Mothering in Motion: Migrant Mothers’ Spatial Negotiation of Motherhood in Urban China

Abstract

China’s rapid urbanization has created the world’s largest internal migration, increasingly shaped by women’s participation. Co-migrant mothers—rural women who bring their children to cities—occupy complex roles as workers, wives, and caregivers. Existing studies focus on left-behind mothers or individual coping, but little is known about how co-migrant mothers collectively reshape motherhood through urban spatial and social change. Based on fieldwork in a Guangzhou migrant community, this study develops the “disembedding–re-embedding–reconstruction” framework to show how mobility reconfigures motherhood. Moving from villages to cities disembeds mothers from the moral surveillance that enforces self-sacrificing norms. Community-based organizations (CBOs) then serve as re-embedding sites where women form new maternal subjectivities through mutual support and reflection, producing a locally rooted idea of self-caring motherhood. This idea reframes care as reciprocal rather than self-depleting and affirms mothers’ emotional and bodily well-being as part of family life. Finally, these values are reconstructed in households through subtle temporal and spatial negotiations that adjust gendered divisions of labor without open conflict. Highlighting collective empowerment and spatial transformation, this study moves motherhood research beyond individualized lenses and reveals grounded, pragmatic forms of gendered agency in China’s rural–urban migration.

1. Introduction

China’s rapid urbanization over recent decades has driven an unprecedented scale of internal population mobility. As the world’s largest instance of internal migration, China’s migrant population has not only expanded in size but also become a key force reshaping social structures and sustaining economic growth (Renwei et al. 2025). According to the Seventh National Census, more than 376 million people are classified as migrants, contributing substantially to urban labor supply, rural–urban resource flows, and the vitality of urban economies (China Economic Net 2021).

Within this vast mobility landscape, the growing participation of women has become particularly significant. Historically, rural–urban migration in China was dominated by men employed in construction and manufacturing (Li and Li 2007). However, industrial restructuring and labor market diversification have drawn increasing numbers of women into urban migration flows, marking a distinct feminization of migration (Bastia and Piper 2019). This shift is especially salient because women’s migration often coincides with crucial life-course transitions such as motherhood (Zhao and Hannum 2019; Blanco Rodríguez et al. 2023). The intersection of migration and motherhood produces a unique group of migrant mothers who simultaneously navigate the roles of wage earners, wives, and caregivers. Their migration trajectories are thus characterized by multiple and sometimes conflicting demands—adapting to urban work and living conditions while undertaking the emotional and practical responsibilities of child-rearing. Examining these tensions provides a valuable lens through which to understand the everyday gendered consequences of China’s social transformation.

Existing scholarship has contributed important insights into Chinese migrant mothers’ living conditions and forms of agency. However, much of this research remains anchored in the left-behind migration model, where mothers work in cities while their children remain in rural hometowns (Kong and Dong 2024; Peng and Wong 2016). In recent years, however, a growing number of women have chosen to migrate with their children, giving rise to an emergent pattern of co-migration (Peng 2020). Despite its increasing prevalence, the lived experiences of co-migrant mothers—and the spatial and social mechanisms through which they reconfigure motherhood in urban contexts—remain underexplored. Moreover, existing studies often emphasize individual coping strategies, overlooking how collective interactions and spatial transformations co-produce new maternal subjectivities.

This study addresses these gaps by focusing on co-migrant mothers—rural women who bring their children to cities, live with them, and undertake everyday caregiving and educational responsibilities. It examines how these women reconstruct motherhood through the spatial and social conditions of urban migration. Situated at the intersection of motherhood studies and migration research, this study conceptualizes space not as a static backdrop but as an active, relational medium through which maternal identities and practices are negotiated, disrupted, and transformed.

To capture this process, the study develops a “disembedding–re-embedding–reconstruction” analytical framework. This framework explicitly builds on the conceptualization of migrants’ embedding, dis-embedding, and re-embedding originally developed by Louise Ryan and Jon Mulholland (Ryan and Mulholland 2015; Ryan 2018; Ryan et al. 2021; Mulholland and Ryan 2023), who theorize how migrants’ attachments, belonging, and social positioning dynamically shift across time and space. Drawing from their foundational work, we extend this framework by integrating the process of maternal identity reconstruction and situating the analysis within the specific gendered context of internal migration in China. This enriched approach elucidates how spatial mobility and place-based interactions drive transformations in motherhood across multiple scales. As migrant mothers move from rural to urban contexts, spatial transitions first disembed them from the normative surveillance of traditional moral orders, creating cracks in self-sacrificing ideals of motherhood. Urban community spaces—particularly community-based organizations (CBOs)—then serve as re-embedding sites where women collectively reconstruct alternative maternal values such as self-caring motherhood through dialogue, mutual validation, and everyday participation. These reconfigured ideas are subsequently reconstructed within the household through subtle temporal and spatial negotiations that reshape gendered divisions of labor and caregiving without open confrontation.

