Motherhood in the Twenty-First Century

Mariam Alizade

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781855753693
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429916359
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Mothers in the twenty-first century confront us, both in clinical practice and in theory, with fascinating challenges that to some extent subvert the traditional maternal ideal: the motherhood of single women, motherhood in which the mother-child relationship seems minimal (in the case of very busy working mothers), teenage motherhood in which there is no true awareness of the maternal function, motherhood in couples of homosexual women, men who take upon themselves the maternal function (men-mothers), complex motherhood by virtue of the multiple variants that have nowadays become possible thanks to new reproductive techniques, shared motherhood, surrogate motherhood, sublimated motherhood and perverse motherhood.

Chapter One
Motherhood is unending*

Ruth F. Lax

All societies have created and evolvingly continue to create stereotypic arch-types of The Mother and Motherhood. These became the ideals of a given society whose form and content depend on the ethos of the era, and on the vicissitudes of the individual. In each generation the prevailing idealized stereotypes become incorporated and influence both the female and the male psyche. The girl child, however, becomes primed for motherhood almost from birth.

In most societies, Feminine and Mother are combined to form a single representation of WOMAN—and for most women in the world this still is their only self-representation. Motherhood is a state of being. Although the specifics are expressed idiosyncratically, primary preoccupation with the child, availability to the child, self-sacrifice for the child, are values upheld as inherent in good motherhood. Transmitted from generation to generation, this stereotype expresses unconscious childhood wishes, expectancies, and hopes of what a mother should be like, and how she should behave towards her child.

It is still culturally inconceivable and unacceptable that a “good mother” may have conflicts regarding her culturally assigned, and frequently consciously and unconsciously self-imposed, role. Further, it is inadmissible that these conflicts may evoke feelings of anger or, even worse, hate for the child in the mother and a wish to vent it aggressively, to act out her frustration. To account for such feelings, regarded as “unnatural” in a “good mother”, images of witches, child-eaters, wicked stepmothers, and evil mothers-in-law have been created. These stereotypes of maternal monsters have been endowed with feelings of jealously, unjustified angers, infused with cruelty and sadism, murderous wishes, and treachery, emotions that, according to the stereotypic ideal, no good mother could conceivably ever experience.

The inescapable conflicts evoked by aspirations to embody and enact the mother-ideal, and the contradictory emotions caused by a mother’s wishes and needs for a space and time “of her own” for the fulfilment of ego goals self-directed and propelled, are probably characteristic of all mothers. The diversity of feelings prevalent towards the child at different times can already be observed in a girl’s play and attitude towards her first doll, her baby doll, the chosen doll, the discarded doll, and the doll family. Little girls are by no means always loving towards their dolls. They frequently hit their dolls mercilessly and when asked about it may say: “She is always a bad girl, she never listens. I’ll pound some sense into her yet.” Most telling is a girl’s frequent response when told to go and play with her dollies: “I want to do something else.” Dollies, babies, could never be everything a woman wants . .. yet we know of the sacrifices mothers do make. The image of Mater Dolorosa is a part of western culture.

The craving to have a child, which has been considered mistakenly to originate from an innate “maternal instinct”, actually stems from an unconscious response to pressures that still predominantly define a woman’s role and being in terms of motherhood. These pressures are both open and disguised, they are of religious, societal, and family origin. However, a uniquely significant contributory factor is a girl’s conscious and unconscious interaction with her mother. This pivotal relationship of love and idealization, anger, hate, envy, and competition, which undergoes many vicissitudes, eventually forms the basis for a girl’s ideal of motherhood. When the woman’s childhood experiences were good, identification with her own mother is the basis for this ideal. When childhood memories are filled with anger and pain, ambivalence prevails and the ideal may be determined by reaction formations. However, the ideal of motherhood also unconsciously contributes to the wish for a child, a fantasied opportunity to play out the role of mother and child in an unambivalent idealized form desired in the woman’s childhood. In this fantasy the woman wants to be the mother she wanted to have.

The fantasies of motherhood undergo typical vicissitudes during the negative and positive oedipal conflagrations; they become latent and may become reactivated in various versions during subsequent developmental phases.

