐of‐home care
Fatherhood Under Suspicion’
It’s Been a Massive Struggle’
Active Waiting and Hope in Transnational Adoptions
Baby brain
Gendered Discourses of Responsibility and Domestic Abuse Victim-Blame in the English Children’s Social Care System
Barriers to the educational progress of care leavers
Everything is fear based
Compulsory separation of women prisoners from their babies following childbirth
I just lower my head and move on.” Spatialized inequality and the politics of teenage parenthood
Haunted houses
Marking motherhood
The Experience of Alcohol and Drug Recovery Service Staff Working with Mothers Who Have Had Their Children Removed
Parents’ experiences of perinatal child protection processes
What makes peer support supportive? A scoping review of multidimensional parent advocacy support in child welfare
Governing homeless mothers
Austerity in a disadvantaged West Midlands neighbourhood
The perspectives of community-based practitioners on preventing baby removals
Deconstructing doing well; what can we learn from care experienced young people in England, Denmark and Norway
Recognition of Parental Love
Confronting intergenerational harm
Parenting under Adversity
A Space for Motherhood? Contact Visits from the Perspectives of Mothers with Migration Experiences
Stigma from above
Making consent meaningful
The 'Selfish Element
The Ambivalence of Adoption
Transmission of child removal stories Among Norwegian Somalis
Future Matters
Revolting Subjects
Ghostly Matters
Re-imagining child protection
The Politics of Possibility
Poverty and child neglect – the elephant in the room
Let’s stop feeding the risk monster
Child protection in England
Birth Parents and the Collateral Consequences of Court-ordered Child Removal
Less than human
Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing
Care-leavers and their children placed for adoption
Epigenetics Prematurely Born(e)
Connecting Events in Time to Identify a Hidden Population
The Interaction Order
Researching young people's orientations to the future
| Unique citing works | 62 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 7,75 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 57 |