Unhoused mothers not only contend with housing precarity and economic hardship but also intersecting classist, racist, and sexist stereotypes that position them as unfit mothers. Classed, raced, and gendered conceptualizations of “good” and “bad” motherhood are reified in US shelter regulations (e.g. strict rules governing parent and child behavior, curfews, mandatory participation in parenting classes) that seek to “reform” homeless mothers. To gain a better understanding of perceptions of and responses to shelter regulations, we interviewed 28 formerly unhoused US mothers about their experiences in family shelters. Participants overwhelmingly rejected “bad mother” stereotypes that equated lack of material resources with inadequate parenting and engaged in a range of overt (e.g. strategic recounting of life histories) and covert (e.g. subverting paternalistic rules) strategies to reclaim “good motherhood” and negotiate daily shelter life. Instrumental, discursive, covert, and overt critical resistance strategies were used to maintain parental authority, preserve one’s self-image as a “good” mother and obtain needed resources from shelter staff. Our findings highlight the complexity of critical resistance to class, race, and gender oppression and call for greater interrogation of how seemingly well-intentioned shelter rules and policies reinforce status hierarchies.

中文翻译：

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重拾“好母性”：美国母亲在无家可归者收容所中的批判性抵抗

无家可归的母亲不仅要应对住房不稳定和经济困难，还要与阶级主义、种族主义和性别歧视的刻板印象相交，将她们定位为不合适的母亲。“好”和“坏”母亲的分类、种族和性别概念在美国收容所规定中得到具体化（例如严格的父母和子女行为规定、宵禁、强制参加育儿班），旨在“改造”无家可归的母亲。为了更好地了解对庇护所规定的看法和反应，我们采访了 28 位以前没有住过的美国母亲，了解她们在家庭庇护所的经历。参与者压倒性地拒绝了“坏妈妈”的刻板印象，这些刻板印象将物质资源的缺乏等同于养育不足，并参与了一系列公开的（例如对生活历史的战略叙述）和隐蔽的（例如 颠覆家长式规则）战略，以恢复“好母亲”和协商日常庇护生活。工具性的、散漫的、隐蔽的和公开的批判性抵抗策略被用来维护父母的权威，保持一个人作为“好”母亲的自我形象，并从收容所工作人员那里获得所需的资源。我们的研究结果强调了对阶级、种族和性别压迫的批判性抵制的复杂性，并呼吁对看似善意的庇护所规则和政策如何强化地位等级进行更多的审问。