Empirically, this study contributes to understanding the emerging population of co-migrant mothers in urban China, revealing how rural–urban mobility reshapes mothering practices, household relations, and community support networks. Theoretically, it advances motherhood studies by moving beyond individualized notions of maternal agency to highlight collective empowerment and spatial transformation as key drivers of change. By integrating macro-level mobility, meso-level collective interaction, and micro-level everyday negotiation into a dynamic framework, this study reveals localized, culturally embedded pathways of motherhood reconstruction. Together, these insights offer new perspectives on the entanglements of gender, family, and spatiality in China’s ongoing social transformation.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Mothering, Migration, and Space

Research on motherhood has long prioritized temporal dimensions (such as the intensity of maternal time investment) and emotional dimensions (such as the depth of emotional labor), while comparatively neglecting the spatial dimensions of maternal practices (Arendell 2000; Hays 1996). However, a growing body of scholarship now recognizes that motherhood is fundamentally a spatialized process—maternal identities are constituted through spatial practices, and different spaces (household, community, city) shape distinct norms and expectations of being a mother (Dyck 1990; Massey 2013).

The significance of this spatial turn lies in its shift of analytical focus from who mothers are to where and how motherhood unfolds, thereby illuminating the geographical variations and spatial politics of maternal experience. Space is not a neutral backdrop for maternal practices but an active, constitutive element. Scholars have demonstrated this across multiple spatial scales. At the household scale, maternal practices reshape domestic space, which in turn structures the possibilities of maternal identity (Aslam and Adams 2022; Mu and Oh 2024). At the community scale, neighborhood environments and school networks become key arenas for the construction of maternal identity (Osgood and Henward 2020; Choi et al. 2018). At the urban scale, public infrastructure and transportation systems directly influence the spatial-temporal organization of maternal practices (Rodriguez Castro et al. 2022; Doherty 2021).

The emergence of digital spaces has further expanded the spatial dimensions of motherhood. Online platforms not only serve as venues for performing motherhood but also enable mothers to produce alternative parenting knowledge, share lived experiences, and resist dominant expert discourses (Longhurst 2016; Williams Veazey 2021). When spatial mobility enters the purview of motherhood research, the complexity of maternal practices becomes even more apparent. Scholarship on transnational migration has revealed the profound influence of mobility on mothering. Madianou and Miller’s (2011) study of Filipino transnational mothers shows how digital media sustain “remote mothering,” enabling emotional connection despite physical separation (Madianou and Miller 2011). Parreñas (2000) highlights the contradictory position of Filipino domestic workers in global care chains—providing intimate care for employers’ families while being unable to care for their own children (Parreñas 2000). Gilmartin and Migge (2016) further demonstrate that migration can simultaneously liberate women from local social surveillance and compel them to reconstruct belonging in new sociocultural contexts (Gilmartin and Migge 2016). Together, these studies treat spatial mobility as an analytical lens, revealing how spatial transitions transform the conditions, meanings, and modes of motherhood.

Yet, existing research exhibits notable geographical and demographic biases. Geographically, it has focused predominantly on transnational migration—particularly South–North flows from developing to developed countries—while internal rural–urban mobility within developing countries remains understudied. Internal migration differs from transnational migration in several important ways: it does not involve crossing national borders but often traverses institutional boundaries (such as China’s hukou system); it tends to feature higher mobility frequency and more circular movement; and while linguistic and cultural differences are less pronounced, urban–rural and class disparities remain substantial. Demographically, most studies center on occupational migrants (such as domestic and care workers) or Western middle-class migrant mothers, leaving working-class women engaged in internal migration within developing countries underexplored. Extending scholarly attention to these contexts is therefore essential. The case of China’s migrant mothers provides a crucial opportunity to examine how motherhood is reconfigured through internal mobility and embedded within distinct spatial, institutional, and cultural conditions.

2.2. Migrant Mothers in the Chinese Context

Research on Chinese migrant mothers has undergone a significant shift from a “deficit paradigm” to an “agency paradigm.” Early studies, influenced by institutional analysis traditions, portrayed migrant mothers primarily as victims of macro-level structures such as the hukou system and the urban–rural dual structure (Xu and Xin 2021; Xiao and Tang 2021). Within this framework, “migrant mothers” became almost synonymous with “mothers of left-behind children.” Unable to afford urban education and lacking care support networks, many mothers were compelled to leave their children in rural hometowns while seeking employment in cities. Consequently, scholarship focused on the negative effects of mother–child separation and the developmental problems of left-behind children, treating family separation as an inevitable outcome of structural constraints (Song and Dong 2018; Zhao 2020). While this deficit paradigm illuminated the oppressive effects of institutional exclusion, it overemphasized constraint and overlooked migrant mothers’ everyday agency.

With ongoing urbanization and improving economic conditions, the patterns of migrant motherhood have changed significantly. Increasing numbers of mothers now bring their children to the cities, forming co-migration family models. In economically developed regions such as the Pearl River Delta, over half of migrant children now live with their mothers (Guo et al. 2024), marking a fundamental shift from “absent spaces” to “present spaces” of mothering. Accompanying this transformation, scholars have increasingly adopted an agency-oriented perspective. Peng (2018, 2020) finds that new-generation migrant mothers often practice hybrid motherhood—retaining rural emotional modes of expression while embracing urban, “scientific” parenting concepts (Peng 2018, 2020). Bao et al. (2025) further propose the concept of multi-local positionality, revealing how co-migrant mothers flexibly navigate between rural and urban contexts, actively reconstructing the meaning of motherhood by accessing diverse parenting knowledge and reimagining their children’s futures (Bao et al. 2025). Collectively, these studies reposition migrant mothers from structural victims to agentic actors.

