1056169

research-article2021
SOR0010.1177/00380261211056169The Sociological ReviewMurray and Tizzoni

Article
The Sociological Review
1–16
Raising children in hostile © The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
worlds in Santiago de Chile: sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00380261211056169
https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261211056169

Optimism and ‘hyper-agentic’ journals.sagepub.com/home/sor

mothers

Marjorie Murray and Constanza Tizzoni

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile

Abstract
Based on an ethnographic research on early mothering with a small and heterogeneous group of
women living in different areas of Santiago, Chile – and a follow-up study six years later – in this
article we look closely at how mothering takes place through a sense of optimism while living
in a hostile world, contrasting our findings with similar research in northern countries. Rather
than waiting for opportunities to present themselves, women’s sense of optimism is based on
their own difficult experiences of learning to cope in a hostile world, and how this requires
organizing their children’s education to face challenges beyond their immediate family circle. We
claim the existence of hyper-agentic motherhood – one that articulates traditional maternalism,
increasing societal demands on parenting and the specific take on individuation detached from
institutions in neoliberal Chile. Mothering through optimism in a hostile world questions the
possibility to import classed parenting models. We identify a resonance with Adrie Kusserow’s
description of hard individualism in which children are taught how to navigate the hostile world
in the search for success, but with the difference that children in this context are brought up with
the idea that mothers will be there for them in the long run, regardless of what actually takes
place. This longitudinal study of parenting provides information on the usually silent processes
of subjectification and emergent values that can be overlooked in times of social transformation.

Keywords
Chile, longitudinal methods, motherhood, neoliberalism, optimism

Introduction
In recent decades, research dealing with the relationship between parenting and class has
proliferated, focusing on the social reproduction of class through parental activities and
involvement (Kusserow, 1999, 2004; Lamont, 1992; Lareau, 2002, 2003), as well as on

Corresponding author:
Marjorie Murray, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Campus San Joaquín, Macul, Santiago 4860, Chile.
Email: mmurray@uc.cl
2 The Sociological Review 00(0)

the emotional implications of parenting (Faircloth & Murray, 2015; Furedi, 2002; Hays,
1996). For example, the much-cited work by Annette Lareau (2002, 2003) is eloquent in
its description of the differences between privileged, middle-class ways of parenting and
those present in working-class families. She coined the term ‘concerted cultivation’, or
the active and negotiated ways in which parents relate to children hand in hand with
schools, organizing activities seen as useful for developing the child’s social and cogni-
tive skills, and which demand the parents’ energy and time. In contrast, Lareau observed
that American working-class parents tend to take a ‘natural growth’ approach to parent-
ing in which children are perceived as having fixed characteristics, skills and talents and,
therefore, parenting concentrates on the provision of ‘love, food and safety’ to ensure
their growth and prosperity (Lareau, 2002, p. 748).
In a similar vein, Adrie Kusserow (1999, 2004) unfolded the notion of American indi-
vidualism, claiming that various types of individualism are reproduced through different
parenting practices in distinct classes in the New York area. While middle-class children
grow up with a sense of ‘soft’ individualism, in which creativity and self-expression are
clearly reinforced, working-class children are imbued with a sense of ‘hard’ individual-
ism, which implies that success can only be achieved as the result of hard work, disci-
pline and determination in a dangerous environment.
Similarly, Vincent and Ball (2007) have characterized the implementation of enrich-
ment activities by middle-class parents in the UK, and their role in the transmission of
class position, while ensuring that certain talents are developed to their full potential.
These investments may be a response to the ‘fear of falling’ from one’s position in a
context of uncertainty (Ehrenreich, 1989) and the ‘quest for positional advantage’ (Ball,
2003, p. 21). Within classes there also seems to be important differences. For example,
Irwin and Elley (2011) observed that some parents have a more strategic orientation in
education, especially when the circumstances and family history entail a lower probabil-
ity of success. In contrast, middle-class families that have been so for generations have a
perception of class reproduction as predetermined and show more confidence in the
future of their children. Regarding differences within the lower classes, Kusserow has
observed that the hard individualism principle includes at least two possible emphases.
There is a defensive one, where the protection of the child’s self from violence and the
difficulties they face in their local surroundings prevails, and where children are encour-
aged to defend themselves by putting on the armour of pride, self-sufficiency, toughness
and self-resilience. Then there is also a ‘hard projective individualism’, where children
adopt a more outgoing, upward-moving trajectory, in which persistence ‘was not solely
needed as part of a survivalist mentality but helped one to gain success and achievement
in life’ (Kusserow, 2004, p. 73).
Unlike studies on parenting and class in contexts such as the UK or US, in Chile, due
to its institutional and economic progress over the last 40 years – driven by its neoliberal
project – class itself is both a relevant and problematic concept. Currently, 80% of the
population perceives itself as ‘middle class’ regardless of the enormous inequalities
between citizens. However, as Canales (Hopenhayn, 2020) observes, of the two prom-
ises made by the neoliberal project in Chile – lifting many groups in society out of pov-
erty and overcoming its highly stratified organization – only the first was accomplished.
The second promise was not fulfilled, meaning that for most of the population, social
Murray and Tizzoni 3

