Allomothering
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The provision of infant care from someone other than the mother. uncountable
"They’re so big (read: hungry) and so slow to grow to independence, that allomothering – infant care from other than the mother – not only from a baby’s grandmother, maternal aunts and sisters, but also from the baby’s brothers, father and his kin, enabled us to continue and maybe even thrive under these conditions."
- 1 present participle and gerund of allomother form-of, gerund, participle, present
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"They’re so big (read: hungry) and so slow to grow to independence, that allomothering – infant care from other than the mother – not only from a baby’s grandmother, maternal aunts and sisters, but also from the baby’s brothers, father and his kin, enabled us to continue and maybe even thrive under these conditions."
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.