Allison Pearson gives voice to the daily struggle of a working mother through the character of Kate Reddy, a fund manager and a mother of two. Throughout the novel, Kate tries to set balance between her social roles as a mother and a career woman. Although her life style necessitates flexibility in performing her maternity role, she still conforms to the ideology of intensive mothering, which dictates that a mother is the only responsible person for the psychological and physical well-being of her children. The beliefs begot by the ideology of “intensive mothering" get internalized and become a part of who a mother is. Such beliefs can be seen as an integral part of social identity that is accumulated by years of living in a certain society governed by intensive mothering ideology. Torn between the house and the workplace, she falls victim to chronic stress. The research investigates the effect of intensive-mothering ideology on the mental
health of working mothers represented by Pearson's Kate Reddy