12 Towards Social Maternity: Where’s the Mother? ... 297scientific resistance to researching its potential for therapeutic applica-
tions beyond feeding infants (Shaw 2004 ). Some lactating mothers have
expressed repugnance towards their own milk, since familiarity with
its material qualities is obstructed by the focus on maintaining strict
hygiene in relation to nipples, babies, and bottles, as well as the milk
itself (Giles 2003 ). As a result, it has been constructed as both danger-
ous and precious simultaneously: literally and figuratively untouchable.
Additionally, the 1980s saw increased isolation of mothering within
the nuclear family, the rise of a neo-liberal ideology espousing indi-
vidual responsibility, and the popularity of attachment parenting,
all of which have conspired to further isolate the nursing mother and
the labour of mothering more generally (Baker 2014 ; Bueskens 2015 ;
Manne 2005 ; Stephens 2012 , 2015 ). Attachment parenting is a term
coined by US paediatricians, William and Martha Sears, based on the
research of John Bowlby published in the 1950s. It advocates continu-
ous embodied care by a single caregiver, ideally the biological mother,
for the first two to three years of life, with as few separations as possible,
arguing that separations can cause irreparable emotional and psycholog-
ical damage (Bowlby 1953 ).
It was likely not the Sears’ intention to link neo-liberal mothering
to attachment parenting, since their models come from communitar-
ian and pre-industrial cultures which are thought to be more ‘natu-
ral’ (Sears and Sears 2001 ).^5 However, the practice of continuous and
physically close mothering between biological mother and child has
fortuitously suited the neo-liberal project that has risen to prominence
during this period, elevating the responsibility of the individual fam-
ily over the state for ensuring the health and well-being of its citizens,
and constructing parents, whether single or partnered, as self-sufficient
(Bueskens 2015 ; Hays 1996 ; Manne 2005 ; Sennett 2006 ; Stephens
2012 ).
In addition to fears of disease, environmental pollutants or con-
taminants from food, alcohol, or other drugs, together with the risk
of unhygienic storage and handling procedures, informal milk sharing
thus also cuts across the contemporary idealisation of breastfeeding as a
key element in the exclusionary maternal relationship. As Rhonda Shaw
notes, any departure from exclusive (and exclusionary) breastfeeding,