Choice and sole motherhood in Canada 1965–2010: An interview study

Women's Studies International Forum 61 (2017) 38–47

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Choice and sole motherhood in Canada 1965–2010: An interview study Wanda A. Wiegers a,⁎, Dorothy E. Chunn b a b

College of Law, University of Saskatchewan, 15 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A6, Canada Sociology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 26 June 2016 Accepted 18 January 2017 Available online 14 February 2017

Introduction Historically, women who were pregnant outside of marriage in Western cultures had relatively few options. They and the fathers of their children were frequently pressured or forced into marriage in order to legitimize their child and avoid the disabilities of bastardy (Teichman, 1982). When marriage was not possible, some mothers resorted, under extreme circumstances, to illegal abortion or even infanticide (Backhouse, 1984). More often, in the mid-twentieth century, mothers attempted to hide their pregnancies by leaving their communities and giving birth in maternity homes or the homes of relatives where they were pressured to place their child for adoption (Strong-Boag, 2006; Kunzel, 1993; Solinger, 1992). Relatives could also raise the child as if he or she were their own (Morton, 2004). Despite unfavourable social, economic and legal conditions, some women did decide to give birth and raise their children as single mothers. Chambers (2007) found that only 27.8% of women who had not cohabited with the fathers and sought assistance from the Children's Aid Society in Ontario between 1921 and 1969 opted to release their children for adoption; most such mothers were young, white (but non-Anglo-Saxon), unemployed and lacking the support of their parents. Strong-Boag (2006) has also noted that many mothers in Nova Scotia, particularly African-Canadian mothers, kept their children but it is unknown how many or for what length of time. There is little current research that documents the experience of these mothers or explores how they perceived their options and outcomes. Although the emergence of self-identified “Single Mothers by Choice” (SMC) and related online support networks have acquired some recognition in the past decade (Hertz, 2006; Bock, 2000; Boyd, Chunn, Kelly, & Wiegers, 2015), little is known about mothers who decided to adopt ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (W.A. Wiegers), [email protected] (D.E. Chunn).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2017.01.004 0277-5395/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

or to bear and rear children alone throughout the post-WWII period in Canada. In this article, we draw on extensive interviews with women who either adopted or gave birth to a child and parented outside of an intimate partner relationship for at least one year between 1965 and 2010. In providing an account of the process of decision-making participants experienced in becoming sole mothers, we identify their assessment of significant pressures or constraints, the nature or quality of their interpersonal relationships, their available options, and the new modes of thinking and being they developed in the course of becoming sole mothers. We emphasize changes in the context and the perceived process of choosing sole motherhood over time and examine how participants made sense of and assessed their decisions in retrospect, in light of their actual experience. We describe these women as having ‘chosen’ sole motherhood because most participants saw themselves as having made a choice, most often in the face of significant stigma and adverse economic conditions. However, as many feminist critics have noted, choice rhetoric can both falsely isolate individuals from their relationships and obscure the broader socio-economic conditions that constrain and shape their options (Meyers, 2001; Madhok, Phillips, & Wilson, 2013; Showden, 2011). We are guided by a conception of choice that is not simply the individual ability to act rationally according to one's desires, but is also sensitive to the relational, cultural and material context that constructed and constrained those desires as well as the available options (Madhok et al., 2013; Boyd et al., 2015). Like other studies (e.g. McMahon, 1995), our study suggests that a decontextualized binary model of choice/no choice is an inadequate depiction of the situation identified by most participants, who saw themselves as neither ‘freely’ choosing in a market-oriented, consumerist sense nor simply reacting passively as victims of oppression, exercising no agency or autonomy whatever. When examined in context, their paths to motherhood were complex and our analysis is sensitive to the different degrees of choice and agency participants identified in different social locations, at different historical periods and at different points in their personal life histories. In Canada, as elsewhere, the post-WWII period was a time of significant change with women experiencing both an increasing range of reproductive choices and new constraints (Boyd et al., 2015). On the one hand, over the last four decades, women have experienced a greater capacity to choose the timing and the relational context of their parenting, matters that in the past were largely left to chance or rigid social conventions. Since 1969, a range of contraceptive devices and services, including condoms, intrauterine devices, birth control and morning-after pills, as

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well as surgical abortions, have been legalized and become more widely available (McLaren & McLaren, 1986). Additional supports for the prenatal and birthing process have also developed, and new reproductive technologies (NRTs), such as in vitro fertilization and surrogacy, have extended the time period in which women can reproduce. Moreover, with the challenge to sexual norms surrounding marriage and the activism of women's, gay and lesbian and anti-racism movements since the 1960s, the relational context for childbirth is more diverse. Divorce laws were liberalized in 1968 and 1985 and the legal disabilities of illegitimacy were abolished in all Canadian jurisdictions by 1990 (although Nova Scotia still allows for legitimation of children upon marriage) (Boyd et al., 2015). Women are increasingly opting to give birth within non-marital, cohabiting heterosexual relationships and lesbian women are also choosing to become mothers, both within and outside marriage. Although sole motherhood is itself still widely seen as a less desirable family form, the fact that far more single mothers are keeping their infants suggests that the social pressure on such mothers to surrender their children for adoption has greatly diminished. Undergirding these developments has been the dramatic increase in the labour force participation of women since the mid-1970s, including women with young children (Ferrao, 2010–11). While these technological, social, legal and economic developments appear to have presented women with a growing array of options in relation to reproduction, many Canadian women still confront constraints and onerous conditions. Abortion is not easily accessed and is highly stigmatized in many regions. New reproductive technologies are typically very expensive and parentage through NRTs lacks legal recognition in some jurisdictions. Moreover, the financial challenges in supporting a child alone remain daunting as female lone parent families continue disproportionately to experience low incomes (Statistics Canada, 2013). Unmarried mothers have been eligible to apply for social assistance since at least the 1970s (Gavigan & Chunn, 2007) but payments in most jurisdictions have failed to keep up with inflation, particularly the increasing cost of shelter. In a neo-liberal political culture, cuts to social housing and social services have been substantial and childcare remains largely a private parental responsibility. Increasingly accurate paternity testing and a greater emphasis in law on the involvement of fathers, as vital sources of both financial and affective support for children, have also limited the ability of mothers to parent independently (Boyd et al., 2015). These conditions provide the general socio-economic and legal context in which the 29 women in our study experienced sole motherhood. However, the single mothers in our study were also negotiating two hegemonic, and for them contradictory, norms that profoundly shape gender identity and family formation in Western cultures. A dominant ideology of motherhood defines motherhood, or the nurturance and care of a child, as a natural identity for women, our primary, if not our “only creditable form of fulfillment” (Meyers, 2001; Rich, 1977). Motherhood is not only “entwined with notions of femininity” but also intersects with “idealized notions of the family” (Arendell, 2000; Kline, 1993). The privileging of the marital heteronuclear family form, as the normative setting in which to rear children, was historically grounded in the disabilities related to illegitimacy (Strong-Boag, 2006). At common law, heterosexual marriage defined legitimate motherhood and legitimate offspring (Teichman, 1982). In the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries in Canada, marriage established in law and through dominant social norms a moral hierarchy of sole motherhood, with widows and deserted married mothers perceived as more worthy and having greater entitlements than those who experienced “unwed motherhood” (Gavigan & Chunn, 2007). Despite recent challenges to the dominance of this familial norm on several institutional fronts in Canada - through the legal abolition of illegitimacy, rising divorce rates, increases in non-marital cohabitation and same sex marriage - it continues to be reinforced by undercurrents of social conservatism, an increasing emphasis on bio-genetic ties and by a social structure that relegates unpaid domestic labour and the primary care of children largely to mothers. Studies also suggest that the norms of motherhood

