SUMMARY:

The article explores the role played by the advice literature on child care in the constructing of normative motherhood during the period following the demise of the Stalin regime, from 1954 to 1970. Several changes in the terms of the societal gender contract under Khrushchev, such as the legalization of abortion on demand, the concomitant drop in birthrates, the housing reform and the modernization of the household sphere, led to the emergence and increased popularity of the child-centered model of family life. The child-care manuals of the time, the most popular of which was Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, introduced the model of “intensive mothering,” which required virtually unlimited investments of labor, time, and emotional resources from mothers.