Life change, footprint change: motherhood, meaning and environmentally relevant behaviour

Numerous theoretical frameworks have been developed to explain influences in environmentally relevant behaviour and have identified gender and parental status as associated with some pro-environmental behaviours, attitudes and concerns. The recent habit discontinuity hypothesis suggests life events can disrupt habitual behaviours, creating opportunities for change. This research explores the transition to motherhood as a discontinuity, representing a time during which women undergo significant social, psychological and lifestyle changes. We employed a mixed-methods approach to identify women's self-reported environmentally relevant behaviours that are positively or negatively associated with the presence of children in the household group and explore the ways new mothers construct meaning and account for their own behaviours. We focused on private-sphere behaviours involving energy use, waste and recycling, cleaning practices and product choices, and transportation. The quantitative survey results were mixed, but suggested women with children are more likely to perform pro-environmental behaviours that require minimal effort or that are potentially linked with their child's wellbeing. The qualitative interview results show a staged process of change during the transition to motherhood in which behaviours are driven by the greater salience of the mother role identity and the desire to provide a safe, warm, clean and healthy home for their child, influenced by social factors and time, financial and personal constraints and resources. We propose our own model of the factors and constraints influencing changes in environmentally relevant behaviour during the transition to motherhood, drawing on previous models and mothers' accounts of the changes they experienced