About the Author

Astrid Joutseno

E-Mail: astrid.joutseno@helsinki.fi

Astrid Joutseno is a doctoral student in the Gender, Culture and Society Program of University of Helsinki. Her PhD research is about mothering as a digital phenomenon. Joutseno defends her dissertation in 2021. She is also an established songwriter by the name of Astrid Swan. She won the Teosto Award for songwriting in 2018 and was shortlisted for the Nordic Music Prize the same year for her album From the Bed and Beyond. She published a memoir, Viimeinen kirjani in 2019.

Contributions by Author: Astrid Joutseno

Blogging to Let Go

Life Writing, Maternal Cancer, and Death

Ideal mothers are not ill or dying. Yet, some mother children while being terminally ill. The dominant narrative of the ideal mother is one in which the mother is constructed as an ever-present figure who is never sick. Living in the nearness of death is incompatible with the expectation for the ever-present ideal mother. [1] Still, some mothers with stage IV cancer narrate their lives on blogs until they die. This article focuses on two blogs by mothers […]