position is far from secured. In other words, by studying parenting and class in Chile,
rather than dealing with questions of belonging, social reproduction (or not) and social
mobility, one appears to focus on position awareness and profound fear. The majority of
the population that self-identifies as ‘middle class’, as well as those who self-identify as
poor, live with the constant reminder of the need to fight for a dignified position that is
neither given nor secured. For those who have achieved changes in their social position,
however great or small, a ‘fear of falling’ is constantly present, consisting partially in the
fear of falling into a less prestigious but well-known social group and markers. More
importantly, the fear of falling is marked by the ghost of stigma, or being labelled as a
‘second class’ citizen who has little margin to make choices. At the same time, Chilean
neoliberal subjects are constantly concerned with class/position and attempt to differenti-
ate themselves through both micro-segregation and various actions of self-differentiation
which are embodied as moral mandates.
These facts suggest that approaching parenting and class requires considering the
profound social, educational and spatial-territorial differences and inequality between
established elites and the rest of the population, and how these unfolded during Pinochet’s
dictatorship and then in the Concertación governments of the 1990s and 2000s. By fol-
lowing the early parenting trajectories of a small group of Chilean women, in this article
we focus on their main characteristics and traits, specifically regarding an optimistic
vision of their children’s future. We claim that rather than expecting the wider economic
situation to improve, or waiting for opportunities to present themselves, their sense of
optimism is based on their own, often difficult experiences in learning how to cope in a
hostile world, and how this requires organizing their children’s learning to face chal-
lenges beyond their immediate family circle. Therefore, optimism in this context must be
considered cautiously, embracing both its mobilizing capacities and its fragility and
eventual difficult consequences. In order to do this we tackle the characteristics of what
we have labelled a hyper-agentic motherhood – a social norm that completes the already
heavy burden women carry in Chile, and which articulates traditional maternalism,
recent increasing societal demands on parenting (Hays, 1996) and the specific take on
individuation detached from institutions in neoliberal Chile (Araujo & Martuccelli,
2014). We claim that hyper-agentic motherhood and optimism require further attention
to understand current trends in parenting in Chile and wider debates in a time of social
transformation in the country.

Parenting in Chile
Similar to other countries in the region, Chile is a very unequal society – the 15th most
unequal country in the world (Garretón, 2017, p. 39) – where income inequality is cor-
related with education, both individually and spatially (2017, p. 40). Based on a techno-
cratic argument, municipal boundaries were redefined under Pinochet, enforcing the
eradication of low-income groups from wealthy areas, promoting internal homogeneity
to facilitate focalized policies and public education, which was organized around munici-
pal administration. Specifically, in the case of Santiago, the ‘deep socio-spatial inequali-
ties are manifested in an intricate geography of segregated areas that share common
disadvantages such as low accessibility to jobs and amenities, high levels of urban
4 The Sociological Review 00(0)

violence and a poor quality of public services’ (Garretón, 2017, p. 42), while others enjoy
a virtuous circle of investment, prosperity and development.
During this period various other neoliberal political decisions allowed for the emer-
gence of a specific kind of political subject. As Araujo and Martuccelli (2014) put it:

Principles of social protection were modified (Raczynski & Serrano, 2005): health services,
education and social security privatized. Consumption and credit became the structural
elements of social relationships and personal life (Moulian, 1997). As an effect, a feeling of
positional inconsistency spreads through society. This feeling refers to the perception that every
social position may suffer active processes of destabilization due to the transference to
individuals of the tasks related to the level and quality of their social integration. (Araujo &
Martuccelli, 2014, p. 33)

Thus, the consolidation of a subsidiary state and a celebrated ‘path towards development’
(with GDP per capita rising from USD 3436 in 1980 to USD 24,226 in 20191) requires
considering structural inequality and the implications of living in a society in which
individuals must ‘constantly face macrosociological (inflation, political instabilities,
changes associated with globalization) and microsociological (family events, health
problems, dismissals) challenges’ (Araujo & Martuccelli, 2014, p. 33). Throughout the
social spectrum ‘hyper-actors’ and ‘agentic individualism’ are required, as subjects are
obliged to take responsibility for themselves beyond institutional guidelines. Yet, strate-
gies and processes of subjectification vary importantly in very unequal realities. Clara
Han (2012) has eloquently described everyday lives in low-income households of
Santiago through the various healthcare and borrowing practices that allow people to
cope with poverty and violence. For their part, Méndez and Gayo (2019) focused on the
active work of the middle classes in securing their position in society.
Most research on parenting and class difference in Chile has taken place within the
field of education studies and sociology of education, with a strong focus on school
choice. The existing privatized and decentralized school system is based on a voucher
system that places the burden of school selection on families (Canales et al., 2016;
Leyton & Rojas, 2017). Parents use a government voucher to pay for a year of education
at a public school, a not-for-profit school, or a private school, thereby positioning ‘par-
ents as consumers and investors . . . making schools compete to improve their academic
performance and guide school choice practices’ (Leyton & Rojas, 2017, p. 559).2 As a
result, a sustained migration from public to subsidized private education3 has taken place
in the last two decades, increasing segregation by socioeconomic background and wid-
ening the gap in academic results.
The so-called ‘emerging middle classes’, or lower-middle classes (Canales et al.,
2016), middle classes (Leyton & Rojas, 2017) and upper-middle classes (Méndez &
Gayo, 2019), choose private education as a strategy for improving their children’s pre-
sent and future, as they search for moral homogeneity and distinction, as well as to shield
their children from others of lower social strata considered ‘dangerous’ (Leyton & Rojas,
2017) and ‘unworthy’ (Canales et al., 2016). In this sense, classism is a moral imperative
of good parenting, while a more traditional sense of class reproduction remains a luxury
for the elites.
Murray and Tizzoni 5

In this context of personal or family strategic decisions and expectations, researchers

have identified a sense of optimism that requires further attention. For example, in their
research on residential mobility and school choice in Santiago, Méndez and Gayo (2019)
observed what they call a generalized optimism ‘regarding the perception of unlimited pos-
sibilities of social mobility along the social structure’ (2019, p. 22) not only in their upper-
middle-class sample, but also in another one covering the entire population of Santiago. In
both samples respondents assumed a personal experience of upward mobility4 (see also
Centro de Estudios Públicos [CEP], 2014) and were optimistic about the possibilities of a
better future for their children (Méndez & Gayo, 2019, p. 41). As mentioned above, follow-
ing Canales’ (Hopenhayn, 2020) claim that the ‘promise’ implied both economic situation
and status, this optimism does not only refer to social mobility, but also to greater respect
and security (Leyton & Rojas, 2017) and the search for better or more ‘dignified’ treatment
(Araujo, 2019).
Such a sense of optimism may appear in contradiction to the recent social uprising
(Estallido social) of 2019 in Chile that brought millions of citizens along the social spec-
trum into the streets to protest against an unjust social system, dignity and better living
conditions, and which led to a national referendum in which 80% of voters approved the
writing of a new constitution. Yet as Canales (Hopenhayn, 2020) has claimed, the
Estallido represents both anger and hope in ways that require further study. Through our
ethnographic study of parenting we expect to contribute to the understanding of the sec-
ond part of the equation: hope, by means of optimism that takes place through hostility,
mobilizing women in terms of what they expect for themselves and their children in the
short and long run.

