Radical Psychology
Volume Nine, Issue 2
Mothering on the Margins of
Space: Meanings of ‘space’ in
accounts of maternal experience
Introduction
The investigation and portrayal of motherhood in psychology and
psychoanalysis is the source of many contemporary everyday
discourses about mothers. Notions of the ‘selfish’ mother,
the ‘monster’ mother and the ‘greedy’ mother are underlined by an
adherence to attachment theory and a focus on the quality of the
relationship between mother and child (Alldred,
1996). The ability of
well-educated mothers to speak eloquently of their experiences and to
present themselves as they wish to be seen (Miller,
2005) has led to
the creation of a ‘norm’ of mothers who are ‘fit to parent’ (Alldred,
1996). This norm is further perpetuated through the high
proportion of research that is carried out with white middle-class
nuclear families. Those that do not fit this norm are
pathologised. This is done in one of two ways: Either a
‘normalising absence/pathologising presence’ of families from different
ethnic groups is created (Phoenix, 1991a;
Phoenix & Hussain, 2007),
or ‘insider/outsider’ perspectives about some mothers (e.g. teenage
mothers) are created by researchers ‘looking in’ at their experiences
(Phoenix, 1991b). The
normalisation of motherhood in psychology
gives rise to questions about its usefulness in understanding the
experiences of mothers.
Challenges to the pervasive normalisation of the white middle-class
woman as mother in western culture are emerging (e.g. Alldred, 1996;
Burman et al, 1996; Reynolds, 2005; Phoenix, 2006). Research areas have
broadened to include: investigation of the experiences of ethnicity and
parenting (e.g. Marshall,
Woolett
&
Dosanjh,
1996; Phoenix
and
Hussain, 2007), of mothering more than one child (Munn, 1991) and of
black mothers (Reynolds, 2005).
There has been work on young
mothers (Phoenix, 1991a) and later
motherhood (Berryman, 1991) and a
burgeoning field of queer psychology includes research into lesbian
motherhood (Roseneil, 2004). Theories
of psychoanalysis have been
unpicked and used to illuminate the experience of motherhood
subjectively. Such research allows psychology to begin to address
its role in the development and perpetuation of ‘norms’ that can serve
to oppress and exclude mothers. The discipline of
psychoanalysis is used as a tool for developing enriched understanding
of the subjectivity of the mother (e.g. Miller,
2005; Parker, 2005;
Frost, 2006).
Understanding experiences using ‘space’ and psychoanalysis
Feminist approaches to research in geography have explored ‘space’,
‘embodiment’ and spatial aspects of emotion as a way of gaining insight
to women’s experiences (Majumdar, 2007).
These
approaches
call
for
space
and
embodiment to be included in all theories of subjectivities
(Brown, 2001) based on the arguments
that individuals speak, view and
build their world in material space. Using understandings and
explorations of space, and the way space is
talked about, can allow for less categorical and more flexible
positionings in making sense of subjective experiences (Majumdar,
2007). By focussing on individuals’ lived experiences within
particular spaces, physical or psychic, ways of being that have been
previously overlooked can be highlighted (Majumdar,
2007). This
approach provides a way of challenging the coercive power of culturally
accepted discourses that surround motherhood in western society.
The existence and acceptance of the discourses of ‘ideal’ motherhood,
by mothers and those around them can inhibit women from speaking freely
about their feelings. Mothers question experiences they have that
do not accord with prevailing beliefs of the importance of exclusive
mother-child relationships and with their self-sacrificing
availability. This can lead to a ‘self-policing’ of mothers’
thoughts and words as they seek to present themselves in ways they
think they should be seen (O’Grady, 2005).
Many
cultural
discourses
of
mothering
embedded in traditional western
thinking can be traced to the foregrounding in classical psychoanalysis
of the importance of secure attachment between mother and child (e.g
Klein, 1937; Winnicott 1956). Now widely
challenged by
contemporary feminist psychoanalysts who hold psychoanalysis
responsible for the simultaneous idealisation and denigration of
mothers (Welldon, 1988), the
pervasiveness of the prominence given to
attachment theory can still be seen in social policy, media portrayal
of mothers and in common discourses about ‘good’ and ‘bad’
mothers.
