Negotiating ideals: Catholicism,intensive mothering ideology and gender norms in contemporary Poland

Gender, religion and the ideological encapsulation of motherhood

By focusing on the impact of religious and secular ideologies on gendered mothering practices, our study is situated within the broader scholarship on religion and gender. Our analysis is guided by the call to study ‘religion in society’ and ‘gender in religion’ (McIntosh, 2021), wherein neither religion nor gender is treated as a variable external to social practices. The integrative theoretical framework of gender as a social stratification system, constituted through practices and shaped by cultural narratives, institutions and ideologies (Risman, 2004), adopted in this study, allows us to critically examine how Catholic mothers reproduce and negotiate the gender constructions on which both the Catholic ideal of a ‘good mother’ and the ideology of intensive motherhood rely.

Research conducted in various socio-cultural contexts has shown that women can strategically use religion to manage the contemporary demands of late modernity, reinterpret doctrine to emancipate themselves from oppressive expectations and navigate their complex, multi-voiced identities (e.g. Chong, 2006; Gallagher, 2003; Griffith, 1997; Mahmood, 2005). At the same time, despite secularising trends, religion continues to shape contemporary understandings of motherhood and constitutes an important source of normative injunctions directed at mothers, often presented as divinely ordained and legitimised by sacred texts (Guignard, 2019). However, the effects of direct juxtaposition of religious ideas on motherhood with explicitly secular ideologies remain under-researched.

In one of her most influential work, Adrienne Rich (1976) drew a distinction between the institution of motherhood, as a set of dominant social ideas about mothers and their duties, and mothering understood as the everyday practice of caring for children. The institution of motherhood is supported by ideologies – the underlying conceptual systems and logical structures by which groups and individuals make sense of and think about the world (Sauerland, 2015) orient their actions and produce cohesion (Susen, 2014). As a source of symbolic reference points, hegemonic ideological discourses constrain women’s identities by providing socially shared interpretations about the ‘good mother’ and ‘correct’ upbringing practices, and generate expectations related to individual performances (Duarte and Gonçalves, 2007). Motherhood ideologies, therefore, serve as lenses that filter and distort everyday mothering experiences, understandings and interpretations (Glenn, 1994: 9). As Barbara Katz Rothman argues, in relation to motherhood, the hegemonic worldview is particularly difficult to unpick and easily becomes a trap for mothers. The author notes that ‘we fear to pick at the fabric, fear to pull at individual loose threads for fear of falling straight through into some abyss’ (Katz Rothman, 1993: 128).

However, in modern societies, no single motherhood ideology dominates the entire set of mothering practices or functions in isolation. Therefore, the contemporary hegemonic model of motherhood accommodates complex and often contradictory views (Glenn, 1994) and discursive struggles occur not only between the ideologies that constitute it, but also within ideological zones (Susen, 2014). Although this ideological diversity is experienced by many mothers as overwhelming, it also opens space for reflexive resignification or rejection of particular cultural demands. Research shows that individual mothers are able to resist diverse beliefs and prescriptions attached to dominant gender norms and related constructions of a ‘good mother’ (Christopher, 2012; Dow, 2016; Dzwonkowska-Godula, 2015; Johnston and Swanson, 2006; Lankes, 2022; Miller, 2007; Walls et al., 2016). While many studies consider competing ideologies and adopt various research perspectives (see, for example, Bobel, 2004; Csányi and Kerényi, 2021; Dow, 2016; Elliot et al., 2015; Garey, 1995; Johnston and Swanson, 2006; Pedersen, 2015; Randles, 2021), little attention has been given to how religiously constructed ideals of mothering are negotiated and aligned with secular ideologies. In the following sections, we analyse the correspondence between religious and secular ideologies and show how recognising the contradictions between them enables discursive negotiations that destabilise the hegemonic model of motherhood and its underpinning gender regimes.