The study: Mothering then and now

In 2011–2012, as part of a study that focused on understanding similarities and discrepan-
cies on how women of different socioeconomic realities experienced and signified their
first year of motherhood in Santiago, the first author and research assistant Gabriela Piña
carried out ethnographic fieldwork for 12 months with 16 women following categories of
achieved education (secondary, tertiary, technical) and area of residence (including low-
income, middle-income and high-income areas) as proxies of difference and inequality in
the city (Garretón, 2017). We visited each of them once a month in their homes and
accompanied them in relevant activities, such as medical check-ups and shopping, from
their third trimester of pregnancy until their babies turned one year of age. We also carried
out two semi-structured interviews with each of the participants, and were able to under-
stand how the experience of early motherhood varied according to income, education and
area of residence. Specifically, we observed differences in terms of how these women’s
efforts were focused and how their aspirations for themselves and their children were
materialized (Murray, 2012, 2013, 2015). After six years, we met again with nine women
from the original study: five from the group of university graduates, three from the group
with secondary studies, and one who is currently enrolled at a non-selective university.
We visited them in their homes and asked about their present lives, duties, satisfactions,
concerns and expectations for the future of their children. We also asked them about their
plans beyond motherhood, and acknowledged separations, new partners, changes of work
6 The Sociological Review 00(0)

and moving cities as important milestones in the period. For the sake of simplification, in
this article we have grouped women heuristically into ‘middle class’ (tertiary education in
selective universities living in the eastern area of the city), ‘lower middle class’ (with
technical studies living in the south east and south west areas of the city ) and ‘working
class’ (secondary education living in different segregated low-income areas), claiming
towards the conclusion that these divisions are only partially useful. All the names have
been anonymized with pseudonyms. The research project was approved by the Social
Sciences Ethics Committee at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
In the original study we observed how middle-class women with university degrees
were more open about revealing their anxieties regarding inexperience and feelings of
being overwhelmed, similar to what O’Dougherty (2013) observed in the middle-class
context in Brazil. From an early stage, motherhood brought about different conflicts and
negotiations regarding love and care. These women also reflected in critical terms on the
cultural role of motherhood. In fact, much of the ‘intensiveness’ of their experience of
motherhood focused on the logistics of coordinating childcare with their own professional
or personal agendas and on the emotional burden, which was manifested in feelings of
‘constant anxiety’. These women were also more eager to become informed about child-
birth and child rearing through books and websites than the other women in the study.
By contrast, the discourses of the participants from lower-middle-class and working-
class backgrounds were based on the idea that their lives had changed forever, highlight-
ing the mothers’ unique ability to care for the child as a subject of desire (Miller, 1997),
which is achieved through their physical presence and exclusive role in raising the child.
With only two exceptions, these women expressed a visceral need to remain with their
babies as long as possible, a desire they materialized by extending their maternal leaves
and obtaining doctors’ notes, or even quitting their jobs, particularly if these were unsat-
isfactory and poorly paid (Murray, 2013). As these women identified themselves with the
sacrificial role of motherhood, feelings of being overwhelmed, anxious or depressed
emerged only as the months passed, and they found themselves with the need to expand
their social lives beyond the walls of their home.
In tune with the neoliberal exacerbation of choice, women in our study prioritized a
logic of choice to a logic of care (Mol, 2008) in their relationship with public and private
healthcare providers. Concretely, middle-class women only participated in the private
health system, while both lower-middle-class and working-class women, who are affili-
ated to the public health system, also opted for private medical check-ups when possible
(often combined with consultations in public clinics), and evaluated the possibility of
delivery in a clinic through a co-payment system. Of course, this tendency can partially
be attributed to their need to escape obstetric violence (Murray, 2012). At the same time,
these women perceived the possibility of giving birth in clean and modern premises,
where they could receive visitors, as a sign of a good start and having done their best for
their babies, providing them with a sense of belonging and the possibility of a better life
that was considered inherent to being a good mother. To some extent these practices
recall Lauren Berlant’s ‘cruel optimism’ (2011), in which conditions of attrition and even
deterioration in the present (for example, incurring indebtedness) are acceptable consid-
ering the possibility of a better life in the future, while questions about ‘the cruelty of the
now’ are suspended (Berlant, 2011, p. 28). In contrast to their first year as mothers, in
Murray and Tizzoni 7

which most preoccupations were focused within the home and in relation to the medical
system, in these more recent meetings the women had consolidated a discourse of their
mothering philosophy following their experience of changing situations, institutions and
the actors involved: mainly schools (all children were enrolled in primary schools), part-
ners, family members, neighbourhood and friends.

Six years later

In our follow-up meetings, we realized that the parental trajectories and maternal dis-
courses of the women belonging to the lower classes were much more discontinuous
compared to their experience in the first year, even considering separations and divorce.
Middle-class women, with satisfactory jobs, were more consistent regarding their per-
ceived difficulties and harshness of motherhood, while they also appeared as more
empowered and assertive regarding what had to be done than in the first year. These
women manage some flexibility in their timetables and are the main parties responsible
for organizing the daily routines of their family members – from providing food to the
transmission of values and languages. They assume the ‘mental work’ (Miller, 2017) of
the home as natural, while husbands (and a new partner in one case) undertake more
discrete tasks oriented towards specific activities.
During their first year as mothers, participants with secondary and technical education
– who were working in non-rewarding jobs – either quit or gave their jobs a low priority
(Murray, 2013, 2015). For example, Paola quit her full-time job as a lab technician in a
chemical analysis firm in order to be with her baby and four-year-old daughter. She
decided to sell home-cooked food in the market (feria libre), carrying her daughters with
her: ‘I make this sacrifice for them, I have to carry them here and there.’ The need to be
constantly present was stronger than the feeling of guilt that emerged from taking the
girls to the market, or the feelings of anguish and malaise that arose due to her feelings
of loneliness, or ‘postponing herself’.