Despite important advances, existing research faces three interconnected theoretical limitations. First, agency is still framed in overly individualized terms. Most studies emphasize personal strategies such as information gathering or cultural negotiation, but pay limited attention to how migrant mothers form mutual-aid networks or collectively reshape mothering norms through shared practices. This omission is particularly significant in the Chinese context, where collectivity and relationality are central to social action. Second, the spatial transformation of motherhood remains insufficiently theorized as a dynamic process. Existing studies often offer static descriptions and leave key questions unanswered. For example, how do rural and urban differences prompt mothers to reflect on gendered expectations? How do mothers’ and children’s shared movements across space, especially in co-migration contexts, reshape the mechanisms through which maternal roles are rethought and reconstructed? Third, current research lacks an integrated, multi-scalar approach. Although scholars have examined maternal practices at the macro level of migration regimes, the meso level of community interactions, and the micro level of household dynamics, these scales tend to be treated separately. In reality, motherhood reconstruction unfolds through the interaction of these scales, which calls for a framework that captures their relational dynamics.

To address these gaps, this study draws explicitly on the embedding, dis-embedding, and re-embedding framework developed by Louise Ryan and Jon Mulholland (Ryan and Mulholland 2015; Ryan 2018; Ryan et al. 2021; Mulholland and Ryan 2023). Their work conceptualizes embedding as a continuous, uneven process that spans economic, relational, spatial, and political dimensions, and emphasizes how migrants negotiate attachments over time through disruption (dis-embedding), reorientation, and the formation of new connections (re-embedding). This processual and multi-scalar perspective directly responds to the limits of existing research by enabling a relational view of agency, a dynamic understanding of spatial transformation, and an integrated analysis across scales. Although developed in European international migration studies, this framework is well-suited to examining how Chinese co-migrant mothers reconstruct motherhood across rural–urban transitions, community-based collective practices, and everyday household negotiations.

Building on this framework, this study asks three questions: How do rural–urban transitions trigger reflection on established mothering norms? How do migrant mothers collectively develop new understandings of motherhood through community interactions? And how are these new understandings translated into everyday household practices?

3. Research Design

3.1. Research Area

This study was conducted in Guangzhou, a leading site of China’s reform and opening-up and a major national economic hub. As one of the country’s main migrant destinations, Guangzhou hosts 9.38 million migrants—nearly half of whom are women—within Guangdong Province’s total migrant population of over 50 million (Guangdong Municipal People’s Government 2021). The city’s rapid modernization and urban–rural integration have produced pronounced socio-spatial inequalities and cultural intersections, making it an ideal setting to examine the spatial practices of migrant mothers.

Fieldwork focused on a migrant-concentrated district in Guangzhou, where manufacturing industries have flourished since the 1990s. Migrants now comprise more than 80% of local residents, forming a relatively self-contained community ecology. This district was selected for three key reasons. First, its strong industrial base—centered on labor-intensive sectors such as garment production and electronics assembly—provides extensive employment opportunities for migrant women, forming the economic foundation for female migrant communities. Second, the district has developed comprehensive community facilities, including schools, hospitals, and markets, that support family life. Educational options include both public schools admitting some migrant children and private institutions primarily serving migrant families. Third, since 2010, numerous community-based organizations (CBOs) have emerged with support from government and civil charity initiatives. These CBOs offer educational, childcare, and social services, creating important spaces where migrant women participate in community life, build support networks, and collectively negotiate new meanings of motherhood.

3.2. Research Methods and Data Sources

This study employed qualitative methods, including unstructured interviews and participant observation, conducted from April to October 2025. Qualitative inquiry was chosen because the reconstruction of motherhood is a multidimensional process involving conceptual, emotional, and practical changes that require deep engagement to uncover. Additionally, migrant mothers’ spatial strategies often appear as subtle practices embedded in everyday routines, which are effectively captured through sustained field observation.

The researcher entered local community-based organizations (CBOs) as a volunteer and gradually established trust with migrant mothers through children’s homework tutoring, parent–child activities, and community events. Participant observation was carried out intensively from July to October 2025, totaling around 120 h across community centers, public spaces, and domestic settings. Field notes were written immediately after each visit. Observations focused on everyday behavioral patterns, discursive expressions, and spatialized mothering practices.

Building on these relationships, unstructured in-depth interviews were conducted with 23 migrant mothers (A01–A23), each interviewed two to three times for 30–60 min. Interview topics covered migration trajectories, mothering concepts, spatial practices, and household negotiations. Data saturation was reached after 18 interviews, and subsequent interviews ensured thematic robustness and diversity. Additional insights came from informal conversations and observations of other mothers. To triangulate perspectives, three community workers (B01–B03) and three spouses (C01–C03) were also interviewed.

All participants were married rural-hukou mothers aged 30–45, most having lived in Guangzhou for over five years, originating from Hunan, Jiangxi, Hubei, and Sichuan. Migration followed two patterns: separation–reunion (childbirth in hometowns, then migration and reunification) or direct co-migration (bringing children from an early age). All were co-migrating at the time of research. Participants worked in factories, services, or self-employment, and most had junior or senior high school education, living in urban villages or near industrial zones.

Field materials were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) through open, axial, and selective coding, with NVivo 12 assisting data management. Key themes were integrated into the analytical framework of dis-embedding, re-embedding, and reconstruction. All participants provided informed consent, and all personal and organizational names are pseudonyms (See Appendix A for details).

