The Good Danish Welfare Mother

State Disciplining of Motherhood in Liv Duvå’s Ned fra himlen

Abstract

This article examines how the Danish welfare state, in distributing care to its citizens, acts as an evaluating authority, determining who is a “good mother,” deserving of care, and who is a “bad mother,” against whom the welfare state may intervene. This relation between mothers and the welfare state is particularly prescient in the Scandinavian welfare states, where, because of the high degree of defamilialisation, the state carries a distinctly larger share of the responsibility of the caring for children. The article also points out that the state’s assessment of mothers draws on cultural myths of the good mother and the bad mother which are both highly culturally constructed and closely tied to socio-economic conditions. The article argues that this relation between mother and state is depicted in the Danish novel Ned fra himlen by Liv Duvå (2024), but this novel may also be understood as a critique of this power relation, as it, through the character of the documentary-maker Paul, offers the reader the position of assessor with in-depth knowledge of the mother’s experiences and perspective.