Motherhood ideologies in Poland

The traditional model of motherhood in Poland is deeply rooted in Catholicism. Being a crucial element of Polish national identity, Catholicism shapes the country’s culture, and today, despite growing secularisation, the majority of Poles still identify as Catholic. The Catholic ideal of a ‘good mother’ is embodied in the figure of Mary, the Mother of God (Matka Boska), and her secular counterpart, the Polish Mother (Matka Polka) (Hryciuk and Korolczuk, 2012). Although both figures have evolved over time, they continue to serve as influential role models for Polish mothers. They are commonly portrayed as embodying a self-sacrificing, overburdened mother who struggles to raise children in often challenging conditions. These popular interpretations are closely tied to official textual sources that venerate the idealised mother. This is especially evident in the writings of Pope John Paul II, who, in his encyclicals, letters and public addresses, repeatedly underscored motherhood as a central aspect of a woman’s identity. He described women as ‘disposed to making a sincere gift of self to others, thereby finding themselves’ (John Paul II, 1988) and emphasised women’s ‘natural’ ability ‘to be a gift for the other’. In this gender construction, a woman’s individual autonomy and agency are downplayed, and a specific understanding of women’s freedom is promoted. John Paul II (1979) argued that ‘not-being-free in love is never felt as bondage. A mother tethered to her sick child does not feel it as bondage, but as an affirmation of her freedom, as its fulfilment. This is when she is most free’. Although John Paul II (1988) acknowledged that the burden of raising a child ‘should include the contribution of both parents: the maternal and paternal contribution’, he insisted that ‘the mother’s contribution is decisive’. These religious representations of a good mother, closely tied to biological essentialism in the construction of gender, have been consistently reproduced and transmitted by priests in local parishes in Poland (Szwed, 2015) and popular Catholic literature (Radzik, 2015).

However, religious traditions produce and reproduce ‘discourses about motherhood in which the lived reality of past, and contemporary human mothers rarely is central’ (Guignard, 2019: 158). Miller-McLemore (2002) notes that traditional theological reflections on the Virgin Mary as a mother often ignore her maternal thinking. Although Miller-McLemore’s research is based in a Protestant context, the observation applies equally to Catholic teachings on motherhood, including traditional interpretations of Mary that do not provide specific guidance directly applicable to day-to-day care work (Krotofil et al., 2023). As the religious framing of motherhood coexists with secular ideologies, contemporary mothers can fill this gap, with an array of ‘good practices’ and prescriptions drawn from experts promoting the ideology of intensive mothering.

Intensive mothering as a way of raising children and motherhood ideology gained widespread popularity in Poland after the collapse of communism and the subsequent cultural and social transformations (Budrowska, 2000; Sarnowska and Pustulka, 2025 ). Sharon Hays describes ‘intensive mothering’ as ‘child-centred, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labour-intensive and financially costly, thus demanding time, constant involvement, emotional work, and energy from women who become and are mothers’ (Hays, 1996: 8). A key feature of intensive mothering ideology is its connection to psychoanalysis and psychological knowledge about child development (Budds, 2021; Dally, 1982). As such, intensive mothering is often presented and perceived as ‘science-based’, granting experts considerable power over those who engage in mothering (Szőke and Kovai, 2022).

The scientific foundation of intensive mothering is rooted in attachment theory, which originated from the work of John Bowlby (1951, 1982) and Mary Ainsworth and Bell (1970). These authors saw ‘primary caregivers’ as the main ‘architects of their children’s personalities’ (Eyer, 1994), asserting that children need a committed caregiver to serve as a primary attachment figure, shaping all future relationships. Although attachment theory applies to any primary caregiver, male or female, popular discourse often overlooks this fact, attributing the key role to the birth mother (Forbes et al., 2020). According to the ideology of intensive mothering, a good mother should stay home with her children to provide them with optimal conditions for growth by building a ‘healthy’ bond (Hays, 1996). The essentialist perspective embedded in attachment theory is accompanied by a deterministic view that a mother’s constant proximity to her children during their early years is crucial to their later mental well-being (Eyer, 1994). These prevailing views about child-rearing form a comprehensive, logically cohesive framework for thinking about and acting towards children, leaving little space for guilt-free mothering (Sutherland, 2010).

In contemporary Poland, the demands inherent in the ideology of intensive mothering intersect with neoliberal framings of the modern woman (Gawron, 2019). Despite the growing diversity of views on motherhood and mothering practices, most women remain subject to extensive expectations that, in practical terms, equate the ‘good mother’ with a ‘superwoman’ – a loving yet rational parent, a supportive wife, attentive to her own needs, and professionally active (ROPS, 2015). This modern figure echoes but also transforms the earlier stereotype of the ‘Matka Polka’. While the image of the weary, overburdened mother of the socialist era has faded, the heroic and multitasking ‘superwoman’ ideal persists (Sikorska, 2009). Thus, motherhood in Poland continues to be defined by high aspirations that are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in everyday life.

