Childhood as a priority and care as a contradiction: child development, gender socialization, and the political economy of maternal overload

Abstract

This article analyzes the social production of maternal overload through the articulation of childhood sociology, attachment theory, and the political economy of care. It argues that the contemporary centrality of early bonding in child development—strongly supported by psychological and neurobiological evidence—has not been accompanied by a structural reorganization of the material conditions of care. Intensive motherhood emerges not merely as a cultural ideal, but as the effect of a structural contradiction: childhood is proclaimed as a social priority while reproductive labor remains privatized, feminized, and racially stratified. The article further demonstrates that maternal overload is prepared from childhood itself, through gender-differentiated socialization processes that produce unequal dispositions toward care. It argues that effective child protection requires the structural democratization of care, combining material redistribution and intergenerational justice.