Maternal love as nurturing. Devices, myths and ideologies

Maternal love is one of the myths founding ideologies about motherhood. Ideologies about motherhood change over time depending on the social and economic system of which they are devices. “Intensive motherhood”, the ideology that has appeared since the eighties, creates the figure of the good mother as responsible for the healthy mental and physical development of their children. Specularly to this figure emerges mother blame, a discursive device around mothers considered responsible for disorders and deviant behaviour and conduct of their children. In this paper, we analyse how in an individualised and neo-liberal society, mother blame finds a privileged operating territory in food. Nourishment, which has always been considered one of the cornerstones of maternal love, in food modernity, characterised by gastro-anomie indeed takes on very relevant meanings.