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and familialism have been experienced differently by different groups of women. Black, indigenous, lesbian, poor and single mothers historically have faced significant barriers to having and rearing children and are less apt to be seen as fit and deserving mothers (Solinger, 2001; Collins, 1990; Kline, 1993; McCormack, 2004; Park, 2013). In an earlier paper, we analyzed how the participants in our study described their experience of and response to stigma and social sanctions and how the cultural scripts used to explain or assess their circumstances changed over time (Wiegers & Chunn, 2015). In this paper, we begin by briefly describing the interview sample and methodology. Using our interview data, we first examine the process participants described of becoming a sole mother and the range of alternatives or options available to them. We try to illuminate how the participants understood their options and how they came to imagine sole motherhood as a viable life path for themselves and their children, despite the economic constraints and cultural stigma. We then examine how mothers viewed their choice in retrospect, identifying the perceived positive and negative aspects of their experience and the incidence of and reasons for ambivalence or regret. Given our historical focus, we try throughout to track changes in the perceived impact of different factors on options over time. Since memories can be selective, our study can only convey the assessments of participants at the time of their interview. Since most participants were white, heterosexual and well-educated, our research is also limited in its ability to capture diverse accounts of women who have become sole mothers in these circumstances. However, our study is unique in its historical reach and in its inclusion of women who adopted or planned their pregnancies as well as those who became sole mothers after an unexpected pregnancy. In our conclusion, we contrast the experience of these two sub-groups. Overview of the study and interview participants Our sample consisted of 29 women, all of whom had been lone mothers for at least one year after the birth or adoption of a child. All participants were at least 18 years of age at the time of the interview and none were affiliated with SMC or other groups for single mothers. The participants were recruited between 2010 and 2011 through posted notices, emails to women's and family organizations and list serve notices. Under our interview protocol, we could not initiate contact with potential participants. While our small sample is not necessarily representative of the entire population, we made conscious efforts to create a sample that would help to illuminate similarities and differences among mothers across time. Although no one who gave birth in the 1950s responded to our recruitment efforts, we ultimately interviewed 3 mothers who gave birth in the 1960s, 3 in the 1970s, 10 who adopted or gave birth in the 1980s, 6 in the 1990s and 7 in the 2000s. In total, our interviewees birthed or adopted 38 children, including a still birth, an interrupted adoption and a baby death. Despite our efforts to be inclusive with respect to age, race, sexual orientation, and other dimensions of difference and inequality, most participants were white (non-racialized) and heterosexual. Three women identified as lesbian and two as bi-sexual. Two women identified as Aboriginal and one as African Canadian while two of the biological fathers were identified as Aboriginal and four others were identified as racialized. Clearly, further studies are required to capture fully the unique context and diverse circumstances affecting racialized mothers and Indigenous mothers in particular. Only two of our participants were minors who had not yet graduated from high school when they became pregnant. Fourteen of the 35 children were born to, or adopted by, women under 30 and 21 by women over 30 years of age. Most mothers remained lone parents while raising their children with about one-third partnering at some point after their child's infancy. While there were substantial differences in income across the sample, most participants were highly educated. Almost half had or were

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in the process of obtaining a Bachelor's degree, a Masters or a PhD when they adopted, became pregnant or gave birth. Most worked in the social service sector in a variety of occupations including social work, counselling, administration, and teaching at all levels of education. However, a number of women had experienced difficulty finding employment in their field and depended on contract work, part-time jobs, and/or selfemployment, with limited or no benefits. Relatively few of the women we interviewed owned their own home, although a number were able to access co-op housing where rent was pro-rated according to income. Fourteen of the 29 had been reliant on social assistance at some point in their children's lives. As indicated, our sample included both women who had adopted or planned their pregnancies and those who became single mothers after an unexpected pregnancy. Overall, the ratio of unplanned to planned pregnancies in our sample was 2:1, with the majority of unplanned pregnancies resulting from contraceptive failure. Nine mothers had planned their pregnancies. Only three had been adoptive mothers and only eight had more than one child as a sole mother. Planned and unplanned pregnancies occurred over the entire period but the incidence of planned pregnancies was particularly notable from the late 1980s onward, as NRTs became more widely available. Central to the discussion that follows is a distinction between those participants who planned motherhood and those who had unplanned pregnancies. Although there were elements of choice in both groups, there were significant differences in the decision-making process and available options in each situation. This distinction in itself highlights the context-dependency of any assessment of choice or agency. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews of the participants either in person or by phone over 2010–11 for 1 1/2 to 3 h. We asked participants to describe the circumstances in which they adopted or became pregnant, the nature of their experiences both before and after the adoption or birth of their child and their assessment, in retrospect, of their decision to raise a child as a sole mother. All of the interviews were audio-taped and transcribed; transcripts were then deidentified and pseudonyms substituted for the real names of participants. Using a feminist, grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Reinharz, 1992), we both reviewed each transcript to identify overarching themes and important factors that were perceived to influence each participant's experience. Given the small sample size and non-random nature of recruitment, the results presented here cannot be generalized to the entire population of sole mothers. Becoming a sole mother: unplanned pregnancies Becoming pregnant As indicated, two-thirds of the women we interviewed had not planned their pregnancy and had not chosen to conceive at the particular time and place they did. Most of these women were involved in what they considered to be casual, often on and off, relationships that lasted a few months to six years. Only two participants became pregnant in the context of a single sexual encounter. While a few participants attributed their pregnancies to “stupidity”, a “failure of the brain” or to naiveté, pregnancies usually resulted from the failure of contraceptives or misconceptions about their use. Some women thought they were infertile after years of trying to become pregnant, had mistaken their cycles, or were experimenting with different or multiple forms of birth control that just did not work. A few had experienced problems with the pill or other forms of birth control, had largely left the outcome of their sexual encounters to fate and were not unhappy to discover that they were pregnant. These participants had consciously accepted the risk of getting pregnant but, like others with unplanned pregnancies, did not specifically choose conception when it occurred. Notably, in all but two of the unplanned pregnancies, fathers had taken no responsibility for contraception, even though some had fathered children before. While the cultural significance of virginity