Although many mothers talk about making choices in their mothering practices, the choice to conform or not to the ideology of intensive mothering should be approached with caution (Brown, 2014; Christopher, 2012; Dow, 2016). Deviant discourses derived from this gendered ideology negatively affect many mothers who do not embrace its prescriptions (Arendell, 2000) and form an ideological basis for ‘reproductive governance’ (Morgan and Roberts, 2012), wherein some mothers are encouraged to reproduce while others are discouraged or discriminated against. In contemporary Poland, despite its exclusionary nature that privileges middle-class women, the ideology of intensive mothering remains one of the most influential sources of ideas about good mothering for women across various social strata (Hryciuk and Korolczuk, 2012). The hegemonic position of this ideology is further reinforced by the dismissal of alternative sources of knowledge on mothering, particularly through the disqualification of the older generation’s parenting practices (Dzwonkowska-Godula, 2015: 196; Sarnowska and Pustulka, 2025). Yet this collective, normatively charged model of motherhood coexists in tension with the post-transformation emphasis on individual autonomy and self-realisation that has shaped women’s identities in Poland since the 1990s (Titkow, 2007).

Convergence between Catholic teaching and intensive mothering ideology in the experiences of young mothers

The understanding of good motherhood expressed by the women in our study, together with their goals and aspirations, suggests that they perceive an affinity between the Catholic ideal of motherhood and the ideology of intensive mothering. The most fundamental point of convergence, as reflected in their experiences, is the assumed gendered nature of maternal work. Catholic mothers’ narratives reinforced the deeply ingrained view of complementary gender roles and the mother’s irreplaceability by collapsing biologically determined capacities (e.g. breastfeeding) into broader caregiving competencies (e.g. soothing or comforting), thereby naturalising maternal responsibility. For instance, Iga stated,

The mother is so important that the father can be absent all day and all night, he can be on duty, he can be gone. But the mom has to be there every three hours to feed, put the baby to sleep, she has to be there to cuddle. Simply, the mom has to be [present] constantly.

The gendered understanding of care was also reproduced in everyday practices, as nearly all our participants lived in neo-traditional families (Peskowitz, 2005), where they were primarily responsible for caring for their children and managing the household. Many of them worked part-time or had been out of paid work for several years, with their husbands providing financial support for the family. Some mothers were uncertain about their decision to ‘stay at home’, but felt encouraged by other mothers who made similar choices. For example, Wiktoria described how joining a club for mothers with young children at her local Catholic parish reformed her approach:

When [my first child] was born, I would never think about not going back to work after my maternity leave. Your maternity ends, you go back to work and look for a childminder or a nursery. This was a paradigm for me, this was what one does. It was only when I came here and met other mothers, when my horizons broadened, that I saw that there are different options; there is a choice.

The dilemmas expressed by stay-at-home mothers reflect contradictory expectations of motherhood vis-a-vis women’s paid employment in contemporary Poland (Pustułka and Buler, 2020). While motherhood is still glorified as central to family life, stay-at-home mothers do not conform to the idea of the super-mother who ‘does it all’ and are, therefore, frequently criticised as lazy, unambitious, or ultra-conservative (for an analysis of the relationship between such prejudices and post-transformational Polish feminism, see Gawron, 2019). For many women in our study, staying at home with children meant sacrificing the positive aspects of professional activity and fully committing to equally demanding maternal work with no financial reward. Some participants admitted that being a stay-at-home mother threatened their sense of self-worth. This was, however, mitigated by the belief in significant psychological benefits for children who are cared for by stay-at-home mothers. Here we can see the convergence between intensive mothering ideology and the Catholic perspective, as our participants framed their choice as consistent with religious teachings. Lena, for example, stated,

I think a Catholic mother is a mother who loves. Such a mother works on [developing] herself, so she is able to give as much love, as possible [. . .] If one is a mum, she has different . . . I don’t know how to say this, the tasks she has, as a Christian . . ., it is this moment when children are small and her most important task is to be at home.