During a wanted pregnancy, positive conscious and unconscious fantasies and wishes originating in childhood become activated. Alternations in the woman’s object–libidinal and narcissistic equilibrium occur. A marked shift toward libidinal concentration on the self takes place. This specific type of narcissism cathects the expanding dual self-representation consisting of mother and internal baby. It enables the pregnant woman to feel that the growing body within her constitutes an integral part of herself. The physical symbiosis of pregnancy is augmented by the woman’s preoccupation and daydreams about her future child, which she moulds in fantasy in accordance with her wishes and ego ideal. In this sense the infant-to-be becomes uniquely mother’s own, physically and mentally existing only within her.

The pregnant woman’s feeling of changes within her body, and the inner spontaneous movements of the foetus, bring about psychic states of “inwardness” during which the “fantasy child” and her interrelationship with it is formed. When the child is wanted, the bond of possession and love is formed. The feeling, fuelled with narcissistic cathexis, evokes a powerful sense of “it’s mine, totally so”.

However, the maternal experience of total union is disrupted eventually by the motility of the foetus, which follows a rhythm of its own. The awareness of apartness from the being within, a process culminating in birth, establishes the physical separateness.

Birth usually does not disrupt the unique mother–child bond, but tending to the baby now has to be done volitionally. This constant preoccupation with the baby can only be sustained because the infant continues to be cathected with both narcissistic and object libido. Analytic work with women reveals that the intensity and kind of libidinal investment a mother makes in her infant will depend, in large measure, on the extent to which the infant is unconsciously regarded as an extension of the self, on its unconscious symbolic meaning and on the degree to which it embodies, for the mother, her fantasy child.

The manifold unconscious aspects the infant and growing child has for the mother will have a significant importance in determining mother’s shifts in the fusion of narcissistic–libidinal and object–libidinal cathexis, the amount of aggression felt towards the child, and the balance that will prevail.

Maternal inwardness, the creation and enjoyment of the “fantasy child”, and the fantasy of the interactional relationship with this child, is the most significant preparatory state for motherhood. However, these feelings do not comprise the entirety of a pregnant woman’s psychic state. Physical discomfort and the extent to which it occurs may disrupt the enjoyment of pregnancy. It happens quite frequently that the pregnant woman, in moments of stress, would like to escape from her physical condition.

The sense of loss of control, the awareness that the pregnancy progresses in a pre-programmed way with the mother-to-be having no say about it, makes some women quite anxious and others quite depressed. They remember themselves as active and decisive, and now are suddenly, to quote a patient, “a helpless, passive bystander”.

Every woman wishes to be a good mother. However, the confines of a harmonious complementary relationship with the infant and growing child may have an extremely taxing impact on the family constellations. With the arrival of the first-born, husbands frequently feel pushed into second place and may find it difficult to be helpful. Unconscious jealousy follows, and may detrimentally affect the man’s relationship to both mother and child. For the mother, the presence of one or more older children in the family makes the arrival of the newborn especially difficult. In such cases the mother, as a patient said, “feels torn” between her love and loyalty to the older children and her wish to be able to devote herself exclusively to the newborn.

The significance of the infant and the growing child’s correspondence to mother’s “fantasy child” created during pregnancy is an important factor. It facilitates and may even assure mother’s “falling in love” with her baby. Sometimes an aspect of the baby’s behaviour the mother had wished for, consciously or unconsciously, is the decisive factor. The vicissitudes of Mrs A’s interaction with her first-born depicts the various aspects of the mother– child relationship. After birth, when she returned to analysis, Mrs A said: “You know, I wanted a girl, but he is the most wonderful baby you can imagine. He immediately knew how to nurse and I enjoy it.” The patient recalled being told many times by her mother that she had been a “poor and lazy” suckling. This always made the patient feel her mother had been angry and dissatisfied with her. Thus, her child fulfilled a wish she had had about herself. She continued, “You know, nursing is quite erotic, exciting in a way I never imagined or experienced such feelings before. I look forward to it.”

The patient had feared throughout the pregnancy that she would find it difficult to enjoy staying home and caring for the baby during her three-month leave. She thought she’d be in conflict because she would miss the excitement of the office and her flirtatious play with her boss. She reported after a month, “Jamie [her son] and I get along almost perfectly. We fit. He nurses often and that gives me pleasure, and I also get pleasure from his pleasure. Then he falls asleep and I do too. It’s almost like a love affair.” For Mrs A, the unexpected erotic gratification became a significant factor in establishing the bond and preoccupation with her infant.

The strength and significance of this early idyll became apparent when, at seven months, Jamie began giving clear indications that he no longer was interested in nursing and started turning away from the breast. Mrs A at first thought it was just accidental. However, when she had to face the reality, she felt rejected and also very angry, and said, “He pushes me away.”

