“Where’s my mom?” A critical analysis of system-impacted mother-child relationships in children’s literature

Purpose Annually, over 1.25 million children face the reality of one of their parents being incarcerated. Additionally, there has been a massive rise in the incarceration of women, and the majority of those women are mothers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the power and influence of children’s literature as windows, mirrors and doors for incarcerated mothers and their children. Incarceration affects not only the individual on the inside, but all connected individuals on the outside – especially children. Design/methodology/approach Using critical multicultural analysis, this study examined children’s picture books that included an incarcerated mother and her child(ren) as characters. Findings The findings suggest that the children’s books offer humanizing representation to center the children affected by incarceration as thoughtful and full of emotions; however, the same humanizing practices were not evident across the books regarding the character of the incarcerated mother. Incarcerated mothers are portrayed as distant and the stories indirectly silence them and their crucial, yet, renegotiated role in motherhood. Originality/value While research has been conducted in children’s book analysis on the topic of incarceration, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is original in its focus specifically on incarcerated mothers.