4. Results

This section examines how the migrant mothers in this study reconstruct motherhood through spatial mobility, following the analytical framework of dis-embedding, re-embedding, and reconstruction. Section 4.1 explores spatial dis-embedding: how rural-to-urban migration disrupts the moral surveillance sustaining self-sacrificing motherhood in villages. Section 4.2 analyzes spatial re-embedding: how community-based organizations provide collective spaces for constructing alternative understandings of motherhood. Section 4.3 examines the reconstruction of mothering practices: how mothers negotiate household power structures and employ temporal-spatial strategies to enact self-caring motherhood. Together, these processes reveal how spatial transitions drive maternal identity transformation.

4.1. Spatial Disembedding: Escaping the Discipline of Motherhood in Rural Society

4.1.1. Normalized Motherhood and Moral Discipline in Rural Society

Patriarchal family systems have structured Chinese rural society for millennia. Despite the disruptions of twentieth-century modernization, patriarchy remains deeply entrenched, often manifesting more rigidly in rural than in urban contexts (Jin 2010). As O’Reilly (2021) argues, patriarchal mothering naturalizes motherhood as women’s “calling,” tying their moral worth and social recognition to their maternal performance. One respondent captured this sentiment succinctly (O’Reilly 2021):

“In our village, whether a woman is considered good mainly depends on how well she raises her children. No matter your job or income, if you don’t raise children well, people say you’ve failed as a woman.”

(Xiaomei, aged 42)

The moral ideal of a “good mother” in rural China centers on self-sacrificing mothering—a model of comprehensive devotion and self-denial oriented around “putting children first in everything.” This echoes Hays’s (1996) concept of “intensive mothering” but manifests in more extreme, moralized forms in rural settings. Self-sacrificing mothering is not simply outcome-based but process-oriented: mothers must demonstrate effort through visible, labor-intensive practices to earn social approval (Hays 1996).

“Village elders said cloth diapers are better than disposable ones—using disposables shows you’re lazy and don’t care about your child’s health. But cloth diapers meant hand-washing several times daily, which was exhausting. If you didn’t, people gossiped.”

(Xiaomei, aged 42)

In this moral framework, convenience signals moral weakness. Mothers’ personal needs—emotional, social, or physical—are rendered secondary or even illegitimate. As another respondent recalled:

“Once I wanted to have dinner with friends in town, and my father-in-law said, ‘You’re a mother now, still thinking about going out? The child is so young—how can you not worry?’”

(Gugu, aged 35)

Cultural prescriptions alone do not guarantee compliance; they are sustained through everyday mechanisms of moral surveillance. As Fei Xiaotong (Fei et al. 1992) observed, rural China remains an acquaintance society where kinship and neighborhood networks make private behavior highly visible. One participant explained:

“In our village, if something happens today, the whole village knows tomorrow. Everyone watches everyone else, especially how you raise children.”

(Liping, aged 40)

This omnipresent gaze parallels Foucault’s panopticon (2008) (Foucault 2008): mothers internalize community expectations and self-regulate their behavior under the watchful eye of neighbors and elders. Such surveillance operates through clear generational hierarchies—elders hold moral authority to judge and instruct younger women (Zhai 2022)—and enforces conformity through gossip, commentary, and emotional pressure.

“I didn’t have enough milk, so I wanted to add formula. My mother-in-law was fine at first. But when neighbors saw me mixing formula, they said, ‘Formula already? Breast milk is best.’ Village elders started gossiping: ‘Other mothers can feed their babies; breastfed babies are smarter; you’re unwilling to endure hardship.’ My mother-in-law then urged me to persist. For six months I was exhausted.”

(Liping, aged 40)

This surveillance is effective because mothering in rural society is deeply spatially embedded: domestic, social, and moral spaces overlap, making observation continuous and unavoidable. Every act of childcare may become subject to communal scrutiny, and deviations quickly trigger gossip and correction. Cultural norms and spatial surveillance thus form a mutually reinforcing system—surveillance ensures compliance with ideals, while those ideals legitimate surveillance—together reproducing the moral discipline of self-sacrificing motherhood.

4.1.2. Rural-Urban-Migration: Coexistence of Liberation and Predicament

Rural-to-urban migration fundamentally disrupts the social infrastructure of surveillance. Physical distance severs the dense kinship and neighborhood ties characteristic of the rural acquaintance society, while social anonymity in cities dilutes the authority of elders and communal norms. For many participants, this rupture initially brings a sense of liberation. As one reflected:

“Back home, someone watches everything you do. But here in Guangzhou, nobody knows you, nobody controls you. It felt strange at first, but gradually became much more relaxing.”

(Bangbang, aged 36)

In this newfound anonymity, the participants encounter diverse maternal practices that challenge their deeply ingrained beliefs about what constitutes a “good mother.” Bangbang described observing a local working mother whose child managed homework independently:

“I was shocked because back home, everyone thinks mothers must supervise constantly. But their child performs well. This made me question whether you must ‘do everything’ to be a good mother.”

(Bangbang, aged 36)

Through such encounters, these mothers begin to recognize that self-sacrificing mothering is not an absolute truth but a socially constructed ideal. As Giddens (2023) argues, exposure to diverse lifestyles renders once “taken-for-granted” norms reflexive and open to reinterpretation (Giddens 2023).