before marriage had waned by the mid-1980s and most women by then considered themselves able to engage in pre-marital sex without social censure, virtually all appeared to assume that they alone were responsible for birth control. With one exception, all of the pregnancies occurring prior to 1989 were unplanned. Only Mary Ellen experienced a planned pregnancy prior to 1989 and her pregnancy represented a desperate attempt to escape a physically and emotionally abusive family situation, a search for “someone I could love and would love me back.” Like Mary Ellen, however, most participants appeared motivated to become sole mothers by an overriding desire for connection with and care of a child. As with the participants in McMahon (1995), this desire for motherhood was most often simply asserted and not seen as something that itself required explanation, justification or evaluation. For example, for Jean it was very simple: she just “really wanted kids.” According to Showden, 2011, if childbearing is “culturally normative” and constructed as natural or inevitable from childhood, “women do not need to explain why they want children – only why they do not.” Most women did reflect on whether they had the resources to sustain sole parenting; however, no one suggested that never having children was a considered option. Similarly, the reasons for refusing alternative paths, such as abortion, adoption or marriage to the father, which would have avoided the stigma and economic precarity of sole motherhood, were not always clearly articulated. Although intra-familial arrangements for the rearing of their children was also a common response to childbirth out-of-wedlock in the mid-20th century (Morton, 2004), it was not identified as a possibility by our participants. Evaluating the options: abortion, adoption, marriage/paternal involvement Abortion was not legal in Canada until 1969 when the criminal law was reformed to allow for therapeutic abortions and it was only decriminalized in Canada in 1988. While abortion has been statefunded in Canada and regarded legally as a dimension of reproductive autonomy since 1988, access to abortion has been limited and discouraged in different regions (Downie & Nassar, 2007). Several women believed that abortion was unavailable because the pregnancy was discovered beyond the three month point. Mary Ellen, who gave birth in the late 1970s, described abortion as an option that would have generated more stigma in her low-income rural community than having a baby out-of-wedlock. Even in the 1990s, Rebecca's doctor had immediately constructed barriers to her obtaining an abortion. Two women who gave birth in the 1980s cited cultural or religious reasons for not proceeding with abortions. Patricia, a First Nations mother, felt that even though abortions were not unheard of in First Nations families, they were “frowned upon.” Wendy, who was pregnant at 16, had attended a Catholic high school and was “pretty thoroughly brainwashed” to believe that abortion was not an option, even though her parents had wanted her to have one. On the other hand, as poor women, several participants reported having experienced and resisted pressure to have abortions. Shelley, for example, felt that she was subtly urged in the late 1990s to have an abortion by medical personnel because her future child was seen as a potential drain on the system. One participant was not personally interested in abortion and several women had had abortions in the past and were not prepared to deal with another. Adoption was resisted to an even greater extent. Given the more intimate physical experience of pregnancy to term and childbirth, several women reported finding it emotionally too difficult to “give the child up.” However, several experienced and resisted substantial pressure from relatives, social workers and personnel in hospitals and maternity homes to place their child for adoption, particularly in the 1960s (Morton, 2004; Strong-Boag, 2006; Chambers, 2007; Kunzel, 1993; Solinger, 1992). One such woman was offered money to pay for the costs of her pregnancy; two were approached in the hospital shortly after giving birth. Lisette, who thereafter had to board her child in an

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orphanage run by nuns in Quebec, was continually reminded that there were parents waiting to adopt her child. Pressure to place their child for adoption was experienced by a few women who gave birth in the 1970s as well but less consistently. Elizabeth, who delivered in a Maritime province and had made her intentions clear to the obstetrician, was repeatedly asked whether she had considered adoption. Her aunt and uncle also strongly urged her to adopt out as they believed her “child would be a juvenile delinquent” since she was unmarried and her child was bi-racial. By contrast, as a result of family pressure, Karen had initially decided in 1977 to place her white baby for adoption until the obstetrician at birth remarked, “What a beautiful child. I can't believe you're giving this baby away.” While Karen had been “oscillating and trying to have that strength to do [the adoption],” she knew at that moment that she was “not giving this baby up.” Karen first saw the baby when he was 3 days old; she left him in the care of foster parents for several weeks but was strongly encouraged by them to retrieve the child. From the 1980s onward, adoption was less likely to be seriously considered. Shelley, who had been adopted herself and had struggled to some degree with questions of her identity at a time when adoption records were sealed, did not see it as a suitable alternative. However, even into the 1980s and 1990s, poor mothers and Aboriginal mothers were at risk of experiencing pressure to place their children for adoption or experiencing state surveillance post-birth. Patricia, a First Nations mother, refused to consider adoption in the 1980s, in the aftermath of the ‘60s scoop’ in which hundreds of First Nations children were removed from their communities through adoption (Strong-Boag, 2006). Her care of her baby was monitored by nurses and social workers in the early months. Another participant, who had lived on the streets at 16 and was pregnant with twins in the late 1990s, knew that she was going to be under surveillance and at risk of losing them. She started attending a parenting class to demonstrate her commitment to parenting. But “even when I was at work, people were going on about finding a nice couple and people talking to me about gay couples who need babies to adopt”. And I said, “No, I can do okay on my own”. Having only one African Canadian mother in our sample who gave birth in central Canada in 1987 and whose mother was “not impressed” but overall supportive, our study was unable to address Morton's (2004) finding that African Canadian mothers in Nova Scotia generally received less pressure to place their children for adoption than white mothers (see also, Solinger, 1992). Marriage to the father of their child would have provided participants with a means of complying with both motherhood and familial norms but for many, it was simply not an option. A few mothers were lesbian and disinterested in such a relationship. In other cases, fathers lived outside the country, were already married or had rejected the possibility. Lisette had hoped for marriage with the biological father but after living together over the summer, he had said, “I'm going back to school and I don't think we can play house like that.” Denise was also in love with the father of her child and was devastated when he sent a Christmas card with a cheque for $500 and advised her to get an abortion. Where marriage was an option, mothers were frequently pressured by family members to pursue it. Giving birth in 1977, Karen recalled her father saying “well look young lady you've made your nest now you have to go lie in it. And that means you're marrying this young man.” While subsequent events could kybosh such plans, some resisted these influences from the outset. Although pushed by relatives to marry in 1984, Patricia believed that the father was far “too irresponsible” and Shelley described the possibility in the late 1990s as “a divorce waiting to happen.” Sandra, who was 10 years older than the father in 1989, believed she “had a better chance of doing a good job of raising this child on my own than married to his father because I would have two children to raise in that situation.” Even though her parents did not want her child to be illegitimate, she decided to face sole motherhood in order to provide her son with greater stability.

