“The sociologist Sharon Hays coined the term intensive mothering in 1996 when she detailed the unreasonable, gendered demands society had increasingly placed on mothers since the 1980s. In the 1980s and 1990s, as more women in North America became educated and began entering the labor force, the intensive-mothering ideology arose as a means to redomesticate women through motherhood.”

“The sociologist Sharon Hays coined the term intensive mothering in 1996 when she detailed the unreasonable, gendered demands society had increasingly placed on mothers since the 1980s. In the 1980s and 1990s, as more women in North America became educated and began entering the labor force, the intensive-mothering ideology arose as a means to redomesticate women through motherhood.”

— Priya Fielding-Singh