Authors

Ieva Bisigirskaitė¹;  ¹ Philology Department, Vilnius University, Lithuania

Discussion

In 2014, retired Lithuanian women who had given birth to/adopted five or more children became entitled to receive a second-degree state pension. However, the law came with conditions - women needed to prove the “proper upbringing” of their children. Additionally, mothers were requested to submit their personal biographies.


I argue that through this award the state institutionalized the dominant “good-motherhood” mythology as it positioned mothers as sole reproducers of the nation. Furthermore, it entrusted women with permanent responsibility for the actions of their [adult] children. Importantly, this Western ‘good mother’ fantasy was projected on to a group of women who mothered under very different historical and political circumstances. In fact, they gave birth to/adopted and were raising the citizens of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.


While many important adjustment have been introduced to this social policy since its introduction, in this paper, I will analyze the symbolic dimension of this state award by looking at various social policy documents as well as media representations. This paper will deliver a critical inquiry ino this gendered policy regime with a particular interest in the notion of “good-motherhood” and the production of such moral categories as success, failure and respectability that accompany various re-negotiations of postsocialist motherhood.