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Diane, who gave birth in 1987, also stated: I remember my Mom at one point saying that if [the biological father] was an honourable man, then, he should just buy a house and we should just live together, and it didn't matter if we hated each other and never talked to each other, that that's the way that we should live. And my first reaction was, “This is horrible. What an absolutely horrible suggestion.” And, then I realized that she was essentially describing her life with my Dad so I didn't want to say anything about what a bad decision it was because whether it was conscious or not, she was kind of reflecting the choices that she had made. These responses reflect dramatically different perceptions between our participants and their parents as to the role of marriage in meeting their and their children's best interests. Studies of social attitudes in Canada suggest that the stigma of illegitimacy had begun to wane by the 1980s (Crawford, 1997; Hobart, 1975). Several participants appeared not to know that their children would be regarded as illegitimate although illegitimacy as a legal status was not abolished in most jurisdictions until the mid- to late 1980s. Only two of our 29 participants mentioned their child's illegitimacy and they did so as a factor that influenced others (their family members) rather than themselves. Although existing law did not appear to have a significant impact on their decisions in this respect and was either unknown or superseded by social norms, the liberalization of divorce laws and rising rates of divorce, as well as increasing custodial disputes, in the 1980s did appear to disrupt commonly-held assumptions regarding marriage as a guarantor of security and child well-being. While some mothers saw marriage to or cohabitation with the father as an unstable and unacceptable alternative, a few others proceeded with their pregnancies because they believed, wrongly as it turned out, that they could count on the father's support and involvement. For example, Wendy, when she became pregnant unexpectedly a second time in 2005, decided to continue with her pregnancy because she was in a serious relationship she believed would be permanent. She had hoped this relationship would provide an escape from poverty for both her existing child and the one to come. …it was very apparent to me that in order for to survive here [as a single mother] I [needed] a partner. So, my goal was to find a partner. Like a life partner, an economic partner, a parenting partner. And I felt that that was going to be an easier road for me in terms of providing for myself and my son than finishing school and working… it felt to me that [this was] the way out of poverty – and statistically I've read that to get out of poverty a single mother marries. Wendy's attempt to pursue a relationship with the father of her second child left her severely depressed when he became abusive and ended their relationship in the course of her pregnancy. Thereafter, Wendy became embroiled in an ongoing nightmare that included complaints by him to Children's Aid, an attempt to kidnap her infant son and extensive litigation. By contrast, another participant, who had also been a young mother on welfare, did manage to negotiate a role for her subsequent partner in which she remained in charge of discipline and set the conditions for parenting. However, familial ideology and the deprivations and humiliations of life on welfare certainly helped to set Wendy and her children up for even greater hardship through a longterm relationship with an abusive father. Prior to the 1990s, negotiations between mothers and fathers as to the outcome of an unplanned pregnancy were markedly absent. Two fathers in the 1960s were not told of the pregnancy; others were disinterested or their role was largely mediated through the mother, both before and after childbirth. In deciding to parent alone, women also did not appear to consider the potential impact of an active, long-term connection with the father. From the mid-1980s on, however,

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participants increasingly referenced the prospect of paternal involvement as a significant factor. This enhanced role for fathers is consistent with an increased emphasis on child support and joint custody in family law since the mid-1980s, both within and outside of marital relationships (Boyd et al., 2015). Decision-making during pregnancy Most women discussed their situation with friends and relatives but ultimately felt they made the decision alone. Influential people included friends, a landlady, a nurse and midwife, and sympathetic relatives. Only two women had the support of psychologists, and only one sought legal advice. None experienced pressure from fathers to continue with their pregnancies. Virtually all of the women having unplanned pregnancies believed that the decision to bear and rear their child was an act of their own will and not coerced. Most reported having seriously considered the consequences of having or not having a child. In terms of the standard criteria for voluntary choice, they were apparently competent and made their decision in the absence of undue influence. However, these were not optimal conditions for autonomous choice. First, they were all caught in a situation that was not itself chosen and which forced them to make decisions within a very limited time frame. Second, they were often emotionally distraught, especially if they had been rejected or abandoned by fathers. As seen above, many also considered the option of abortion foreclosed by illegality, lack of access or the passage of time and adoption as emotionally costly. Mothers may have experienced their decisions as voluntary largely because the outcome, sole motherhood, defied strong prevailing pressures and expectations. Those who gave birth in the 1960s and 70s particularly resisted heavy pressure, primarily from their families of origin, to abandon “unwed” motherhood in favour of marriage to the father or adoption. This pressure reflected a concern not only with the stigma of illegitimacy and a harsh sexual double standard but also, according to two participants, a concern with potentially having to assist with the financial support of the child. Sources of economic support, for many, were tenuous and uncertain. Many had not completed their degrees and lacked secure employment, a stable residence or solid family support. The existence of scholarships or student loans made it possible to continue with schooling and raise a child in some cases. In many others, becoming a sole mother often necessitated other unwanted ‘choices’ such as relocation, an increased cost of education, delayed or lost job opportunities and reliance on social assistance. Under these conditions, most participants described experiencing intense anguish during their pregnancy and were often depressed, disappointed, and unsure. Talking about her life now, Lisette said: we're so far from all that misery that I′m talking about. They were very difficult years. I want to own to that you know, because it's part of it. It was difficult, very difficult…I cried day in and day out until I delivered. I was happy but I was SO sad, so disappointed…Disappointed in myself, disappointed in my life… very depressed. In 1968, Lisette was living in an unheated one-bedroom apartment; she felt that keeping her child “just seemed to be the right thing to do” even though she “didn't know how [she] was going to do [it].” In contrast to the experience of those giving birth in the 1960s and 70s, women from the mid-1980s onward appeared to feel less shamed and somewhat less anguished during their pregnancies, even if “stunned and scared” at first (Marilyn). During this time, the stigma of unwed motherhood was dissipating and mothers were better able to negotiate the contradictory norms of motherhood and family. For example, in 1986, Lesley, who was able to secure graduate funding and financial aid from her family of origin, thought of herself as a confident single mother from the outset. However, for women who lacked such supports, even in later decades, the sense of being alone in their

situation could be overwhelming. According to Shelley, who gave birth in 1997: It really hit me that I was going to be alone in this. And I remember at that time calling my Mom and asking her if it was too late to get an abortion. And she said, “Yes, you're too far along. We can't do that in Canada and it would probably be too difficult to go anywhere else.” And so I remember thinking, “Well, maybe I don't want one anyway.” Having that moment of “Oh my gosh, am I crazy? Am I doing the right thing, the wrong thing? How am I gonna do this? - and realizing, actually truly realizing at that moment that it was gonna be all on me, I wasn't gonna get a whole lot of help from him [the biological father]. … No one appeared to be frozen or completely disabled by fear or anxiety; however, several of those who were ambivalent and uncertain may have simply allowed motherhood to take its biological course, and not have chosen it in a deliberative sense. From the late 1980s onward, more women in our sample were also over 30 years of age and several alluded to their stage of life or the biological clock that was ticking as a reason to proceed. According to McMahon (1995), the “biological clock” confronts women who might otherwise be ambivalent about motherhood with the possibility of being permanently childless, with a future of “no choice” and an identity that is not culturally supported. In such circumstances, the ultimate decision to pursue sole motherhood may represent more of a rejection of “permanent childlessness” than an embrace of motherhood (McMahon, 1995). For Ingrid, being older also provided some protection against the vicissitudes of single parenthood: “one of the differences between getting pregnant at 16 and getting pregnant at 40 is that you have been around the block a few times and you have a few skills and resources, and the confidence that, “You know what, I've gone through a lot of stuff, I can do this.” By contrast, a relative lack of life experience and knowledge could not only expose younger women to a greater risk of becoming pregnant (through the failure to use or the misuse of contraceptives, (Musick, 2002)) but also influence decisions to proceed with the pregnancy. Wendy was 16 when she was first pregnant in 1996: I really was very naïve in terms of what I was getting myself into and what supports were out there because I thought of myself as very competent and capable. A lot of people were telling me, “this is going to be really hard” but, you know, people told me physics and chemistry would be hard and I got 92s and 97s so I was kind of “Okay”. I didn't understand the nature of the challenge. Um I kind of thought like the fact that I′m young wouldn't really make much of a difference. I kind of thought “Grown-ups who have children, they bring them to daycare, go to work, and then they come home and take care of the baby and you know, get up and do it the next day. And so what would be the difference for me? It would be the same for me except that instead of going to work, I'd be going to school…I really didn't understand the kind of impact it would have on me, and I thought I was capable of raising a child.” [Laughter]. Not understanding the “nature of the challenge” meant not being able to appreciate the full extent of the demands that would be made on an ongoing basis, given a paucity of social supports for parenting. Janet, who gave birth in 1998, noted that sole motherhood was a “really hard experience for most people” but especially so “if you're young and not used to poverty.” Janet was older and had been raised in poverty by a single mother. While she appeared to have greater confidence in the possibility of single parenting successfully while reliant on welfare, she felt that most of the single moms she had met “were overwhelmed by the experience;” one such mother she knew had committed suicide. Some participants believed motherhood would provide a positive sense of purpose and connection that was missing from their lives. Denise had been crushed by the father's rejection and fantasized that he would come back once the child was born. She thought simply that