Butler (1997) has considered embodiment
as the notion of ‘passionate
attachment’. Her theory proposes that it is better
for individuals to feel that they exist in subjugation than not to
exist at all. They embrace the subjugating power (of men, of
others) that regulates them in order to persist in their existence.
They are dependent on the power for their formation but seek to deny it
in order to grow to independent being. For women this may mean the
colonisation of their psychic space by patriarchal oppression.
For women who are mothers it may be from the power of their omnipotent
baby. Winnicott (1958) suggests
that the interdependence is embodied in
the psychic space between mother and child. This space is used by
the child to work out its independent self and by the mother to enable
the child’s separation from her (Winnicott,
1958).
The transfer of power by the child from the mother to the father in
order for the child to free itself from helpless subjection to the
omnipotent mother is embedded in psychoanalytic thinking (Benjamin,
1995). Dinnerstein (1976)
sees this separation as "part of a
constellation that constitutes our cultural sickness" rather than as a
necessary process (as cited in Benjamin,
1995, p83). The intertwining of the
‘ideal’ mother with the ‘narcissistic’ mother who binds the child to
herself to ensure its protected well-being or ignores her child as an
act of self-preservation is also present in common
discourse. Each of these mothering positions are created by
and result from those who surround mothers in their daily lives
The positions arise from sites of power situated in the mothering
context and impact on the individual sense of space for identity
formation that mothers have. As a result, mothers may choose not to
speak about feelings or experiences they perceive as
unacceptable. This choice has been termed self-policing (O’Grady,
2005) and can be understood to operate as a tool that restricts
mothers’ access to their psychic space.
Winnicott’s ‘third space’
Of the classical psychoanalysts, Winnicott in particular has been
criticised by contemporary feminist psychoanalysts for adopting a
paternalistic approach to mothers. He binds the mother to her
child in her pursuit of a secure attachment. To Winnicott, the
mother is one with her child in much of her early mothering work, and
no other desires and needs of hers are recognised. The
exclusivity of the relationship is heightened before and after the
birth by a "primary maternal occupation" (Winnicott,
1956, p300) in
which, according to Winnicott, the mother becomes almost psychotic in
her devotion to attending to the child’s needs.
The notion of the existence of a primary maternal occupation can be
perceived as oppressive to all mothers. Full preoccupation with one
child raises questions about how an exclusive mother-child relationship
can be maintained when there is an existing or subsequent child and it
does not consider contextual or circumstantial factors surrounding
motherhood. Perceived failure to conform to the notion of
maternal preoccupation with one child can lead to isolation for those
mothers unable (or undesirous) to fulfil its expectations. These
mothers can find themselves labelled as showing pathologised mothering
behaviour by operating outside this imposed ‘norm’. The
marginalising of these experiences can be overlooked until issues seen
as problematic are investigated (Phoenix
and
Hussain,
2007). To
avoid the risk of such pathologisation it can be preferable for mothers
to experience this preoccupation with their new infant in small doses
rather than not at all or in the all-enveloping way originally outlined
by Winnicott.
Winnicott’s focus, like Klein’s, is on the mother-child bond (Klein,
1937; 1946). He regarded the
first relationship not as one of
conflict, as Klein did, but one of reciprocity between mother and
child. The child knows no boundaries between itself and other, the ‘me’
and ‘not-me’ and is exclusively focussed on the helping mother/breast
(Winnicott, 1956). At the same
time the mother’s preoccupation
ensures her attention is exclusively on the child. The child can
only tolerate the mother’s absence for certain periods of time, after
which she is perceived to cease to exist. The infant finds the feelings
of dependency and vulnerability hard to tolerate, struggles to hold
itself together and is threatened with internal disintegration. The
mother re-enters the child’s world when she returns and only then
exists again to tend to its needs and care for it.
