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The study of social work training in Belgium (1920-1940) aims to highlight two axes that seem to cross the path of social work training: “maternalism” on the one hand, and professionalization on the other. Maternalism and professionalization are potentially contradictory. Despite the success of feminists in projecting maternal and domestic roles in the public sphere, “maternalism” recalls the premise that motherhood was considered to be women’s primary role; consequently, the home was women’s primary place and women’s skills were primarily in the fields of education. The expansion of women’s family and maternal roles is one of the foundations of reformist “maternalism”. From this enlargement came social work from a professional perspective. Rather than an evolution that would lead, from 1920 to 1940, from maternalism to professionalization, the expression “motherhood as a profession” (which I borrow from Christoph Sachsse) expresses the tension between the two poles of the activity for which training for social work is preparing.