Buchi Emecheta's novel tells of an African woman whose only desire was to be a respected mother, but whose experiences repeatedly confronted her with gaps between social ideals of motherhood and her everyday realities (Christian, 1994). Expecting to be rewarded for having given all to her children, the ‘joys’ of motherhood turned out to be more complex than she had expected. Diligently implementing the maternal selflessness required of her, she found herself constantly up against hardship and blame, the rewards of motherhood continually deferred and never achieved, except in her bittersweet ‘decent burial’. The irony of the title of the novel is that she did achieve the joys of motherhood, but could never entirely live up to social ideals and had never expected the selflessness of giving all to her children to demand such great cost and reap so little reward.

Theoretically, socially and personally, motherhood is often constructed as a function rather than an experience: the subject of motherhood is the child receiving mothering rather than the mother herself. This chapter explores theoretical perspectives on motherhood, drawing on the idea of the ‘joys of motherhood’ to suggest that motherhood is perhaps the most idealised, exclusive and defining identity associated with womanhood, and that a woman's relation to her reproductive capacities (and therefore her sexuality) is a primary social site for the construction of divisions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ women. Motherhood is expected to be a selfless joy, realised in the joys of the mother's children, rather than a joy owned by herself. While these social ideals may be defining of motherhood, however, it will be suggested that they cannot completely construct mothers: the experience of motherhood from the mother's perspective exists in its own right.