It is hard, you know? In fact, I postpone my own needs, I dress [my children] up very well, and
me, well, I go out with the first thing I find. I don’t use any makeup or anything. I’m out, as God
put me into the world, and that affects you because you look at yourself in the mirror and . . .
you know? (Paola, 2012)

Many things have changed in Paola’s life since then. She ended her relationship with her
daughters’ father, taking on the ‘father’s role’ as the breadwinner and financial supporter
of the home. She found a job in an English language institute in the north of Chile to
which she devotes most of her time and effort. For six months, her mother and ex-partner
looked after the girls in Santiago, while she refrained from contacting them in order to
avoid feelings of guilt. As she put it, the daily care of the girls, bathing, combing their
hair and feeding them, was done by these other relevant adults, while she justified her
absence with work in the name of her daughters’ future.

What do I feel? Well, my first question was am I being a bad mom, you know? . . . I said: ‘I’m
going to be away from them so much that they are not going to have anything of mine’, and that
8 The Sociological Review 00(0)

was what scared me; not leaving that seed there. But I have realized as time passes that despite
being so young, they admire many things that I do. So, even if I am not so present, the effort
that their mother is making is for them, because, in the end, everything that I have done to this
day, aside from providing for myself when I am older, is for them, they will be the ones who
will enjoy the fruits of my labour. (Paola)

Despite the important differences in their trajectories, we encounter that all of these
women have committed to providing love and safety through their presence and the
provision of food, hygiene and consumer goods as measurements of good mothering.
Paola justifies her absence as provisional and replaced temporarily by others. Kelly,
who worked as a secretary in a car dealership before having children, has focused on
her role as ever-present mother, particularly once her son, Ulises, was diagnosed with
Asperger’s syndrome. She decided to open a lunch service kiosk in her home: ‘know-
ing that I can work and keep [my children] close, that a stranger does not take care of
them’. Kelly’s idea of being present for her children consists of performing different
tasks to provide them with love, food and safety. As she put it when referring to her
11-month-old daughter: ‘God gave her to me. She is my daughter, my toy; I comb her
hair, I talk to her, I put her shoes on, I dress her up.’ In a way, Lareau’s idea that
working-class parents ‘viewed children’s development as spontaneously unfolding, as
long as they were provided with comfort, food, shelter, and other basic support’ (2002,
p. 773) prevailed. Meanwhile, a pedagogical maternal presence seeking to organize
children’s activities and lives was much more present in the case of tertiary educated
women (Lareau, 2002, 2003).
However, our interlocutors’ self-understanding as responsible mothers shows a self-
awareness and a plan for the future – barely graspable during the first year – which
placed them as the main articulators of their children’s futures. We have called this a
hyper-agentic motherhood. In this, we follow the already mentioned thesis of Araujo and
Martuccelli’s argument on Chilean subjectification as hyper-agentic individuals (2014).
We add to that the well-known idea of an intensive mothering (Faircloth, 2013; Hays,
1996) taking place in the last decades as a social mandate, which addresses the increas-
ingly prescribed emotional involvement and attention required as a way to secure suc-
cessful children: the intensive mothering trend has also reinforced their sense of
responsibility. Plus, there is a persisting sense in which motherhood in Chile is specially
intensive, as recent trends and expert mandates of intensive parenting imbricate with
established mothering values which do not necessarily aim at a future independence of
children (Murray, 2013, 2015), and which maintain the possibility of women’s self-real-
ization through children. Hyper-agentic mothers place optimism in themselves and other
relevant intimate women, following their own ability to manage and administrate family
lives at the emotional, educational, health, symbolic, cultural and economic levels. These
hyper-agentic mothers embody an optimism that may only be understood together with
new affective registers and subjectification taking place in this neoliberal context
(Freeman, 2020) that place them as responsible for themselves and their families in a
context of such an uncertainty that the idea of a natural growth can only be considered
very partially. As we will claim in the following section, it is their duty to consider every
detail of child rearing in a hostile world that can easily deviate growth so to speak.
Murray and Tizzoni 9

Preparing children for the future in a hostile world

Despite profound inequality and differences amongst women, in our follow-up study we
encountered a transversal sense of concern about inhabiting a hostile world of dangers,
instability and uncertainty, encompassing a range of challenges for the women and their
families. This hostile world shares, firstly, the well-documented feeling of insecurity and
fear that people in Santiago, and Chile generally, have related to crime5 and ‘the other’
(Dammert & Malone, 2003; Luneke, 2016; United Nations Development Programme
[UNDP], 1998). Secondly, it is marked by the distance from the institutional references
that would provide a sense of basic ontological security. This distance is at the base of the
idea that in Chile hyper-agentic individuals (Araujo & Martuccelli, 2014) proliferate:
those marked by the impossibility to secure a position in society and who are particularly
active and challenged in their parental aspirations. At the same time, this is a world that
‘has changed’, offering new possibilities and opportunities.
Interestingly, in their twenties and thirties, these hyper-agentic mothers see them-
selves mainly as facilitators for the next generation, while the main differences consist of
the relative closeness or distance from both hostility and opportunities. Women appeared
confident of their ability to make the right choices within their social circles and to seize
the opportunities available to them. Irene (lawyer, 39), a first-generation university grad-
uate, and Antonia (social worker, 34), who is the daughter of a military officer, have
experienced important upward social mobility, particularly by marrying other profes-
sionals and working in high-income jobs. As mothers, they have been active in organiz-
ing their children’s lives, mainly by leaving behind the ‘unsafe’ areas where they grew
up and settling in safer neighbourhoods in the eastern, wealthy areas of Santiago, while
enrolling them in private bilingual schools. Similar to what Boterman et al. (2010)
observe in Amsterdam, once members of the middle class have children they tend to
move to suburban areas. They are aware and proud of the ‘bubble’ (Antonia’s word) they
have created for their families, which offers temporary protection that will prepare their
children to enter the real world later in life by actively building educational and territorial
communities in ways that have been well documented in Chile (e.g. Canales et al., 2016;
Méndez & Gayo, 2019) and other places in Latin America (e.g. Caldeira, 1996).
As Antonia puts it:

