Despite the feminist critique of the assumptions implicit in the ideology of motherhood, relatively little empirical work has been done on women's own experience of this role. This research note uses data from a small scale intensive study of 51 married or cohabiting mothers aged 20-42 years old, whose oldest child was 15 years old, and who were randomly selected from medical records in a lower middle class area of North London. Building on Boulton's (1983) conceptualization, it differentiates between three aspects of this role (namely their commitment to it; its perceived identity enhancing/destructive character and the positive/negative quality of their interaction with their children). These women's experience of the mother role was then assessed on these dimensions - using rating scales and anchoring examples (which are illustrated here). This research note suggests that even within this relatively homogenous lower middle/upper working class sample, the experience of motherhood was extremely varied: with less than half of the sample experiencing it positively at all three levels. An attempt is made to explain this variation.