Yet this cognitive loosening rarely translates into practical freedom. The participants find that the urban environment imposes new structural and emotional constraints, producing what might be termed a liberation–predicament paradox: while freed from direct rural surveillance, they struggle to reconcile traditional mothering ideals with the demands of urban life.

First, the economic pressures of urban life make wholehearted childcare devotion increasingly unsustainable. Unlike rural subsistence farming, where basic needs can often be met through self-production, urban living requires a steady cash income for rent, education, food, and other daily expenses. Maintaining a single-income household is therefore nearly impossible. As Xiuqing explained:

“Back home, though poor, we had our own house and land. In Guangzhou, rent alone is over 2000 yuan monthly, plus children’s schooling, food, healthcare—the pressure is enormous. I must work, but then I can’t watch my children constantly.”

(Xiuqing, aged 38)

Second, labor market marginalization and the absence of kin support further challenge ideals of self-sacrificing motherhood. With limited education and skills, most participants can only obtain factory or service-sector jobs that involve long hours and offer little flexibility. Unlike in their home villages, they cannot rely on relatives or neighbors for childcare support.

Faced with these dilemmas, sending children back to the village might appear a rational solution. Yet most mothers reject this option due to both emotional attachment and moral concern. Having witnessed the social and psychological problems of left-behind children, they are unwilling to repeat that pattern.

“Many left-behind children in our village—grandparents can’t control them. Some don’t study, just play on phones; others mix with bad company. I don’t want my child becoming like that, so no matter how hard it is, I keep him with me.”

(Xiaojun, aged 41)

In short, while rural mothers endure moral surveillance, they can nonetheless fulfill self-sacrificing mothering through the support of family labor, community networks, and flexible rural time structures. In contrast, the migrant mothers in this study confront a double bind: economic necessity forces them into paid work, yet enduring moral expectations continue to define their maternal worth. Exposure to urban diversity destabilizes traditional norms but provides no alternative framework to replace them. They thus occupy an in-between position—disembedded from rural moral orders yet not fully integrated into urban modes of mothering. Suspended between liberation and constraint, they seek new social connections, support networks, and collective spaces through which to renegotiate and reimagine what it means to mother in migration.

4.2. Spatial Re-Embedding: Collective Empowerment in Social and Community Organizations

4.2.1. Community-Based Organizations: Support Networks for Migrant Mothers

The southern part of Panyu District, where this research is situated, has attracted large migrant populations since the 1990s due to the establishment of numerous foreign-invested factories. By 2011, Dalong Street recorded 47,800 registered residents and 192,400 migrant residents—over 80% of its total population (The Official Website of the People’s Government of Panyu District, Guangzhou City 2025). Within this demographic context, the education and care needs of migrant children—and the social support needs of migrant mothers—became increasingly pronounced. However, both government and market mechanisms provided only limited support.

In response, between 2010 and 2018, three community-based organizations (CBOs) serving migrant populations were established: Sunshine Community, Harbor Community Service Center, and Rainbow Community. Significantly, over 90% of these organizations’ founders and core staff are migrant women who have lived in Guangzhou for more than a decade. Many identify as migrant mothers themselves and are intimately familiar with the challenges of balancing work, childcare, and social integration in an unfamiliar city. As one community worker explained:

“I’m also from elsewhere and experienced the same struggles—finding childcare help, enrolling my child in school. So I understand their difficulties deeply. I wanted to do something so others wouldn’t feel as isolated and helpless as I once did.”

(Yali, aged 38)

All three CBOs are registered non-profit organizations under the local civil affairs bureau. They are primarily sustained through government-purchased service contracts, foundation grants (notably from the Qianhe Foundation), and community donations. Under Panyu District’s “five-party linkage” governance framework—linking communities, social organizations, social workers, social resources, and community self-governance—these organizations receive policy support and institutional recognition, though financial resources remain limited and reliant on volunteer labor.

Drawing on the founders’ shared experiences as migrant women, these CBOs design services that closely align with mothers’ everyday realities. For migrant children, they offer after-school tutoring and holiday care that compensate for parents’ long and inflexible work hours. For migrant mothers, programs include vocational training, education on labor laws and rights, guidance on points-based household registration and school enrollment, as well as activities such as yoga, book clubs, and discussion groups that provide emotional support and safe spaces for communication. For migrant families, the CBOs organize parent–child activities and workshops on family relationships, which help strengthen household cohesion.

Each organization operates within an urban village where migrant populations are concentrated. Their proximity allows mothers to reach them easily on foot. By renting and renovating local buildings, they have created multifunctional spaces that include children’s reading corners, study areas, and discussion rooms. Warm, domestic aesthetics—colorful artwork, soft carpets, and well-stocked bookshelves—create a sense of familiarity and belonging. As Gugu described:

“This place is different from our rental—it feels warm. The children play happily here, we chat and relax. Sometimes I feel this is like our second home in Guangzhou.”

(Gugu, aged 35)

In this sense, these CBOs—grassroots civil society initiatives rooted within migrant communities—effectively fill the gaps left by state and market institutions. More importantly, they go beyond providing practical assistance: they nurture collective spaces of care, communication, and mutual support, offering the social and emotional anchoring that the participants urgently need in their everyday urban lives.