That helps me a lot, being in a safe context . . . safety; being in a closed environment with
similar people in terms of values is very important. It gives me a lot of peace, because the world
is difficult, and leaving [this place] you meet the other . . . And it makes it easier to be with
similar people. Otherwise I think it would be more difficult, all the time you would be like:
‘This is not the way to do things’. (Antonia)

Irene and Antonia are in a constant search for environments where their children will
encounter similar moral values to their own, while avoiding the risk associated with mix-
ing with lower social class subjects (Canales et al., 2016, p. 104).

This school is quite heterogeneous; even if it is homogeneous in terms of socioeconomic

income, it is heterogeneous in cultural norms. There are many foreigners, and many people who
. . . In the end, they achieved a good socioeconomic status based on merit . . . we have different
10 The Sociological Review 00(0)

expectations, less materially oriented, you see? On the other hand, we often find Melchor’s
friends living in a world of consumption, with lots of toys and the latest technology, which
Melchor doesn’t have. (Antonia)

Irene and Antonia claim they are interested in their children developing the necessary
tools and skills to ‘succeed in the world’ when they ‘go out’, evoking possibilities of
work and travel experiences that will allow them to ‘encounter different realities’ that
could make them stronger.
Far from these safe environments, in Paola’s past life in the low-income area of El
Bosque, and in Alto Hospicio in the north of Chile where she now works, she is immersed
in a social world of violence, constant bad influences and people ‘with bad habits’. For
her, there is no alternative to the adversity outside and many times inside the home. By
outside adversity we refer to her recurrent encounters with violent neighbours, drug deal-
ers and the perceived distance from public institutions to intercede, and an overall sense
of insecurity that pervades her approach to public life. Such a sense of adversity requires
dealing with distress indoors, many times involving living in a permanent lockdown in
small spaces, feeling fear and requiring children to develop a range of tools to confront
life outside, while avoiding being left behind.
Beyond fences and deliberate micro-segregation, such as not allowing children to go
outside to the street, these women encourage their children to develop strength of char-
acter and grow the thick skin that is necessary to face the challenges in a social world
that, as Paola points out, ‘can eat them alive’ tomorrow.

I want them to be strong. I feel that, in the end, that is the only thing that one can inherit because,
if tomorrow I die or something happens, the only way that they can sustain themselves in life, in
general, is to have a strong personality. If not, they will be eaten. I feel that the strongest will
always prevail, and strength has to do with being the person who manages to adapt . . . For me,
the greatest fear, truly, in life, is that [my children] will not know how to solve situations. You
know? I mean, like someone coming and ‘putting their finger in their mouths’ [deceiving them]6,
or that tomorrow they become pregnant without wanting to, you know? (Paola)7

These principles partially resemble Adrie Kusserow’s (1999) account of socialization in low-
income families, where the perception of a hostile and violent environment requires ‘not
trusting anyone but oneself’ (1999, p. 216), even considering the important sociocultural
difference of knowing that one’s mother and a small intimate group will be there to protect
you as much and as long as they can, a point we will return to later.8 More specifically our
interlocutors appear to promote something close to a hard projective ‘individualism’, guiding
children towards a more outgoing, upward-moving trajectory in which ‘children needed to
stand firm in order to get anywhere, not simply to avoid violence or drugs’ (Kusserow, 2004,
p. 73). According to this vision, self-confidence, self-sufficiency and stubbornness go beyond
a ‘survivalist mentality but help one to gain success and achievement in life, to arrive and stay
on top of a recently reached status or level of success’ (Kusserow, 2004, p. 73).
In this regard, these women’s main pedagogical role is to promote strength of charac-
ter, independence and the ability to solve problems. They use their own experience as the
point of departure from which to build future expectations regarding their offspring.
Murray and Tizzoni 11

I just hope he does not resemble me, in the sense that I am so silly [mensa]. Since people take
advantage of me and I am easily led, I am able to stand up to some people but not to others. I
want my son to have character and know how to defend himself. I want him to have a strong
character, like his dad, who is always respectful but not so sensitive . . . Because if not, then
one suffers a lot. (Kelly)

I tell [my kids] that any grade below 6.5 is bad [Chile’s grading scale is 1–7]. So now it is
something that they have internalized. If Marina gets a 6.3, she suffers. Sometimes people say:
‘Hey look, why do you demand so much from them?’ And I say, well, how am I not considering
that these grades are important? My [parents] congratulated me for getting a 5.8. At the time I
thought I was cool [bacán], but I think that if they had been more demanding in this regard, then
I would have had better results. (Paola)

In other words, these women encourage their children to grow a thick skin, meaning a
specific sense of resilience, alertness and mistrust towards anyone beyond their intimate
circle. By encouraging their children to develop what they call a ‘strong personality’,
these women feel the need to establish strict limits to avoid the permeation of negative
influences from ‘the street’, resembling Adrie Kusserow’s account of socialization in
low-income families and ‘hard individualism’. Self-determination and a defensive atti-
tude are strategies of survival, involving raising a child who becomes educated in the
doctrine of ‘mind your own business’ (Kusserow, 1999, p. 217).
Certainly, parents (mothers) in our study do encourage distance and awareness as in
Kusserow’s. However, they also claim to be the ones who will stand up for their children
in the long run, marking a clear limit between a constellation of family members, often
distributed among different houses (Araos, 2016), and the outside world. This configura-
tion of parenting aims limits the possibility of importing Kusserow’s categories of indi-
vidualism, and can be summed up in the words of Stella, a 28-year-old mother of three:9

If he runs and falls down, I tell him, ‘If you need my help, call me. If you don’t, don’t.’ So, if
he falls down and it was nothing, he stops and keeps running, but if he falls down and he sees
blood coming out [he yells at me], ‘Moooooooom’. And I go to him, do you understand? . . .
He knows that if it’s something serious, he has to come to me, but if not, he has to go on,
because there’s no one else to help him.