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she and the baby would love each other: “I'm not gonna be alone at Christmas.” For Lisette, proceeding with the pregnancy represented a way of salvaging what she could of the relationship she had lost with the father. In all her misery, she still described her child as: almost a salvation. I was going nowhere. So because she was born I said, “I need to take care of her. I need to take care of myself, keep myself. I need to educate myself. I don't want to stay on welfare for the rest of my life. And I started to plough”. Shelley also believed that because she had been “running around and partying” and “in trouble with the law”, “in some ways the Creator or the Goddess gave me my son to save me from myself.” For these women, parenting a child provided a way of infusing purpose and significance into their lives, a way of “relocating [oneself] in the world” (McMahon, 1995). Similar motivations have been found in other studies of unmarried mothers (Jackson, Marentette & McCleave, 2000/2001; Edin & Keffalas, 2005). For many of the white, Latino and African America mothers who lived in decaying inner city neighborhoods in the US in the 1990s and were interviewed by Edin and Keffalas (2005), children provided not only a “tangible source of meaning” but an “accomplishment within their reach.” Unlike such mothers, however, most of our participants were not without opportunities. They had a wide range of values and aspirations; most could have and did pursue higher education. Most were not emotionally isolated and did not completely lack other ways of meeting their need for meaning and connection. Melody, for example, was 25 and completing a PhD when she became pregnant in the 2000s. Although it was “logical” to abort, she “couldn't get over” the fact that the fetus “got through two forms of birth control”; “it clearly wants to be a part of our world so I don't want to mess with it.” Attributing the pregnancy to fate or a higher power may have helped Melody both resolve her ambivalence and manage her anxiety. The accounts of some participants thus “blur the binary of ‘choice’ and ‘non-choice’” (Donath, 2014). They also suggest that the decision to mother may be made in the face of both oppressive conditions and high opportunity costs. Becoming a sole mother: planned pregnancies and adoption

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as early as the 1980s, Joan explained that she had developed a strong sense of self-reliance early in life as her father had always told her that “you have to, have to have your own education and be able to support yourself. You cannot count on anybody doing that for you.” In addition, critical reflection on existing familial norms and an openness to other ways of organizing family life was identified as crucial. Even though participants were not part of an organized group such as SMC, their critical consciousness was developed in concert with others, through feminist organizations and gay and lesbian activism. Lillian attributed this openness to her graduate school training where she was exposed to different ideas about parenting and people of different sexual orientations. According to Sylvia who gave birth in 1989: I think because I was an older mom, because I was a strong feminist, because I had a really active work life and support group and practice…I had been…you know…established in my career, etc. I think…my sense of myself and my own values were pretty firmly established at that point…and so…so all of those other factors… the external factors that push in on you and say…well, this is maybe a bit weird…I think I was pushing against them for so many years anyway….I think I had developed resources…critical analysis, etc. of any of those kinds of attitudes to sufficiently assist me or insulate me. I also was articulate. I could go to other people and say “agh”… you know…this is what's going on…give me…some advice… there were just a gazillion different ways to put it together – and I was too old to put myself in a position where I was gonna satisfy …somebody else's idea of how I should be living my life. Several of our participants further cited a desire to avoid messy custody battles which were increasingly common given the rise in divorce rates in the late 1980s: “that's when marriages started to break up, right? There were children in divorced homes or divorced families, you did see custody battles and I thought… I will never…if I have a child…I will never lose that child in a custody battle.” (Joan) This desire to retain custody or control of a child's upbringing was also a major factor in the choice made by several women to rely on anonymous donors to conceive their children. Below, we discuss further how these women chose among alternative paths to sole motherhood.

Decision-making before pregnancy or adoption Paths to sole motherhood: sexual intercourse, adoption, donor insemination Before the late 1980s, only one of our participants deliberately chose to become pregnant and, as indicated, this ‘choice’ was more about selfpreservation than self-determination. Mary Ellen believed that without her child, she could not have survived the effects of physical and emotional abuse within her birth family; placing her child for adoption “would've been like another nail in the coffin.” From the late 1980s onward, however, eight other women adopted or planned their pregnancies. These mothers were generally more mature than the mothers having unplanned pregnancies and more often had stable employment or the prospect of such employment. More often, they owned their own homes or had access to rent-controlled or subsidized coop housing and had solid family and social supports. A few had even saved in advance for maternity leaves and daycare expenses. These economic advantages reflect their advanced age and their social location as all were white and middle class. Most of these women had carefully considered their options and their “sober, in-depth reflection” is more easily identified with autonomous choice (Meyers, 2001). Yet, for most, motherhood itself was also largely an assumed desire, something they had “always wanted” (Lillian, Joan, Sylvia) and not something they felt the need to explain or account for. While women having planned pregnancies or adopting were relatively more confident in both their desire and ability to be mothers, like women having unplanned pregnancies, they also had to negotiate cultural resistance to sole motherhood. In explaining how she saw sole motherhood as a pathway that could be actively chosen

Becoming pregnant through sexual intercourse was one of the more complicated means of becoming a sole mother. Joan stopped using birth control in the early 1980s and reported that she always told her sexual partners that she wanted a child to raise on her own but she didn't think the men she slept with believed her. Like four others, Joan was impregnated outside Canada. In total, five women were impregnated while vacationing, studying or working abroad (mostly in developing countries) and two of these (Joan and Sylvia's) were planned. In Ingrid's case, the father (who was married with children at conception) later accused her of using him “for his sperm” and this became an issue for her son who, after meeting his father, questioned why she hadn't been on birth control. Sylvia, who was 41 when she gave birth, had thought carefully about having a child for 3 years and believed she “had enough resources and energy and support systems” to make it work. She rejected anonymous donor insemination because she wanted her child to know who his or her father was and have a relationship with him. Preserving her autonomy through this, however, proved to be a somewhat difficult task. The younger man with whom she became involved while studying abroad was open to the possibility: he “liked the idea of being a father” though “he wasn't ready to necessarily be a father at that point.” Sylvia thought they could come to some kind of an arrangement on how to parent together but she made it clear that she “was taking this on as a project on [her] own.” In doing so, she felt “a great deal of freedom” because she