4.2.2. Collective Space and Reconstruction of Motherhood

Participants’ initial contact with CBOs usually arises from practical needs such as childcare and tutoring. Introductions from fellow villagers, flyers, and visits from social workers often facilitate their first entry. Yet as they begin using these services, many notice “something different.” Unlike impersonal commercial centers, CBOs cultivate warm, home-like environments where mothers meet others who share similar experiences. As Qiuyun explained:

“I came only to leave my child when busy, but later I met other mothers—also from elsewhere, facing the same issues. Just talking made me feel less alone.”

(Qiuyun, aged 32)

Through this shift from simply using services to participating in community, the participants not only address practical needs but also find emotional belonging (Madge and O’Connor 2006).

This sense of belonging emerges from CBOs providing spaces distinct from both villages and cities. In villages, their mothering practices were under the close surveillance of the “acquaintance society”; in cities, although freed from surveillance, they often experienced suspended isolation. CBOs offer a rare “judgment-free safe space.” As Qiuyun described:

“Here I can speak without worrying about ridicule. I can complain about housework or say I’m exhausted—everyone understands. Back home, my mother-in-law and neighbors would call me ‘pretentious.’”

(Qiuyun, aged 32)

Shared migration experiences transformed these isolated, atomized individuals into mutually supportive collectives, laying the emotional foundation for rethinking motherhood.

Beyond safe spaces, CBOs’ embodied activities—yoga and Zen dance—sparked deeper transformations (Thrift 2004). Within self-sacrificing motherhood, women’s bodies are treated as tools serving families, not selves needing care. Yanzi reflected: “Before yoga, I never thought of my body as ‘myself.’ It was just a tool—for holding children, doing housework, working. As long as it could move, I kept going. But during yoga, when I quieted down and felt my body, I realized my shoulders, waist, and arms all hurt. I had been ignoring myself. Gradually I understood that caring for my body gives me the strength to care for my children. Now I no longer feel spending time on myself is sinful.” (Yanzi, aged 41)

This narrative reveals a crucial cognitive shift—from “body as tool” to “body as self.” Such bodily awareness prompts mothers to question traditional motherhood standards that demand endless self-depletion.

Book clubs and parenting discussion sessions further deepened this transformation. Zhanghao shared:

“In our book club, we read: ‘When mothers are happy, children are happy.’ At first, I didn’t understand—‘Children’s happiness is enough; why does mine matter?’ But after hearing others share, I realized children sense our emotions. Taking care of my emotions is also for their well-being.”

(Zhanghao, aged 40)

These discussions redefined what it means to be “good for children”: a mother’s physical and emotional well-being is not secondary but foundational to good motherhood. This realization legitimized self-care for many migrant mothers.

Collective dialogue also opened space for deeper reflection: Why are mothers so anxious and exhausted? Through sharing personal struggles, participants gradually recognized that their difficulties stem not from individual inadequacy but from structural inequality. She further explained:

“I used to think if my child was sick or did poorly in school, it was my fault. But after talking here, I realized everyone feels exhausted. We started asking: Why do childcare responsibilities fall entirely on mothers? Why so many ‘good mother’ standards but never ‘good father’ ones? Then I understood—it’s not that I’m failing, it’s that society demands too much from women.”

(Zhanghao, aged 40)

This marks a crucial shift from viewing motherhood struggles as personal failure to understanding them as structural problems rooted in patriarchy and gender inequality. Such collective critical consciousness cannot emerge through isolated reflection; it requires the dialogical support of a shared space where self-blame gives way to recognition of systemic injustice.

Through this gradual process—from safe expression to bodily awareness, from conceptual exploration to structural reflection—the participants collectively construct a new understanding of self-caring motherhood. Developed through mutual validation and grounded in everyday realities, this collective knowledge challenges the moral logic of self-sacrificing motherhood. “When mothers are happy, children are happy” and “I am myself first, then a mother” became recurring affirmations that gained legitimacy through shared discussion.

Specifically, this redefined motherhood encompasses four dimensions: (1) Cognitive—recognizing mothers’ self-needs as legitimate rather than selfish; (2) Emotional—valuing mothers’ mental health as essential to good motherhood; (3) Practical—seeking dynamic balance between caregiving and self-development; (4) Relational—advocating shared, rather than mother-exclusive, childcare responsibilities.

This emerging notion resonates with O’Reilly’s (2021) concept of feminist motherhood, rejecting patriarchal ideals of maternal self-sacrifice and instead positioning motherhood as a potential source of empowerment (O’Reilly 2021). Yet, the self-caring motherhood developed by the participants carries distinct local characteristics. It is not a product of individual awakening but of collective interaction and mutual empowerment within CBOs. Nor is it a form of middle-class self-actualization, but rather a survival-oriented practice carved out amid economic precarity, institutional exclusion, and gender inequality. Importantly, it does not abandon caregiving responsibilities but reimagines them in more sustainable and humane ways.

4.3. Spatial Transformation of Motherhood: Power Negotiation Within Households

4.3.1. Household Power Structures Constraining New Mothering

CBOs provide the participants with collective spaces to reconstruct the meaning of motherhood. However, conceptual transformation does not automatically translate into practical change. Upon returning home, these mothers confront spouses and elders who continue to adhere to traditional ideals, embedded in household power relations shaped by economic dependence and emotional bonds.

