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INTRODUCTION
The pervasiveness of ideals of intensive mothering (Hays 1996) has been well established in consumer research among Western middle-class mothers and across a variety of countries and social classes (Le Phuong Nguyen, Harman, and Cappellini 2017; Romagnoli and Wall 2012). Mothers bear the responsibility for carrying out this "child centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive" ideology (Hays 1996, 8). Further, its unattainable ideals contribute to self-surveillance, ridden by anxiety and guilt, and invoke the judgment of others (Douglas and Michaels 2004; Hays 1996). Despite its child focus, the literature on intensive mothering has concentrated on the agency of the mother, leaving the child in the background as a subject to serve and a passive onlooker. Indeed, within the realm of intensive mothering there is a paucity of research on how mothers deal with their children's agency (Brenton 2017), despite the presence of literature emphasizing the increased influence of children (Cook 2004; Miller 1998). This study explores how mothers negotiate ideals of intensive mothering in collaboration with their children in the context of the everyday dinner-one of the major domains in which mothering is practiced (DeVault 1991)- and shows how collaborating with their children may contribute to their empowerment.
INTENSIVE FEEDING
Extending Hays' (1996) concept of intensive mothering, Brenton (2017) demonstrates how mothers engage in intensive feeding practices based on the belief that good mothering is synonymous with intensive food labor. Healthy food is often key, but it can also be elusive, costly and hard to keep up with as health standards rapidly change. Brenton's definition of intensive feeding forms the basis for our study:
Intensive feeding encompasses a combination of activities, including shopping at multiple grocery stores for the healthiest foods; finding ways to stretch the family budget to buy organic food; navigating nutritional information and expert feeding advice; negotiating food with children; and teaching children. (Brenton 2017, 867)
While the mother is responsible for knowing what is good for her child (Marshall et al. 2014), she needs to rely on experts advice from the market and elsewhere to develop her own expertise (Hays 1996). However, her relationship to the market is quite complicated. While remaining bound to the market, she must make sure she does not use it to rationalize her...