Bio: Dr. Milman is an Assistant professor at Landmark College in Vermont which specializes in teaching neurodiverse students. She earned her doctorate in Media and Communications from Texas Tech University in 2023. Her published research includes topics of wellbeing and media use as well as matricentric feminism.
Abstract
This paper uses a matricentric feminist lens to develop a measure for a patriarchal set of idealized mothering standards that is subject to change with major socio-cultural changes known as the “good mother;” Qualitative research indicates a need for updating measures due to recent cultural changes including the need to include elements of familial media management. The Digital Era “Good Mothering” scale (DEGMS) development began with placing literature-sourced items into a pretest survey, and the results were subjected to a principal components analysis to reduce the survey length. The second survey yielded n = 1,241 responses and the results were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis, followed by a confirmatory factor analysis. The results revealed the following factors describing the grouping of idealized mothering characteristics: (1) child-centered, (2) a facilitator of children’s successes, (3) energetic, (4) an unpaid laborer, and (5) a family media manager. Keywords: matricentric feminism, media management, scale development, good mother, patriarchal motherhood
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