First, spouses and elders often uphold the traditional ideal of self-sacrificing motherhood, believing that a “good mother” should devote all her time and energy to the family and children. This conceptual rigidity runs deep. Most spouses and elders grew up in rural environments where women practiced motherhood in precisely this way—making these gender norms deeply internalized and taken for granted. Unlike the participants who have engaged in collective reflection and conceptual reconstruction through CBO participation, their family members have little exposure to new ideas such as “mothers also need self-development,” which they often perceive as unfamiliar or even improper. As a result, mothers’ participation in learning or community activities is frequently interpreted as “neglecting the family” or “pursuing unnecessary interests.”

Xiaomei recalled:

“I said I wanted to join a Zen dance class at the community center for exercise, and my husband immediately said, ‘You can barely manage the kids at home—why chase these fads at your age?’ In his eyes, once you become a mother, you should stay home obediently; doing these things is improper.”

(Xiaomei, aged 42)

Such criticism extends beyond spouses to mothers-in-law and even mothers. Yanzi shared:

“My mother-in-law always mocks me for joining community activities, saying, ‘Always fooling around—don’t you have better things to do?’ She thinks I should be like her, putting all my mind on children and family.”

(Yanzi, aged 41)

This intergenerational transmission of traditional motherhood ideals means mothers face not only spousal opposition but also the collective pressure of the entire family system (O’Reilly 2014).

Second, many mothers remain economically and emotionally dependent on their families—on their husbands’ income and on elders’ childcare support—making it difficult to risk open confrontation. In cities where migrant families already lack social security and institutional support, such intra-family assistance becomes crucial for survival. Haining confessed:

“I know my husband’s thinking is wrong, but what can I do? My job is unstable, and my child’s schooling costs money. If we fall out, how will we manage? I can only endure.”

(Haining, aged 40)

Economic dependence places mothers in weak positions within household negotiations. Even when they recognize injustice, they find it difficult to challenge it openly. Attempts at direct communication often end in failure or conflict. Haining recounted:

“Once I gathered the courage to tell my husband I wanted some personal time—to learn new things and enrich myself. He got angry and said, ‘What do you mean? Feel wronged staying home with children? Other women live properly—why do you have so many ideas?’ I tried to explain, but he wouldn’t listen. He thought I was just making excuses to be lazy. We ended the conversation unhappily, and for the child’s sake, I compromised.”

(Haining, aged 40)

This episode reveals the deeper logic behind failed negotiations: in many husbands’ eyes, a wife expressing her own needs equates to shirking her maternal responsibilities. They cannot comprehend that self-care and family care can coexist. Such cognitive rigidity reflects what Kandiyoti (1988) terms the “patriarchal bargain”—a system in which women exchange obedience and self-sacrifice for family protection and material security. Any attempt to question or renegotiate this bargain is seen as threatening family stability (Kandiyoti 1988).

Mothers’ weak household positions—stemming from financial dependence and emotional attachment to their children—make it difficult for them to risk escalating conflict. Recognizing that direct negotiation is ineffective, many come to realize that openly asserting self-needs in such power-laden family structures not only fails but may invite harsher criticism and tighter supervision, even endangering family harmony. Consequently, the tension between newly acquired concepts and entrenched household realities leads the participants to adopt more subtle, covert strategies to carve out spaces for self-caring motherhood—pursuing personal growth and well-being without overtly challenging family relationships.

4.3.2. Temporal-Spatial Strategies: Enacting Mothering Agency Through Non-Confrontational Practices

Confronted with entrenched household power structures and repeated negotiation failures, the participants developed subtle, indirect strategies centered on the reorganization of time and space. Rather than openly declaring a shift in child-rearing philosophy, they quietly reduced the intensity of mothering, carved out breathing space for themselves, and encouraged their husbands’ participation through careful temporal planning and spatial adjustment—all while appearing to continue fulfilling their maternal duties. The ingenuity of these practices lies in their non-confrontational nature: on the surface, these women remain “good mothers,” yet through nuanced temporal–spatial reconfigurations, they gradually enact the principles of self-caring mothering.

Mothers first intervened in household spatial arrangements, fostering children’s independence through small environmental adjustments that avoided overt ideological conflict. Rather than debating with spouses or elders about whether “children should be independent,” they created physical conditions that made independence a necessity. Xiaojun described her strategy:

“My husband and mother-in-law always felt the child needed help with everything. When I said he should learn to be independent, they said I was lazy. Later I stopped arguing. When they weren’t home, I rearranged my son’s room—lowered the wardrobe, moved the bookshelf to where he could reach, prepared a small stool. Then I pretended to be busy in the kitchen in the mornings, so he had to find his own clothes. Gradually he got used to it. One day my husband noticed he could dress himself and pack his bag. I said, ‘See, he can do it.’ After that, he stopped criticizing me and even told my mother-in-law, ‘Let him do it himself.’”

(Xiaojun, aged 41)

By creating faits accomplis through spatial reorganization and demonstrating concrete results, mothers dissolved resistance within the family. These small spatial interventions quietly reshaped daily routines, reduced mothers’ workload, and cultivated children’s autonomy.

Alongside spatial strategies, mothers began to claim time for themselves within the interstices of daily domestic schedules. Rather than demanding large, exclusive time blocks—which could be perceived as neglecting family—they carefully embedded self-care within ordinary rhythms, using culturally acceptable discursive frames to justify their activities. One mother recalled her gradual time negotiation:

“At first, when I told my husband I wanted to attend community classes, he said, ‘There’s so much to do at home, and you still want to go out?’ Later I changed my wording, saying there were parenting lectures about helping children learn better—he had no objection. I arranged it carefully, going after the children left for school and returning before lunch. After attending a few sessions, I mentioned there were yoga classes to help mothers relieve stress and be more patient with children—he agreed. Later, I joined English classes, saying it would help me tutor our son. Now he’s used to me going out in the mornings. Looking back, every step seemed ‘reasonable’ to him, and in the end, I gained my own learning time.”