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didn't expect a permanent relationship, full-fledged involvement or financial responsibility. Once she became pregnant, however, the father felt “a greater sense of responsibility” toward the future child than anticipated, as did his parents. As the father felt increasing pressure from his family to become more involved and became more and more confused, they “vacillated between being good friends and …you know… lovers…whatever as we tried to…to move through this place and… and have our baby.” Because navigating the father's role ended up being complex (though fortunately without significant legal disputes), Sylvia believed that a more explicit agreement from the outset would have improved outcomes for all parties. Adoption was also a complicated and relatively rare pathway to sole motherhood. Although single women adopted children in Canada even prior to World War I (Strong-Boag, 2006), few mothers in our sample had the opportunity to adopt. In one of the three instances in which mothers became adoptive parents, the adoption disrupted and the child was moved to a home where there were more adults (two parents and a grandfather) available to meet her needs. Sheila described this as “a humbling experience,” one which “revealed the worst aspects of myself as a parent which wouldn't [otherwise] have been revealed.” Consistent with a privatized notion of family and motherhood, Sheila perceived this as a personal failure, rather than a result of inadequate social supports. Carol was advised in the mid-1980s that the prospects of her being able to adopt through social services or a Christian counselling agency were very low because of her age and marital status. As a high school teacher, she had close relationships with her students and it was the doctor of one of her former students who called her about adopting a newborn child. However, Carol herself believed that it was generally best to raise a child in a two parent family and had problems squaring that belief with her own strong desire to parent: “I asked my mom at one point…do you think it's really selfish to want a child?” And she said, “are you kidding me?! It's one of the least selfish things you could do.” Reliance on an ideology of motherhood as intrinsically giving and unselfish provided a way to reconcile conflicting norms and alleviate Carol's guilt about raising a child as a single mother. Notably, Lorna, who had herself been adopted, chose not to adopt her children but rather to conceive by donor insemination. Although she had had a positive experience and was close to her adoptive parents, her adopted brother had struggled with drug abuse and died young. She wanted her children to have the “sense of security” that comes from having a biological connection with a parent and a child who looked like her since she had not resembled her own adoptive mother or father. She not only wanted to experience pregnancy and childbirth but was concerned that an adopted child could have disabilities that she would not be able to manage parenting alone. Six of the nine women who deliberately chose sole motherhood did so through donor insemination. All involved anonymous donors, with two of these having agreed to a release of their identities upon the child's maturity. Three participants had sought out donors among men they knew but were either rejected or were uncomfortable with the level of involvement desired by the donors. All six participants obtained NRTs through fertility clinics. Two women in the 1980s considered themselves fortunate to access NRTs because the doctors in charge at that time were generally not providing services to single or lesbian women. Sheila was specially recommended by her obstetrician after a stillborn birth. Lillian had to attend two interviews to discuss her family of origin, her education and dating history and to complete a psychiatric test of her mental stability and parenting capacity. Ultimately, she attributed her acceptance into the clinic to being both a heterosexual and a working professional in a well-paid and prominent job. By contrast, most women who conceived in the 1990s and 2000s did not complain of discrimination as a result of their single status or sexual orientation. Most were also able to select sperm donors who matched their age, culture and interests. Christine described her choice as “very, very orchestrated, very thoughtful, very

time-consuming.” She compared it to shopping – “I want to know what all my options are and what the best fit is for me” and added that she felt much more acceptance as a woman without a male partner in the “medical world” than in the “adoption world.” Georgia chose not to go to a bar and get pregnant but was still uncomfortable with the fertility industry given the expense and the medical orientation: “you have to be very assertive about everything you want. They just basically think of your body as a machine and try to find out how it works and … when it's statistically good for having pregnancies.” Several specific advantages were cited in favor of donor insemination including the experience of pregnancy and childbirth, a biological connection with the child, and most importantly, the prospect of increased autonomy. Lillian had witnessed the “horrible experience” of divorced fathers who had not lived up to their children's expectations and did not want to deal with “that uncontrollable variable”. Georgia had hoped to find a partner but the “last thing that I want is to parent with somebody who doesn't agree with my parenting and then to have conflict about how I'm doing it because I already find it hard enough, you know.” In fact, Shannon, after having an unplanned pregnancy and experiencing lengthy litigation over access in the 2000s, specifically chose donor insemination for her second child: If I could fix one thing about being a single parent it would be to restore legal aid. Even if it was a choice between that and having an income top-up because when you get into that kind of stuff [litigation] you're sunk. And it's just impossible to do that. I mean me trying to do that [self-represent] and juggle single parenting as well, it's ridiculous…after a few years you think, “Why didn't I just go to a bar and get blind drunk? I wouldn't even know the guy's face if I ever saw him again, you know.” [laughter] So that's what being in the legal system without representation is. Those are the kind of retrospective thoughts that they inspire. Reliance on an unknown donor avoided these potential complications. On the other hand, Sylvia refused to consider anonymous donor insemination in 1989: “Telling the child “You came into the world and I'm enough and…and let's not go there”. …that just never seemed to me like a viable option from the child's perspective.” While identity release donorship was available to two women in the 2000s, the use of donors by some women and not others reflected strongly differentiated views on the significance for the child of knowing and having a relationship with his or her father relative to the risk of parental conflict and a loss of parental control. With the increased visibility of the Father's Rights movement and an enhanced emphasis on bio-genetic ties in the legal treatment of custody and access disputes in Canada, those risks clearly accelerated in magnitude into the 1990s and 2000s (Boyd et al., 2015). The consequences of choice in retrospect Virtually all participants, when asked, said that if they had to do it again they would have made the same decision. Not surprisingly, most could not imagine their lives without their children. While there were difficulties, for almost all, the positives outweighed the negatives. Among the benefits identified by participants was the opportunity to watch a child grow and experience life through his or her eyes, to witness the creativity of childhood and perhaps above all, experience the “incredible love.” According to Carol “I think I know and understand love now – the depth of it.” Having a child was cited by Lillian as “the best thing I ever did in my whole life.” Grace, who gave birth in 2009, felt “whole and blessed” after motherhood whereas before she had felt empty. While women who had planned motherhood had to a greater extent matured before adoption or pregnancy, young mothers with unplanned pregnancies appeared, much like the working class mothers in McMahon (1995), to mature through the experience of motherhood. Becoming mothers for many of these women motivated a refashioning