The child-centred approach promoted by the ideology of intensive mothering was adopted by most mothers in our study and was perceived as highly demanding. Renata, who discussed learning how to mother from psychological experts and adjusting her parenting to the child’s developmental phases, explained: ‘This is a psychological burden, this is a twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week type of work. And there is no escape from this’. Yet, for most of the women, a good mother was somebody who managed these hardships and maintained control over negative emotions in everyday situations. This presumed psychological predisposition of women to ‘naturally’ engage in emotional labour was another element common to both the ideology of intensive mothering and Catholic teaching on motherhood. The following quote illustrates how these two perspectives reinforced each other in the accounts of individual mothers:

A child reacts, if you devote these three minutes, sit next to them and talk to them. And I think this is a gift from God, the fact that I know this, I can, I understand, I accept and somehow, I am finding the patience, I am not irritated. I can be like ‘ok, take a deep breath, sit with the child and explain something’ [. . .] (Klara)

Representing motherhood as natural to all women and essential to their womanhood can be linked to various ideologies (Hall, 1998). The mother quoted above found in herself the ‘natural’ ability to mother in a child-cantered way, perceived it as a ‘gift from God’ and something consistent with psychological knowledge on rising children. In this context, religion and the secular ideas associated with intensive mothering provided a source of discourses constructing a good mother as patient, calm and attentive. However, some participants talked about the constant effort to develop and maintain their ‘natural’ predispositions, control their emotions and remain physically and mentally available for their children. Women who struggled with these demands turned to religion; many prayed for patience and the ability to mother the child in a child-centred way. Helena, for example, recalled,

I remember when I prayed with the rosary in the evening, the next day I had enough patience and such calmness and composure that I could manage everything. [. . .] if I hadn’t prayed in the evening in a calm way, then the next day, I didn’t have these gifts of the Holy Spirit: peace in the heart, love, patience.

Similarly, Lena remembered,

Just last year, I prayed for a couple of months for patience with the kids, so I could just be this patient, loving mum and not the one who is nervous and wants to do everything as quickly as possible.

In this instance, the intensive mothering was aligned with religious practice, which facilitated religious coping (Pargament, 1997) and provided mothers with a resource that was not available to non-religious women.

Another important aspect of mothering that linked religious and intensive mothering discourses in our participants’ experiences was the centrality of risk. In Catholic writings, discourses about threats to the traditional Polish family occupy a prominent place (Szwed, 2015). The presumed moral decline of modern societies is epitomised by greed, selfishness and the ‘pursuit of money’. Uncertainty, risk management and individual control likewise form the backdrop for the practices and ‘remedies’ promoted by the ideology of intensive mothering and are framed as individual forms of resistance to threats to children’s healthy development in contemporary societies (Brown, 2014). The mothers in our study were highly focused on anticipating and minimising various types of risks by actively seeking expert advice on different aspects of child development. When seeking guidance on topics such as planning children’s activities, maintaining a healthy diet, or making medical decisions, many sought credible experts whose views aligned with Catholic teachings. Regarding the risks associated with perceived moral decay, our participants viewed their adherence to Catholicism as a form of protection for their children, as the following statement illustrates:

I want to raise him in the Catholic faith, because I think that believers have more joy, they are happier. [They can] share whatever gives them joy, they can get joy from certain things, they are not so sluggish [. . .]. Over consumption is not good for people. It makes people entitled, whereas faith helps to be open towards other people. (Adela)

Like Adela, many mothers in our study believed that shielding their children from undesirable social trends would enhance their mental well-being. Notably, an emphasis on child development, direct references to psychological theories and guidance, and a belief in the profound impact of maternal care on a child’s lifelong well-being was frequently presented as fulfilling a woman’s vocation and presumed natural predisposition.

Contradictions between Catholic teaching and intensive mothering ideology in the experiences of young mothers

The link between religious and intensive mothering ideologies in our respondents’ experiences was never complete. Most mothers, at least at times, separated the prescriptions of intensive mothering from Catholic teachings on motherhood in their narratives. Although both ideologies rest on similar underlying assumptions, participants drew clear distinctions between them: religious teachings were contrasted with what they variously labelled ‘attachment parenting’ or a ‘psychological’ approach, typically associated with the advice of psychology (and related) experts. This distinction enabled mothers to adopt a critical stance towards specific elements of both ideologies.

By learning from experts how to care for their children and how to be a good mother, our participants in some respects challenged Catholic teachings that construct women as naturally predisposed and fully equipped by God for motherhood. Although many mothers partially reproduced this essentialised view, as discussed above, they did not feel they simply ‘knew what to do’ when caring for a child by relying solely on a presumed maternal instinct. The departure from the Catholic essentialist view of motherhood enabled our participants to reframe mothering as something that must be actively learned through prolonged concentrated effort. This shift created space for validating the everyday struggles of women caring for children. One of the mothers, for example, stated,

Our everyday effort is like building cathedrals – it’s a long-term endeavour in which you don’t really notice the small things, like doing something with a smile, or peeling those potatoes, as they say, with a smile on your face. And in the children, too, this later shows . . . they see that something is being done with . . . with love. (Emilia)

Moving away from idealised images of ‘natural’ mothering also allowed mothers to express ambivalent emotions accompanying their engagement in everyday care work, as the above quote illustrates.

