Debating Maternity

Leonie Herwartz-Emden is a professor for pedagogy at the University of Augsburg. Her postdoctoral research has focused on an intercultural comparison of motherhood and female concepts of self.

DW-WORLD.DE: Why do western Germans have such a problem with nursery schools?

Leonie Herwartz-Emden: Motherhood is still a loaded term in Germany. There are vastly differing views on the concept of motherhood. On the one hand, mothers are highly revered and treated as icons. On the other hand, motherhood is completely undervalued. Mothers accomplish so much in daily life. They ensure employment -- of their partners and possibly their own -- and make sure that their children are nourished, groomed, educated and given an place in the educational system. They eventually guarantee that the labor market is served by doing all the ground work in their family.

Studies show that the equal division between man and woman ends when children are born. Much of the work is then transferred to the woman. Men only participate marginally in educating and nurturing children. This is still taken for granted and not necessarily questioned. Women, who stay at home, are no longer seen as full-fledged members of society by the public. "I'm only a housewife," women and mothers often say ashamedly.

But you also say that mothers are turned into icons -- is there a German mother myth?

Everything we think or feel about motherhood in 2007 can not be viewed independently of the burden of the Third Reich. The mother myth has still negative connotations because of the heroic veneration of mothers during that time. Women were abused for the sake of National Socialist ideology. They had to serve at the home front. A guidebook on education from that time, financed by (Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph) Göbbels, had a very large print run. It was published -- with a slightly different cover and text -- until the 1970s. It continued to propagate this heroic image of mothers. We are still burdened by the National Socialist legacy today.

Do other countries with a fascist past have a similar image of mothers today?

I don't think so, because motherhood was not burdened with ideology everywhere else as it was in the case of Germany. What's more, images of mothers are also rooted in different historic backgrounds and various societal contexts.

How is Germany's image of mothers different from that of other countries?

The German concept of motherhood is very polarized. Women themselves always feel this schism. They are obliged to take complete care of their children and forget that they are individuals themselves. When they take care of themselves, they feel bad, because they might neglect the children. Women in Turkey and the former Soviet Union don't feel such an internal polarization. The women in the former Soviet Union have been involved in the labor market for decades.

The women in Turkey have experienced a different gender relationship. It's taken for granted there that women have their own, female space -- as far as their biographies and society as a whole is concerned. They are separated from men, but still valued highly by society. That way, their femininity and motherhood are untouched and anchored in society.

You have two children yourself -- how did you solve the dilemma of family vs. career?

By putting in a lot of personal effort. When I gave birth to my first son, I had a husband who became a houseman for a while. I earned the money. We switched roles, so to speak. We lived in Berlin, where our surroundings were very supportive ideologically speaking. We helped set up an alternative kindergarten. Everything was very experimental. With the second child, we went the classic way with a nanny and kindergarten later on. It was a typical morning kindergarten, which closed at noon. The current discussion about nursery schools always reminds me of that time.

What must change for German mothers?

Germany's educational system and the kindergarten system still rely strongly on the involvement of mothers. Mothers are seen as auxiliary educators. People always gave you nasty looks when you turned up at a summer party with a cake from the store. Later on, mothers worked for free by doing homework with their children. Mothers are completely taken in but their work is simultaneously devalued because it isn't visible. That has to change. Until now, everything mothers do is privatized and that can only change by making it public. The discussion that's been started by German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen makes this problem visible for the public.

Pia Volk interviewed Leonie Herwartz-Emden