(Mingxia, aged 43)

This illustrates two key temporal negotiation techniques. First, gradual expansion—from “parenting lectures” to “yoga” to “English classes,” the mothers incrementally extended their personal time. Second, legitimizing discourse—they framed self-care as beneficial to their children, securing moral acceptance for their autonomy.

Building on these adjustments, some mothers also encouraged husbands’ participation in childcare, a more challenging task as it touched the core of gendered power relations. They created temporal–spatial situations of strategic absence, compelling fathers to assume caregiving responsibilities, and justified these absences through relational rather than confrontational language. As one mother explained:

“My husband rarely took care of the children. I couldn’t say directly, ‘It’s also your responsibility.’ Instead, I said, ‘Our son really wants to play with you.’ He couldn’t refuse. At first, he played for half an hour on weekends while I went shopping. Later I left him to handle dinner and homework alone. After a few times, he realized he could do it.”

(Jingjing, aged 38)

By crafting moments of temporal and spatial separation, the participants normalized paternal participation, subtly shifting the household division of labor and expanding the temporal boundaries of care.

Through the reorganization of household spaces, the careful use of fragmented time, and the strategic creation of absence, the participants gradually integrated self-caring mothering into everyday life. These small, almost invisible adjustments yielded multilayered transformations. First, mothers’ physical and emotional well-being improved:

“Before, I revolved around the children all day—exhausted and irritable. Now, with some space for myself, I’m calmer and kinder to them.”

(Xiaojun, aged 41)

Second, children became more independent:

“Before, I did everything for them, and they were so dependent. Now they can do many things themselves and even feel proud. Letting go actually helps them grow faster.”

(Xiaojie, aged 36)

Finally, family relationships improved:

“Before, my husband was like an outsider, always on his phone. Now he participates more, and the family feels warmer.”

(Jingjing, aged 38)

As families observed mothers’ improved well-being, children’s progress, and greater household harmony, resistance to this “less intensive” mothering waned. These tangible outcomes reinforced the legitimacy of new care models and subtly reshaped family conceptions of what it means to be a “good mother.”

Ultimately, these temporal–spatial strategies reveal the participants’ situated agency. Even within conditions of economic precarity and gendered structural constraint, they quietly restructured domestic labor and child-rearing practices through everyday, non-confrontational adjustments. In doing so, they carved out realistic spaces for enacting self-caring motherhood—asserting agency not through open resistance, but through the subtle politics of time, space, and care.

5. Conclusions and Discussion

This study examines how Chinese co-migrant mothers reconstruct motherhood through spatial mobility. Rather than viewing mobility solely as an obstacle to mothering, the findings show that movement across rural and urban spaces can become an agentic resource for reshaping maternal identities and practices. Based on ethnographic research in Guangzhou, the study conceptualizes motherhood reconstruction as a progressive, multi-scalar process. Rural–urban migration unsettles the surveillance mechanisms that sustain traditional self-sacrificing ideals, prompting mothers to question deeply embedded norms. Yet leaving rural constraints does not automatically lead to new orientations. Urban economic pressures and the absence of kin-based support leave many mothers caught between competing moral frameworks. Community-based organizations (CBOs), therefore, become key collective spaces where migrant mothers engage in dialogue, receive emotional validation, and co-articulate alternative understandings of motherhood. Within households, mothers then employ subtle temporal and spatial strategies to gradually reshape gendered responsibilities without direct confrontation. These dynamics align with a process of dis-embedding, re-embedding, and reconstruction, through which spatial mobility becomes the catalyst for maternal identity change.

Theoretically, this study makes four contributions. First, it extends motherhood research beyond transnational and Western middle-class contexts to working-class women in China’s internal migration. Second, it proposes a dis-embedding–re-embedding–reconstruction framework that integrates macro mobility, community interactions, and household practices into a coherent multi-scalar account of motherhood transformation. Third, it highlights collective empowerment as central to maternal change. In China’s collectivist cultural context, motherhood reconstruction emerges not from individual awakening but from shared reflection, mutual support, and collective meaning-making. Fourth, the study identifies culturally grounded forms of agency shaped by the principle of “overcoming hardness with softness,” through which women navigate constraints through subtle, non-confrontational negotiation that preserves relational harmony while quietly reconfiguring power relations.

These findings offer practical implications. Urban governance must recognize that migrant integration involves emotional well-being and identity recognition, not only employment, housing, or schooling. CBOs serve as essential affective infrastructures that provide validation, solidarity, and reflective space. Policies should therefore fund community-building and peer-support programs rather than treating CBOs as mere service providers. Additionally, gender-equality initiatives should acknowledge and amplify women’s existing negotiation strategies. Mothers’ everyday practices of temporal planning, spatial adjustment, and discursive framing are forms of pragmatic agency that drive social change from the ground up.

Ultimately, supporting migrant mothers is part of a broader effort to imagine more inclusive and relational urban futures. Recognizing alternative forms of motherhood forged through mobility and collective engagement challenges structural constraints on all women and contributes to building urban societies where care, connection, and human flourishing are foundational.