Mothers with Lower-Incomes and Community Programming: Illuminating Narratives of Access and Experience in Kitchener

Abstract

While motherhood is a wonderful experience full of love and joy, it continues to involve tremendous amounts of change in all areas of a new mother’s life. While leisure activities, such as the ones offered at community supported programs, may help to improve mothers’ experiences, many mothers still do not participate. Furthermore, literature was needed to better illuminate the complexities of mothers’ experiences of gaining awareness and access to community supported programming, specifically recognizing the intersectionality of class and gender. Thus, this socialist feminist narrative inquiry sought to create opportunities for social change by illuminating the gendered and classed experiences of mothers while gaining awareness, access, and experiencing community supported programming. Through the use of unstructured life story interviews, notions of gendered expectations, patriarchy, class, and inequality were brought to the forefront and questioned. Through this exploration, this research also discussed the possible transformations and changes that the mothers interviewed thought would improve their experiences.