On the other hand, the professionalisation of mothering that required intense preparation placed additional demands on the mothers (Stone, 2012; Walden, 2018). The mothers in our study were, to some degree, aware of this effect and dealt with this by taking a consciously selective approach to different elements of intensive mothering. Wiktoria, for example, noticed,

This idea of attachment parenting has also gone in the wrong direction at some point. I mean, it was a good idea, but it went too far. I have recently read that it makes many mothers feel guilty because, in spite of appearances, it’s very oppressive. Women start reading about how they have to be with a child all the time and at a certain point find out that they just don’t have the strength anymore.

When articulating their experiences through a Catholic lens, mothers could resist deterministic assumptions about their presumed influence on their children’s future mental health. Anna, for example, reflected on how her views evolved:

I am at the point of separating myself from my child’s emotions. I think that my child is God’s child and I have no influence on everything that will happen in his life, and on the trauma he will experience after my parenthood. Of course, I try to do my best, but I also try to separate myself from it, to leave it, to offer my children to God trusting that He takes care of them and has a plan for them that I have no influence on.

Similarly, Julia rejected the burden of sole responsibility for children’s future by turning to God: ‘I think I could not do it on my own. I couldn’t lead them to become good people, so I felt a strong need to turn to God, for Him to embrace them with His coat and His protection’. Although it can be argued that by offering their children to God, Anna and Julia relinquished agency as mothers, they were able to reject the oppressive sense of responsibility for their child’s well-being and integrate both strong attachment between a mother and child and maternal autonomy within their mothering. Another mother in our sample took an even more radical departure from psychologised views on mothering by substituting all psychological literature with religious guidance:

In the past, I used to like psychological books or self-help books on how to be in a good relationship, how to be a good wife, [. . .] I was always drawn to this. I was ambitious and wanted everything to look good. Now I think that when I work on myself from a Christian perspective, these things fall into place. (Magda)

By seeking guidance in the Bible and in books on the Virgin Mary, Magda felt she not only found valuable ideas about being a good mother but could also turn to God in moments of difficulty. Her decision to deepen her religious practice resonates with the dilemmas of other mothers, who felt that the perceived demand to devote copious amounts of time to studying and following expert advice on mothering left them with too little time to cultivate their religiosity. They felt conflicted, as they observed that investing time and energy in one sphere of life came at the cost of neglecting another. For some mothers, the all-encompassing approach to mothering, which required constant interaction with the child, was somewhat at odds with the ideal of having a large family – an ideal they saw as a direct consequence of the Catholic concept of openness to life. By observing other Catholic mothers caring for many children, often close in age, Wiktoria concluded,

[. . .] it is only when you have more children that you gain some kind of balance. Attachment parenting makes young mothers feel guilty when they have one, or especially two, kids! How are you supposed to be an attached parent to your older child when you have a new-born?

What Wiktoria criticised here under the label ‘attachment parenting’ is also present in the Catholic ideology of motherhood, where the most significant ideal of the good mother, the Virgin Mary, is depicted as the mother of an only child, wholly and selflessly dedicated to her divine son. By rhetorically re-labelling this child-centred ideal as secular rather than religious, Wiktoria effected a process of resignification (Butler, 1993) that enables her to distance herself from its associated demands. Importantly, other mothers were able to distance themselves from the religious ideal by shifting their focus to the perspective of intensive mothering:

I have this problem with Mary [. . .] On the one hand, like any mother, for sure, she had normal, human problems, like a lack of sleep, ‘what will happen when he turns two, or five?’, and so on. But Mary is an exceptional figure. Somehow, I am unable to relate to her because of this exceptionality. I simply think that she had completely different foundations for mothering. (Klara)

Later in the interview, Klara mentioned that, as a mother, she draws inspiration from people who may not be religious but are highly knowledgeable about psychology: ‘These people are role models for me in how they approach children from a psychological perspective’. The resignification in Wiktoria’s and Klara’s accounts illustrates a process of shifting meaning by attributing certain ideas to different sources.