Analysis made Mrs A aware of the extent to which she had used the child for her own gratification and as a pretext for being less available to her husband. She also realized that she displaced her anger at Jamie on to her husband. A period of partial withdrawal from her son followed, which she rationalized by saying that Jamie did not need her “as much as before”. She no longer experienced Jamie as the wonderful “perfect” child, and began to find fault with him. Analysis helped her to discover and face (although with difficulty) that the child had been fulfilling an erotic need for her that she had wanted to continue. She felt ashamed and guilty, but primarily angry with her husband for not being a better lover. Ambivalence and impatience were now quite predominant in the relationship with both her husband and her son. For Mrs A the “fit” between the “fantasy child” and the real baby diminished. This affected her emotional and behavioural attitude towards Jamie.

Variations in maternal attitudes towards her child (Coleman, Kris, & Provence, 1953) occur throughout mother’s lifelong interaction with it. These may be caused by aspects of the child’s maturation that do not correspond to mother’s expectations, the child’s unique proclivities and character, friends the child selects, the pursuit of specific interests, the wish for independence, the need to cling, etc. Mother’s attitudes and her intrapsychic reaction to the child may change depending on the degree to which there is a corresponding complementarity and attunement between them. This may relate to their personality style, temperament, needs, and wishes. Thus, periods of greater and lesser harmonious interaction are inevitable. Significant during periods of dissonance is the maintenance of Mother’s feeling: “In spite of it all, this is my child I love.” Such an attitude in large measure depends on mother’s recognition of elements belonging to the “fantasy child” in the persona of her child.

Mrs A’s awareness of her own needs increased after Jamie’s self-weaning, which she experienced as a painful rejection. She said, “I’m with him all day long, and I must admit, I am getting bored. I think I want to spend more time in the office. I need adult stimulation. ‘Mother-talk’ and ‘baby-talk’ can get very stifling. I do love him very much, and he is a sweet boy, but he doesn’t need me as much as he used to so I can do things for myself.” Mrs A had great difficulty tolerating her feeling of anger and ambivalence towards Jamie. Rationalization was one of the main defences. Mrs A explained her planned separations from Jamie as motivated by her wish to “stimulate his growth of independence”, unaware that she was trying to counteract her unconscious dependence on him. She accepted an offer from her firm to work three full days on a project that interested her greatly. After a short period of elation, a boost to her self-esteem, and enjoyment of the playful flirtation with her boss, Mrs A developed guilt feelings about Jamie. She felt that he was no longer as joyful as he used to be and she blamed herself. Turmoil and an inner conflict started. Mrs A asked, “Do I have a right to personal self fulfilment at the expense of my child? I feel torn.” Her feelings oscillated between the need to be a “good mother who sacrifices herself for the child”, and her wish for gratification from work and contact with colleagues.

Mrs A questioned herself (and me): “Does a woman have a right to have a child if she isn’t totally devoted to it?” She recalled that her own mother, with whom she had a very bad relationship, stayed at home. Thus, Mrs A realized, “Just staying at home with the child” was not the answer. She began with difficulty to analyse the qualities that really “make for a good mother”. Eventually, Mrs A concluded that her wish to be a different mother than her mother was led to the development of an idealized mother image based on what she, as a child, wished her mother to be. She understood that this did not necessarily correspond to what would constitute a good mother for Jamie. Mrs A began to demand that I tell her “what the principles of good motherhood are”. She was furious when I did not comply. We analysed, via the transference, the underlying reasons for her fury with me. This was a stormy period during which Mrs A accused me of not caring for Jamie’s well-being, not being helpful to her, being smug and unresponsive, not “giving a damn”.

The following vignette presents a case of mother’s disappointment with her newborn.

Mrs C did not want to know the sex of her baby before birth. I saw her a month following the birth of her daughter. She was sullen and silent for quite a while, then began speaking in a whisper which ended in a crescendo. “I did not want a girl. In my family girls are not wanted—and she has red hair which means she’ll have freckles. That is horrible. My great-aunt had red hair and freckles and nobody liked her. Why do I have to have such a daughter? I tried nursing her but she did not nurse well so I changed to a bottle. She cries a lot, it makes everything so difficult. I am looking for a good nanny. I don’t like the one we have.”