The hostile world these women inhabit includes a frantic race between the winners, who
have managed to follow the difficult rules, and the losers left behind. Although these
women appear to be deterministic in their understanding of who will succeed, in line
with the ‘natural growth’ philosophy, they assume their offsprings’ success depends
mainly on their parental decisions (school, discipline, avoiding bad influences) to help
them grow a thick skin and have some good luck to avoid circumstantial but determinant
events.

As for Matilde [7-year-old], well, teachers have always told me that she is a good student and
that I shouldn’t miss her out [que no la pierda, literally, I shouldn’t lose her, meaning that her
potential will be unrealized]. They have always placed her on a pedestal: ‘Matilde is a good
student’, ‘we knew that she was going to achieve academic excellence’. . . . That’s why I want
12 The Sociological Review 00(0)

to change Matilde to that [subsidized private] school, so that I don’t lose her, because, otherwise,
we will experience the same as with Ana [12-year-old], who had academic excellence and
everything and then that strike happened, and I kind of lost her (ahí como que se me perdió),
and I do not want the same thing to happen with Matilde. It was useful as an experience.
(Dafne)

These women project their unfulfilled dreams and aspirations onto their young children
in various ways. Frequent expressions include ‘I want him/her to do everything that I
didn’t do’ or ‘I want her/him to be more than me’. For example, Kelly told us how she
wants her son to travel: ‘I tell him that if he is going to have a girlfriend, he does not have
to have children. I tell him to save money and travel, to see the whole world . . .’, making
clear that aspirations mean more than the possibility of upward social mobility.
Despite the difficulties and hostility they face, these low-income women demonstrate an
optimistic discourse of high expectations and possibilities for their children, linking their
effort to what they see as a clear strategy for good decisions, aligned with that described by
Leyton and Rojas (2017). At this stage they envision the possibility of a better life for their
children, even when the risk of being left behind may be literally around the corner. As
mothers, they want to avoid their children experiencing what Risør and Arteaga encoun-
tered in a recent study of teenagers in a low-income segregated neighbourhood in southern
Santiago, in which their young interlocutors described their lives as ‘constructed upon
accidents’ (2018, p. 234) and important to no one, which is similar to the idea of low-
income lives lived in a ‘continuous present’ as Clara Han (2012) observed in another poor
neighbourhood. Beyond a defensive stance, in which not even a ‘work of hope’ or sense of
pre-experiencing or trampolining (Pedersen, 2012, p. 144) to a better life seems plausible,
the women in our study are optimistic regarding their families and children’s future. They
are particularly optimistic about them living more fulfilling lives than their own, which
implies not only more money and material resources, but also one in which they attain
enriching personal experiences, such as travel, without caring so much for others.
Regarding the ways in which women in our study place wellbeing in a hostile world for
their children, we can suggest that ‘achievers’ (Méndez & Gayo, 2019), or those who have
reached a better status, are eager to work on securing their social position through the place
where they live, their children’s schools or consumer goods. Meanwhile, women who only
show very subtle signs of improving their position tend to pin their hopes on social mobil-
ity and improvements in their children. Different from previous generations, however, they
don’t seek the key to social mobility and wellbeing only in education (university). These
women are concerned with a wider sense of values and projects such as the idea of their
children being able to ‘enjoy life’ (travel, care for themselves and not only for others) in a
way that they have only partially attained, precisely because of having become (hyper-
agentic) mothers. This move towards so-called post-material values opens a possibility for
optimism beyond the well-known focus on housing, income and consumption.

Conclusion
Our analysis of the trajectories of this small group of women living in Santiago and their
optimism in a hostile world suggests that despite the perceived hostility and danger,
Murray and Tizzoni 13

women expect and incentivize their children to go out, ‘play the game’, ‘be more’ than
them and experience the good life that is out there. Our findings support the idea that –
with the exception of the elites – in neoliberal Chile class is a slippery concept in terms
of values or styles to be reproduced, or a sense of belonging. This can be observed, for
example, in the partial resonances with Lareau’s classed child rearing strategies and edu-
cation: it is not possible to import these distinctions in a place in which a successful
parenting is measured by their capacity to encourage change and improvement in the
lives of children. Even if the natural growth principle may apply when observing fami-
lies’ relationships with schools, or some deterministic perceptions of how you can ‘miss
out’ a child, the amount of work displayed by these hyper-agentic mothers as responsible
for their children’s outcomes limits its analytic pertinence.
Despite differences and inequalities, the women in our study are immersed and have
grasped – many times tangentially or even as fantasy – the possibilities of a hostile world
of (neoliberal) opportunities. In other words, these women embody the cultural and
material change of Chile in the last decades, in which the promise of ‘opportunities’ or
the good life for them and their loved ones can be attained through mechanisms such as
credit (Han, 2012) or the promise of improvement through education (Canales in
Hopenhayn, 2020). In this regard, we do not face a straightforward or inevitable cruel
optimism in the sense that Berlant suggests, in part because of the hostile world we have
described in which difficulties, inequalities, uncertainty and violence and therefore, cru-
elty are dealt with and confronted by these women everyday. Boldly, their approach to
optimism is not one that dreams beyond the cruel world: ‘optimism has not succumbed
to cruelty’ (Freeman, 2020, p. 85). As we have mentioned, their optimism towards pos-
sibilities takes place within the hostile world in line with what Freeman calls ‘feelings of
possibility’ (2020, p. 72). It is in oneself or one’s children experiencing a meaningful
better life within the hostile world that these women place their efforts.
Hyper-agentic mothers, as novel Chilean neoliberal subjects, are certainly individual-
istic in their values and what they transmit to their children regarding institutions and
those beyond the intimate circle. At the same time, it is nowhere but in the present and
future projection of intimate relationships, in this case with children, that the fight in the
hostile world makes sense. Therefore, we observe the presence of a kind of individualism
that dialogues with Kusserow’s sense of projective hard individualism in which children
are taught how to navigate the hostile world in the search of success. However, it is dif-
ficult to identify these subjects under this label only. As we have observed, children are
brought up with the idea that mothers will be there for them in the long run, while wom-
en’s sense of motherhood is still built around the consolidation of an unbreakable rela-
tion with their children, regardless of what actually takes place. It is more like hard
individualism-with-your-mother/child.
In a recent interview Canales (Hopenhayn, 2020) suggested that part of the current
social crisis and the manifestation of unease and anger in Chile can be explained by the
fact that ‘they offered you to become an individual, but you are still mass’. This is cer-
tainly true from the perspective of injustice and structural inequality, and how the neolib-
eral promise of economic and status improvement was not fulfilled. At the same time,
following Araujo and Martuccelli (2014), our ethnography claims that subjects are not
only individuals but also individualistic ones as we have shown above: optimistic,
14 The Sociological Review 00(0)

