When dose a Mother Think as a “Full-fledged”?

Abstract

　　Does a preschooler's mother think of herself as a “full-fledged” mother? This research focused on when, why and how a mother came to think of herself as fulfiling this role by analyzing the responses of 83 mothers to a four-item questionaire. The main findings were as follows. Mothers had two criteria in order to think of themselves as “full-fledged”. One was to give priority to their own children, and the other was to gain confidence in their child-care abilities. Furthermore, they had a few theories on maternal development as well. First, they believed that becoming a mother was not a rapid change, but rather a progressive development. They thought that they developed into “full-fledged” mothers on a step-by-step basis. And next, they regarded that a mother's development is synchronized with her own child's development.