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of their subjectivity and a redirection of energy toward meeting their child's needs. Their commitments and sacrifices were part of a powerful devotion to another life that generated daily rewards. As Karen stated: “it was just somebody who was always happy to see you…and [who] brought great joy to my life.” As sole mothers, most participants also appreciated being the “ultimate arbiter of my child's upbringing” (Shannon). Many cited the stability of their relationships with their children and the benefits (where they parented without paternal involvement) of not being undermined or burdened by a bad conjugal relationship. Sylvia believed that raising a boy had opened her up to seeing the gendered pressures boys experience and their various coping strategies. Even the experience of poverty was seen to benefit children in some ways, if it fostered an appreciation of non-monetary things and a more creative engagement with one's child. Even women who were strongly ambivalent about the experience still identified positive changes within themselves as a result of motherhood such as greater patience, less self-centredness or an enhanced critical consciousness. For most, however, there were also negative aspects of the experience which arose largely from the demands of paid work and unpaid care and an “immense” sense of responsibility for “children's outcomes” (Arendell, 2000). Foremost among the negative aspects, primarily for mothers with unplanned pregnancies, was the grind of poverty and financial worry that Elizabeth described as living in a “constant state of emergency.” Lacking a secure job and residence, living in debt or on a line of credit, learning how to get by on welfare by going hungry, lacking adequate and reliable childcare and experiencing hostility to children in public spaces were cited as causes of distress. Lost opportunities were also significant, including delayed education, the loss of fellowships, or a loss of cultural, intellectual or economic opportunities as a result of a need to be closer to family supports. Most content were those who, despite delays and periods of financial instability, were able to stay on track and develop and secure chosen careers. Most participants, both those having planned and unplanned motherhood, also identified the work of caring for a child, along with the need to make a living, as exhausting and isolating. Almost all had relied on daycare when their children were young and subsidized daycare was often identified as crucial to their survival. Although reliance on extended family care was extensive for a few, it was not the norm and most were overburdened and “exceptionally stretched” (Christine), if not stressed. Consistent with much of Hays' (1996) analysis of intensive mothering in heterosexual middle class families, most participants, though not all, expected their mothering to be child-centred, emotionally absorbing and time-consuming. Like employed mothers generally (Arendell, 2000), those who felt pressure to always be available to meet their children's needs also felt anxiety and guilt when unable to do so as a result of paid work. Rebecca worried that because of time stress she was not always present for her kids and Denise wondered whether her troubled relationship with her adult daughter was the possible outcome of fatigue and emotional neglect during her childhood. Joan likewise questioned whether her high pressure job had contributed to her child's experience of anxiety and depression in adolescence, a concern that motivated her to take three years off work in order to assist her daughter in meeting the demands of high school. Although Melody took her daughter everywhere, she was still concerned that her child was spending too much time in daycare. But Melody also needed breaks and ended up feeling “guilty about everything.” Another young mother, who had experienced abuse herself within her family of origin, and had had a difficult time controlling her temper, observed that there was simply “nobody to pick up the slack for you” when you needed a break. This internalized sense of responsibility was linked to concepts of motherhood – “as long as you're a mom you're hard on yourself” (Carol) – but also to concepts of choice. Sheila, for example, felt her child was more of a priority for her because she had consciously chosen to be a single mother. Many participants were reluctant to seek

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assistance from family members or friends because, as Janet noted, “you made this choice on your own so you gotta do it.” For Janet and Elizabeth, both of whom had unplanned pregnancies, taking it on and doing it alone was a matter of pride, which served both as “a fierce resource but also a barrier to asking for help.” (Elizabeth) Lorna, who had conceived through donor insemination, also believed that with choice, came responsibility. She found it hard to ask for sympathy or support when she had fully chosen this path although she thought employers and others should know that it was “really hard work.” Most participants also had to manage or resist the stigma of rearing a child without a father and deviating from dominant familial norms. At least one white, economically privileged mother, who had conceived through new reproductive technologies, saw choice rhetoric as helpful in counteracting stigma because it implied to members of her small rural community that her child was truly wanted (Wiegers & Chunn, 2015). However, most believed that their children had not been significantly affected by stigma and were either uncertain as to the long-term impact of the non-involvement of fathers in their children's lives or felt their child's self-esteem or sense of identity had not been harmed. The perceived impact of fatherhood or its absence on children appeared to depend on many factors: the degree of involvement, if any, by fathers; the nature or stability of that involvement; peer relations and exposure to other children with or without fathers; the subsequent involvement of quasi-paternal figures or role models; individual child temperaments, and their child's age. The decade of their birth was also relevant: children born up to the mid-1980s were said to have little interest in knowing their fathers, most of whom had no or minimal involvement in their children's lives, while mothers who believed that exposure to a father was important to a child's identity or self-esteem had all given birth or adopted from the mid-1980s onward. For the latter, negotiating a relationship with fathers and dealing with the emotional fallout of visits became an additional burden, and an onerous one in some cases. Grace, who gave birth in 2009, described the father of her child as someone who presents well but had “made life a living hell for a long, long time”. He had demanded to be present at birth, demanded access within 24 h of birth and wanted the child to bear his last name, while he paid child support only sporadically. Grace feared the father inundated her two year old daughter with affection because she would return from visits somewhat stunned, prone to angry tantrums and wanting to be alone. She complained of having to “give my daughter over to him and I can see the effects that he has on her and there's just nothing I can do about it.” Wendy likewise regretted making decisions based on what the father of her second son, born in 2005, wanted and what she thought the law required. She felt that access schedules had not been “developmentally appropriate.” Notwithstanding these negative implications, only one mother in our sample clearly indicated that she would not have embarked on sole motherhood if given the opportunity again. The experience of regret has often been examined in relation to childlessness and abortion, but rarely in the realm of motherhood. According to Donath (2014), there are a number of “cultural logics” that inhibit such expressions of regret, among them the “language of nature” or women's destiny, the notion that children are “emotionally priceless”, the risk of being labelled an unfit mother and a linear temporal logic which suggests that the passage of time will inevitably lead to more positive outcomes. Nonetheless, women have expressed regret, not for the existence of children they loved but for the experience of motherhood itself (Donath, 2014; Donath, 2015). The participant who expressed regret was one of the more affluent women in our study and the only one to have both adopted and later given birth unexpectedly. She believed that her biological son had been “fairly damaged in terms of not knowing who his father was,” even though her eldest adopted son, who she described as easygoing and funny, made a point of giving her a card every Fathers' Day that said “you're the best Mom and Dad ever.” She was also the only participant to mention the stress of multiple extracurricular events for her

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sons and the isolation she experienced after leaving cooperative housing and moving into her own home in a middle class neighborhood, where there were fewer kids, fewer supports and where most kids had fathers. According to her, there was too much pressure “on the Mom to do everything.” In addition to being burdened by middle class, highly intensive standards of parenthood along with inadequate supports, she had experienced several difficult years during her youngest son's adolescence and had had to sell her house in order to get him to move out. She believed “some other living configuration” was needed to give children a “fair shake” in life. Several other women expressed not regret but strong ambivalence about their life course. More often, these were white (non-racialized) women with unplanned pregnancies who lacked strong family or economic support, were experiencing troubled relationships with their children as adolescents or young adults, or were struggling with abusive or controlling fathers. While the mothers in McMahon's (1995) study were parenting children under six years of age, the women in ours had reared or were rearing 35 children, who ranged in age from 2 to 40+. Denise, whose 23 year old daughter wasn't communicating with her at the time of the interview, wondered “in her darkest moments” whether she should have given her child up for adoption by two parents even though she couldn't see how she could have. It was hurtful for Wendy to see where her eldest teenage son was at in not listening to her or telling her where he was at night, especially in light of the sacrifices she had made to have him so young. Although she indicated that “there [was] always something kind of really awful going on,” she felt that: if I had gone on a path where I didn't have my kids, I would have kept going down this middle class pathway of school, career, marriage… and [would not have] the critical analysis of society and human relationships that I do now…it's made me who I am so I don't know that I would want to throw that away. That's my answer but it's no answer [Laughter].

