“I don’t follow their whims!”

Abstract The capacity of narratives to reflect broader ideologies has been well documented (e.g., Tannen, 2008 ), but the role of narrative evaluation ( Labov, 1972 ) in this process has received less attention. This study showcases how narrative evaluation can serve as a central arena for ideological work. I examined personal stories about the issue of native language maintenance in the next generation offered by three multilingual caregivers from former Soviet states residing in the United States. This examination illustrates how the caregiver-narrators effectively employed all three narrative evaluation types ( internal, embedded , and external ) to surface a range of beliefs about the issue and to favor belief in parental agency as the key to maintaining a native language in the next generation. This favoring, in turn, reflects a broader blaming culture , according to which mothers must be agentive to meet unrealistic expectations of idealized motherhood with the goal of avoiding societal blame.