hyper-agentic individuals of hard skins in a hostile world. Certainly, the current events
and political processes in Chile will implicate a turning point in the lives of Chilean
future generations. In this context, our longitudinal study of mothering provides informa-
tion on the usually silent processes of subjectification and emergent values that can be
overlooked in times of social transformation.

Funding
This article was supported by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development
(FONDECYT Nº11100432; CIIR-FONDAP Nº15110006; PIA-SOC Nº180033).

Notes
1. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD?locations=CL (accessed 11
September 2020).
2. Private schools can select students and decide on tuition, while public schools are open to all
students and do not charge tuition.
3. In 2007, 50% of students attended public schools, down from 78% in 1980. https://centroestu-
dios.mineduc.cl/wp-content/uploads/sites/100/2018/12/ANUARIO-MINEDUC_VERSION-
BAJA.pdf (accessed 11 September 2020).
4. According to the survey, 49% of Chileans perceived an improvement in their social position
compared to their parents; 58% in income, 54% in employment and 53% in family life (CEP,
2014).
5. Note that this feeling of fear is not related to actual crime rates (Johnson-Amorrortu & Ubilla-
Bravo, 2019).
6. ‘Putting their finger in their mouths’ [meter el dedo en la boca] is a colloquial expression used
in Chile meaning to be deceived, tricked or cheated.
7. Paola’s emphasis on self-sufficiency and resilience also evokes the idea of a ‘strong black
woman’ (Sharp & Ispa, 2009) as the only possible response in a context marked by vulner-
ability and discrimination.
8. Such a straightforward way of claiming that there will be no one else but one’s family to
provide help and shelter is less evident for those living in safe and securitized environments.
Yet, these women constantly remind children of the existence of a world of harshness even if
it takes place at an abstract distance. Mostly, they let them know about inequality by referring
to the suffering of distant or abstract ‘others’, similar to what researchers have encountered
among middle classes in other contexts (Gaztambide-Fernández & Howard, 2013; Sherman,
2017).
9. In 2018–2020, we carried out ethnographic fieldwork with a group of 10 mothers and their
babies and toddlers in a project led by the Centro de Justicia Educacional and UNICEF.
Marjorie Murray is also finishing a project on parenting at a crossroads and preschool chil-
dren in a low-income area in Santiago (FONDECYT 1181503).

References
Araos, C. (2016). El allegamiento o la proximidad invisible. Aportes etnográficos al estudio del
espacio doméstico en contexto de pobreza urbana en Chile [Closeness or invisible proximity.
Ethnographic contributions to the study of domestic space in the context of urban poverty
in Chile]. In C. Siles (Ed.), Los Invisibles. Por qué la pobreza y la exclusión dejaron de ser
prioridad [The invisibles. Why poverty and exclusion are no longer a priority] (pp. 195–230).
IES Chile.
Murray and Tizzoni 15

Araujo, K. (2019). Desmesuras, desencantos, irritaciones y desapegos [Excesses, disenchant-

