motherhood statement

English

WOTD – 12 May 2019

Etymology

Probably from the fact that virtually everyone would say that motherhood is a positive thing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmʌðəhʊd ˈsteɪtm(ə)nt/
• IPA^(key): /ˈmʌðɚˌhʊd ˈsteɪtmənt/, /ˈmə-/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: mo‧ther‧hood state‧ment

Noun

Template:examples-right motherhood statement (plural motherhood statements)

1. (chiefly Canada, US) A vague, feel-good platitude, especially one made by a politician, that few people would be able to disagree with.
   • 1976, Canadian Electronics Engineering, volume 20, Toronto, Ont.: Maclean-Hunter, →ISSN, →OCLC, page ccviii:

     [A]n objective needs to be followed up by some specific form of measurement or it is meaningless – It is a motherhood statement.

   • 1979 June 12, Andrew Assur, witness, “Statement of Dr. Andrew Assur, Chief Scientist, U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, N.H.”, in The Role of the Federal Laboratories in Domestic Technology Transfer: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Science, Research and Technology of the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, […] (House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology; no. 96-77), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 80:

     Technology transfer and the principle of making useful research and development information available to all public sectors is now being endorsed by everybody. I really don't know anybody who objects. As a matter of fact, by now it has become a motherhood statement. The question is, how do we achieve the blessed state of motherhood?

   • 2007 September 29, Frank Bellet, “Kevin Rudd’s motherhood statements [letter]”, in News Weekly‎^[1], Melbourne, archived from the original on 17 April 2018:

     Kevin Rudd makes yet another sweeping motherhood statement, and it makes headlines […]. He went on to say that he "wanted to wean the states off dependency on pokies for revenue".

   • 2008, Matthew Groves, “The Surrogacy Principle and Motherhood Statements in Administrative Law”, in Linda Pearson, Carol Harlow, and Michael Taggart, editors, Administrative Law in a Changing State: Essays in Honour of Mark Aronson, Oxford, Portland, Or.: Hart Publishing, →ISBN, page 93:

     When English judges speak of rights they often do so in terms that are usually imprecise and lacking in clear principle. The problem is worsened by the frequent judicial recourse to motherhood statements, which are not simply imprecise but provide generalised statements that are difficult to disagree with at a conceptual level. […] [M]otherhood statements assume or imply the existence of what [Martin] Loughlin described as an 'imaginary consensus' on important doctrinal principles.

   • 2009, Simon Chesterman, “Ownership in Theory and in Practice: Transfer of Authority in UN Statebuilding Operations”, in David Chandler, editor, Statebuilding and Intervention: Policies, Practices and Paradigms, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 34:

     At worst, the term ‘ownership’ becomes a ‘motherhood statement’ which, whilst always sounding worthy, can be entirely lacking in specified content. The term ownership is used to imply varying degrees of local control that are typically not realized.

Translations

vague, feel-good platitude

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

See also

• flag, motherhood and apple pie
• mom and apple pie
• motherhood and apple pie