Conclusion There clearly were differences among and between participants in the degree of choice or agency they saw themselves as exercising and in the felt experience of decision-making over time. Women who did not actively choose to become pregnant were generally far less prepared, both financially and emotionally, to undertake sole motherhood and were compelled to decide within a limited time frame. They were more apt to report experiencing confusion, anxiety and uncertainty. In evaluating their options along with the best interests of their future child, resistance to adoption and to forced marriage or cohabitation with unstable or irresponsible fathers appeared to intensify over time. While no participant was opposed to abortion as a reproductive right, illegality, stigma, a lack of access, and cultural and religious norms combined to render it an unlikely option for many. Some women may have simply resigned themselves to the biological progression of motherhood but most saw themselves as having made a choice and were aware of acting in defiance of conventional familial norms. They may in fact have experienced their ‘choices’ as voluntary largely because the outcome was resistant to such norms. The intense anguish and apprehension most experienced, however, suggests that decisions were made or outcomes generated in a context that failed to provide much needed social supports. In light of this complex social environment, there is no simple way of identifying these mothers as either free, selfdetermining agents or as powerless victims of oppression (Madhok, 2013). Almost all of the women in our sample who had planned their pregnancies or adopted did so beyond the mid-1980s. Increased employment and economic independence for women, technological changes such as improved contraception and NRTs, as well as shifts

in the cultural significance of virginity, illegitimacy and heterosexual marriage, facilitated the conditions for sole motherhood as a deliberative possibility. The experience of mothers who adopted or had planned conception appeared to far more closely approximate the ideal of rational choice within the neoliberal model (Boyd et al., 2015). These mothers were typically older, white, well-educated and established in their careers. Even they, however, confronted limited options in that adoption was not readily available and NRTs were expensive. Conception via sexual intercourse also raised the prospect of father involvement which could potentially generate conflict and litigation, unless the father resided in another country. While their pathway to motherhood was not as emotionally intense as that of mothers having unexpected pregnancies, they still acted in defiance of familial norms and a few experienced economic hardship. A felt sense of agency was especially evident in the 1980s when opting for sole motherhood was far less common. With the ascendance of neo-liberalism and an increasing emphasis on private as opposed to social responsibility (Fudge & Cossman, 2002; Harvey, 2005), it is not surprising that these women were also confident, self-reliant individuals. An established distance from conventional norms, characteristic of those who identified as lesbian or feminist, also helped them resist or disrupt the weight of hegemonic familial norms (Showden, 2011) and imagine a future living and thriving as sole mothers. While there were differences, there were many similarities in the decision-making process and the experience of both planned and unplanned motherhood among participants. For women across both groups, the reasons given for desiring motherhood were often vague and the sheer desire to mother was frequently stated simply as a fact that did not require explanation. The potential involvement of a father at times favoured getting pregnant or proceeding with a pregnancy for women in both groups; however, some women from both either rejected cohabitation and marriage or pursued anonymous donor insemination precisely in order to eliminate the possibility of paternal control, an outcome that was became more likely as fatherhood gained legal significance in Canada from the mid-1980s onward. One's family of origin also appeared to matter across both groups. Although a surprisingly large number of participants were not able or prepared to rely on the support of extended families, the possibility of obtaining practical and emotional family support clearly made the decision to parent solo easier. The experience within one's own family could also motivate the desire to parent and shape one's expectations of sole parenting. Mothers, like Janet and Georgia, who had been raised by single mothers appeared to have greater confidence in the possibility of single parenting successfully. Conversely, negative experiences within two-parent homes, such as the experience of alcoholism or extreme abuse, divorce or conflict between parents could influence decisions to parent alone rather than in a two-parent family, as was the case for Christine and Jean. Other differences such as age, race, indigeneity, class, sexual orientation, poverty and reliance on social assistance shaped options to some degree within both groups. However, since most participants identified as highly educated, white and heterosexual, our study provided limited insight into how intersectional inequalities affected participants who did not meet the standards of white middle class heterosexual motherhood. In terms of their experience of motherhood, women across both groups identified similar benefits and similar costs in terms of time stress, fatigue, isolation, anxiety and guilt. In fact, the only participant to express regret was a woman who had experienced both planned and unplanned motherhood. However, more women having unplanned pregnancies experienced economic hardship and (in the last two decades) conflict with fathers. Overall, those who reported experiencing the most severe stress and exhaustion were economically disadvantaged and simultaneously facing litigation and demands by fathers that they considered excessive and contrary to their children's best interests.

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Regardless of their individual circumstances or different pathways to motherhood, most mothers also saw themselves or believed others saw them as having made a voluntary choice. This may reflect the extent to which the reproductive field is infused with choice rhetoric, especially in relation to birth control, abortion and reproductive technologies. It may also illustrate the extent to which a neoliberal conception of choice, as simply a revealed individual preference, has generally been experienced as a governing narrative. Within such a cognitive or ideological frame, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to see oneself as not having chosen (Rose, 1999; Lahad, 2014). As long as coercion is indirect and nominal alternatives, such as abortion or adoption, are not pursued, motherhood itself can be seen as freely chosen notwithstanding the constraints, pressures or influences. This decontextualized conception of choice most clearly resembles a market-oriented practice. Finally, all participants had internalized a great sense of personal responsibility for their children and women who adopted or planned their pregnancy from the outset may have done so to an even greater degree. When choice and an ideology of motherhood are linked to a notion of personal responsibility, mothers are expected to self-manage childrearing and to negotiate individually the structural contradictions of family and paid work. An expectation of self-sufficiency was a pronounced theme in participants' stories, one that made it hard for many to reach out for help from family members or friends when they needed it. While some participants did believe that more social supports for parenting should be provided, ‘choosing’ to become pregnant in the face of so many obstacles, and in opposition to dominant familial norms, appeared to make it harder for most to expect or ask for such supports. These accounts largely reflect how choice and motherhood are now experienced under neoliberalism: how choice is continuously “entwined with” constraint (Madhok, 2013) but also, along with an expectation of intensive mothering, constructed as the normative basis for individual responsibility in relation to the care and costs of children. Acknowledgement The financial assistance of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (#410-2008-1339) is gratefully acknowledged. References Arendell, T. (2000). Conceiving and investigating motherhood: The decade's scholarship. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 1192–1207. Backhouse, C. B. (1984). Desperate women and compassionate courts: Infanticide in nineteenth-century Canada. 34. (pp. 447–478). University of Toronto Press, 447–478. Bock, J. D. (2000). Doing the right thing?: Single mothers by choice and the struggle for legitimacy. Gender and Society, 14, 62–86. Boyd, S. B., Chunn, D. E., Kelly, F., & Wiegers, W. (2015). Autonomous motherhood? A sociolegal investigation of choice and constraint. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Chambers, L. (2007). Misconceptions: Unmarried motherhood and the Ontario children of unmarried parents act, 1921 to 1969. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Collins, P. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness and the politics of empowerment. London: Harper Collins Academic. Crawford, S. (1997). Public attitudes in Canada towards unmarried mothers, 1950–1996. Past imperfect. 6. (pp. 111–132). Donath, O. (2014). Choosing motherhood? Agency and regret within reproduction and mothering retrospective accounts. Women's Studies International Forum. http://dx. doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2014.10.023. Donath, O. (2015). Regretting motherhood: A sociopolitical analysis. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 40, 343–367. Downie, J., & Nassar, C. (2007). Barriers to access to abortion through a legal lens. Health Law Journal, 15, 143–174.

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