Keiran, Patricia, How Working Mothers Manage (London and Brighton: Clifton Books, 1970).
Patricia Keiran’s lone publication How Working Mothers Manage (1970) provides an intimate account of the challenges faced by women at a time when nine million women, many married with children, continued to enter the British workforce despite pushback from their peers, husbands, and even employers.[1] Through interviews and questionnaires with over three hundred women that responded to a call through the Guardian newspaper, Keiran brings their voices to the forefront of discussions on uncomfortable topics alongside her own experience as a working mother. From managing an anxiety of guilt to the practicalities of managing family, finances, and households, this candid exploration of motherhood positions women of the 1970s as the facilitators and cogs of daily life whilst providing valuable insight into how these individuals tactfully “coped with it all," as titled by a final chapter.
The lives of these mothers, mostly of a middle-class background, at times proved discordant as they balanced their own ambitions while keeping the demands of their children, husbands, and employers in the vanguard. Guilt presents an agonising battle. Many women felt the only way to be a good mother was through their accessible presence at home on a constant basis.[2] Yet, as Keiran evidenced through discussions with women in careers such as doctors, care officers, journalists, and schoolteachers, the mother who works is still capable of providing an equally high standard of care to her children. Evermore, she can feel self-satisfied when she is able to leave the house and focus on her professional development. The extra income afforded luxuries, such as housekeepers, cars, and time-saving convenience foods, to the family.
Thus the working mother then enjoyed a newfound freedom to expand herself and identified solace in the intrinsic rewards of her labour - if her husband acquiesced first to her absence. One veterinarian spoke of the early disapproval by her husband, whose opinion changed over time and due to the evolving social climate. She said, ‘He used to feel that my working was a slur on his capacity to support us... [now] He also knows me better and knows how miserable I am…. When I am imprisoned in domesticity. He would still prefer to have as his wife a woman who is naturally domesticated…’[3] Another woman, a journalist, reported that her husband frequently complained about her absence, sometimes in anger. Mothers balanced these demands with a proactive approach and tact. Despite the criticisms by their traditionalist contemporaries who scoffed at this era of changing responsibilities and gender roles in the domicile, Keiran paints the mother as capable of household management whilst exploring new, and interesting, economic opportunities.
Through her celebration of motherhood, however, Keiran did not depict a diversity of women as she focused instead on the white and middle-class working mother who opted to work from personal choice, not necessity. Her final chapter, dedicated to ‘the unsupported mother’ makes up six pages of the 142 page work and neglects the more than one million women in England and Wales in 1961 who cared for their children alone.[4] While she acknowledges the circumstances of single mothers and women living in poverty, through a modern lens they foreseeably present as an afterthought; positioning their narratives throughout the work would have benefited a more inclusive argument.
Ultimately this work provides a fascinating snapshot of the lives of women that endured challenges both inside and outside the home as they faced a rapidly-evolving social sphere. Their commentary offers a treasure of first-hand insight into how women organised their daily lives, from the common concern of what happens if a child falls sick on a work day, to a deeper fear of societal rejection. This narrative is particularly valuable to those interested in the history of women in the workforce and motherhood more broadly. Authentic and witty, Keiran invites the reader to empathise with the struggles of being a mother in the 1970s and she leaves them to ponder the depth of the social change that has taken place since.
[1] Keiran, How Working Mothers Manage (London and Brighton: Clifton Books, 1970), pp. 7-9.
[2] Ibid, p. 31.
[3] Ibid, pp. 14-16.
[4] Ibid, p. 137.