ments, irritations and detachments]. In K. Araujo (Ed.), Hilos tensados [Tense threads] (pp.
15–36). Universidad de Santiago de Chile.
Araujo, K., & Martuccelli, D. (2014). Beyond institutional individualism: Agentic individual-
ism and the individuation process in Chilean society. Current Sociology, 62(1), 24–40. doi:
10.1177/0011392113512496
Ball, S. (2003). Class, strategies and the education market: The middle classes and social advan-
tage. RoutledgeFalmer.
Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism. Duke University Press.
Boterman, W., Karsten, L., & Musterd, S. (2010). Gentrifiers settling down? Patterns and trends of
residential location of middle-class families in Amsterdam. Housing Studies, 25(5), 693–714.
doi: 10.1080/02673037.2010.483586
Caldeira, T. (1996). Building up walls: The new pattern of spatial segregation in São Paulo.
International Social Science Journal, 48(147), 55–66. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2451.1996.
tb00056.x
Canales, M., Bellei, C., & Orellana, V. (2016). ¿Por qué elegir una escuela privada subvencionada?
Sectores medios emergentes y elección de escuela en un sistema de mercado [Why choose
a semi-private school? Middle social class sectors and school choice in a market system].
Estudios pedagógicos (Valdivia), 42(3), 89–109. doi: 10.4067/S0718-07052016000400005
Centro de Estudios Públicos. (2014, November). Estudio Nacional de Opinión Pública, N°72.
www.cepchile.cl/cep/site/docs/20160304/20160304100954/EncuestaCEP_Noviembre2014.
pdf (accessed 4 August 2020).
Dammert, L., & Malone, M. F. T. (2003). Fear of crime or fear of life? Public insecurities in Chile.
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 22(1), 79–101. doi: 10.1111/1470-9856.00065
Ehrenreich, B. (1989). Fear of falling: The inner life of the middle class. Pantheon.
Faircloth, C. (2013). ‘Intensive motherhood’ in comparative perspective: Feminism, full-term
breastfeeding and attachment parenting in London and Paris. In C. Faircloth, L. Layne & D.
Hoffman (Eds.), Parenting in global perspective: Negotiating ideologies of kinship, self and
politics (pp. 137–153). Routledge.
Faircloth, C., & Murray, M. (2015). Parenting: Kinship, expertise, and anxiety. Journal of Family
Issues, 36(9), 1115–1129.
Freeman, C. (2020). Feeling neoliberal. Feminist Anthropology, 1(1), 71–88. doi: 10.1002/
fea2.12010
Furedi, F. (2002). Paranoid parenting: Why ignoring the experts may be best for your child.
Chicago Review Press.
Garretón, M. (2017). City profile: Actually existing neoliberalism in Greater Santiago. Cities, 65,
32–50. doi: 10.1016/j.cities.2017.02.005
Gaztambide-Fernández, R., & Howard, A. (2013). Social justice, deferred complicity, and the
moral plight of the wealthy. Democracy and Education, 21(1), 1–4.
Han, C. (2012). Life in debt: Times of care and violence in neoliberal Chile. University of
California Press.
Hays, S. (1996). The cultural contradictions of motherhood. Yale University Press.
Hopenhayn, D. (2020, August 29). Manuel Canales, sociólogo: ‘Para encauzar el estallido hay que
interpretar su esperanza, no sólo su rabia’ [Manuel Canales, sociologist: ‘To understand the
outburst you have to interpret their hope, not just their anger’] [Interview] La Tercera.
Irwin, S., & Elley, S. (2011). Concerted cultivation? Parenting values, education and class diver-
sity. Sociology, 45(3), 480–495. doi: 10.1177/0038038511399618
Johnson-Amorrortu, B., & Ubilla-Bravo, G. (2019). Contradicciones entre la situación delictual y
la percepción de inseguridad en la comuna de Pudahuel, Región Metropolitana de Santiago
16 The Sociological Review 00(0)

[Contradictions between the crime situation and the perception of insecurity in the Pudahuel
commune, Santiago Metropolitan Region]. Revista de Geografía Espacios, 17, 25–55. doi:
10.25074/07197209.17.1219
Kusserow, A. (1999). De-homogenizing American individualism: Socializing hard and soft indi-
vidualism in Manhattan and Queens. Ethos, 27(2), 210–234. doi: 10.1525/eth.1999.27.2.210
Kusserow, A. (2004). American individualisms. Palgrave Macmillan.
Lamont, M. (1992). Money, morals and manners. University of Chicago Press.
Lareau, A. (2002). Invisible inequality: Social class and childrearing in black families and white
families. American Sociological Review, 67(5), 747–776. doi: 10.2307/3088916
Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race and family life. University of California Press.
Leyton, D., & Rojas, M. (2017). Middle-class mothers’ passionate attachment to school choice:
Abject objects, cruel optimism and affective exploitation. Gender and Education, 29(5), 558–
576. doi: 10.1080/09540253.2017.1324130
Lunecke, A. (2016). Inseguridad ciudadana y diferenciación social en el nivel microbarrial: el caso
del sector Santo Tomás, Santiago de Chile [Citizens’ insecurity and social differentiation
at the micro-neighbourhood level: The case of the Santo Tomás sector, Santiago de Chile].
EURE (Santiago), 42(125), 109–129. doi: 10.4067/S0250-71612016000100005
Méndez, M., & Gayo, M. (2019). Upper middle class social reproduction: Wealth, schooling, and
residential choice in Chile. Palgrave Macmillan.
Miller, D. (1997). How infants grow mothers in North London. Theory, Culture & Society, 14(4),
67–88. doi: 10.1177/026327697014004003
Miller, T. (2017). Making sense of parenthood: Caring, gender and family lives. Cambridge
University Press.
Mol, A. (2008). The logic of care: Health and the problem of patient choice. Routledge.
Murray, M. (2012). Childbirth in Santiago de Chile: Stratification, intervention, and child centere-
dness. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 26(3), 319–337.
Murray, M. (2013). ‘Staying with the baby’: Intensive mothering and social mobility in Santiago
de Chile. In C. Faircloth, D. Hoffman & L. Layne (Eds.), Parenting in global perspective:
Negotiating ideologies of kinship, self and politics (pp. 151–166). Routledge.
Murray, M. (2015). Back to work? Childcare and guilt during the first year in Santiago de Chile.
Journal of Family Issues, 36, 1171–1191. doi: 10.1177/0192513X14533543
O’Dougherty, M. (2013). Plot and irony in childbirth narratives of middle-class Brazilian women.
Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 27(1), 43–62. doi: 10.1111/maq.12015
Pedersen, M. (2012). A day in the Cadillac: The work of hope in urban Mongolia. Social Analysis,
56(2), 136–151. doi: 10.3167/sa.2012.560210
Risør, H., & Arteaga, I. (2018). Disjunctive belongings and the utopia of intimacy: Violence, love
and friendship among poor urban youth in neoliberal Chile. Identities, 25(2), 228–244. doi:
10.1080/1070289X.2017.1400278
Sharp, E., & Ispa, J. (2009). Inner-city single Black mothers’ gender-related childrearing expecta-
tions and goals. Sex Roles, 60(9–10), 656–668. doi: 10.1007/s11199-008-9567-3
Sherman, R. (2017). Conflicted cultivation: Parenting, privilege, and moral worth in wealthy New
York families. American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 5(1–2), 1–33. doi: 10.1057/s41290-
016-0012-8
United Nations Development Programme. (1998). Informe sobre desarrollo humano en Chile
1998: Las paradojas de la modernización [Chile human development report 1998: The para-
doxes of modernization].
Vincent, C., & Ball, S. (2007). ‘Making up’ the middle-class child: Families, activities and class
dispositions. Sociology, 41(6), 1061–1078. doi: 10.1177/0038038507082315