During the first three months, Mrs C could not find any redeeming feature in her baby. She was amazed and annoyed that her husband played with the child. She could not understand why the baby gurgled and cooed when with him, also with the nanny, but not with her. As the baby grew, Mrs C became aware of feeling jealous. She complained: “Why doesn’t she smile at me? I think she likes her father better than me. Everybody says girls like their fathers more than their mothers so that’s just fate.” I asked whom she had liked better. Mrs C was silent, and then said, “I don’t remember. I am going to fire the nanny. She does not keep Fran clean enough.”

During the first year of Fran’s life Mrs C fired three nannies. Finally a pattern emerged. The dismissals occurred when Mrs C became aware of her daughter’s attachment to her nanny. When I made this observation Mrs C at first angrily denied it. Eventually, however, it led to our exploration of her possessive feelings toward Fran. She said, “It’s my daughter. I was pregnant with her. I gave birth to her. I went through all the pain and stress and look at her, now she loves a stranger better than me.” She burst into angry crying and repeated, through sobs, “She’s an ungrateful child. I hate her. I hate her.” When she calmed down Mrs C said, “Do I really hate her if I get so upset that she loves her nanny better than me?” I said “I think you’d like Fran to love you best.”

After we analysed her negative self-feelings, Mrs C became aware of the manifold conscious and unconscious reasons Fran failed as the wished for “fantasy child”. These related to her own sense of inferiority because she was female. Mrs C recalled her childhood wish to be a boy. She had wished for a son during pregnancy. Having a boy, identifying with his achievements and glorying in them, would have been almost as good as having been a boy.

Pathological dissonance between mother and the child in reality may occur when a mother rigidly holds on to specific expectations based on the “fantasy child” imago. Mrs C enacted such a scenario in her relationship to Fran.

At times, a mother’s wish for self-fulfilment through gratifying her ego needs and goals, her wish for “self-being” and “owning oneself”, deviates greatly from what she believes to be her child’s needs, the latter perhaps reflecting her own unconscious childhood wishes. Irrespective of age, however, since a child on the deepest conscious–unconscious psychic level always remains part of the mother’s self, the propensity, mostly unconscious, towards self-deprivation in favour of “my child” persists. None the less, mother’s capacity to tolerate self-deprivation in favour of the child depends in a large measure on the psychic fit prevailing between them. The greater the corresponding interactive attributes that are the basis of the psychic fit, the greater is mother’s intrinsic gratification stemming from the child. When such a mother–child relationship prevails, the child is experienced as meeting mother’s conscious–unconscious wish, and in this sense also provides a self-fulfilment for the mother. In such cases the feelings of self-deprivation are mitigated, since what is done for the child, an unconscious narcissistic libidinal self-object, is also gratifying to the self. Thus, to the extent to which the child, in the unconscious, never stops being part of the mother, the love directed towards it as a libidinal object also has narcissistic aspects that enhance the mother.

Often aspects of a mother’s self, which the vicissitudes of life prevented her from attaining, are fulfilled when actualized by her “fantasy child”. The scornful joke about the mother who proudly says, “My son, the doctor”, epitomizes centuries of women’s anger, frustration, and helplessness resulting from not being able to attain their self-goals because they were women. During those epochs a woman could achieve only through the achievements of her son, who therefore became “her pride”. However, nowadays, the mother who boasts about her daughter’s achievements may be to an even greater extent unconsciously gratifying her unfilled aspirations.

When children reach adulthood the relationship ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• FOREWORD
• CONTRIBUTORS
• CHAPTER ONE Motherhood is unending
• CHAPTER TWO The twenty-first century: what changes?
• CHAPTER THREE Motherhood in a fertile new world
• CHAPTER FOUR Artificial pregnancy
• CHAPTER FIVE The non-maternal psychic space
• CHAPTER SIX Why do you want to have a child?
• CHAPTER SEVEN The place of motherhood in primary femininity
• CHAPTER EIGHT Reconstructing Oedipus? Considerations of the psychosexual development of boys of lesbian parents
• CHAPTER NINE Maternity and femininity: sharing and splitting in the mother-daughter relationship
• CHAPTER TEN The parents, the baby, and the high-tech stork
• CHAPTER ELEVEN Motherhood and work
• CHAPTER TWELVE The bodies of present-day maternity
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN New reproductive realities: paradoxes, parameters, and maternal orientations
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN Parenthood and HIV/AIDS. An investigation of the INPer based on psychoanalytic and gender theory
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN New methods of conception and the practice of psychoanalysis
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN The impossible being of the mother
• REFERENCES
• INDEX