According to Winnicott it is through recognition from its mother that
the child comes to experience its own existence. The
‘good-enough’ mother creates a ‘facilitating environment’ in which she
enables the child to gently discover itself and its boundaries
(Winnicott, 1960). She
gradually introduces her infant to the
external world in non-threatening and manageable doses by using the
potential space as an area for symbolism and play (Winnicott, 1958).
This ‘third area’ lies between the infant’s boundaries and its
mother. The processes of symbolism and play are used to enable
the infant to tolerate separation from the mother. Her presence
initially serves to protect the infant from impingement from the
external world and then, when the infant is ready, the mother works to
gradually disillusion the infant of its own omnipotence (Winnicott,
1951; 1970).
The potential space between mother and infant, between ‘me’ and
‘not-me’ (Winnicott, 1951; 1958; 1967)
is
one
of
the
mainstays
of
Winnicott’s theories and it is where many of the developmental
processes of early infancy are believed to take place. Winnicott
maintained that the potential space is important throughout life and
comes to play a vital role in the experience of living. As an infant
the potential space is used to explore inner boundaries and relations
and to understand its relation to the external world. As an adult
it represents a space in which individuals can strengthen existing
self-structures and build up new ones (Winnicott,
1958).
The infant achieves the ability to explore its inner world by
developing the capacity to be alone in the presence of the mother
(Winnicott, 1958). Entering a
state of unintegrated being, the
infant is protected by its mother from impingement from the outside
world. The mother’s presence is important to the infant but the two do
not engage with each other. Instead the infant’s world is its
inner self and it comes to identify its boundaries and internal
relationships during this time. With development, the
potential space becomes a place where individuals can learn to mourn
lost objects, re-assimilate their attachments and emerge to reinvest in
new objects. It is the place therefore where self-identity is
understood, constructed, maintained, reformulated and developed
throughout life.
Winnicott’s theories were developed from an infantocentric
perspective. By using them to consider the maternocentric
perspective new insight to the experiences of mothers can be gained
(e.g. Parker, 2005). Parker
argues that Winnicott adopts a
reassuring stance in his assertion that mothers have the natural
capacity to care and attributes great responsibility and power to them
in their use of this capacity. To include an unacceptable feeling
such as hate amongst these powerful emotions would incur fear of its
impact and enactment amongst mothers. Acknowledgement of its
existence would weaken the promotion of mothers as naturally caring and
loving. Thus Winnicott identifies hate as the disillusionment of
the infant’s fantasy of the mother’s omnipotence. Parker proposes
however that considering such unacceptable feelings and experiences
from the maternal perspective, can also enable the mother to
differentiate herself from her child. By acknowledging the
reality of her co-existing feelings the mother can recognise the
reality of the child and the responses it evokes in her. This
causes her to think about her relationship with her child and enables
her to separate from it as she relinquishes the fantasies of the
perfect mother and of the perfect child and recognises herself and her
child as separate and autonomous subjects (Parker,
2005). Given
the potential for new insight to the experiences of mothers by valuing
all of the feelings that mothers may have about their children this
approach is used here to explore meanings of physical space to mothers.
A mother’s accounts of space
The origins of this article lie in a wider study that investigated the
transition to second-time motherhood amongst women living in London
(Frost, 2006). The study used parenting
networks to recruit seven women
who were six months pregnant with their second child to participate in
the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with each
woman at three monthly intervals until the second child was nine months
old. The women were encouraged to speak of events and experiences
that were of significance to them during this period so that narratives
about their expectations, hopes, fears and realities could be
gathered. The narratives were explored using models of narrative
analysis (e.g. Gee, 1991; Riessman, 1993; Emerson and Frosh,
2004). By exploring the descriptions of the ways in which
space
was significant to them, access to ways in which these women made sense
of breaches in their subjective understanding of themselves as they
became mothers to two children was sought. The study aimed to
avoid imposing preconceived stories onto those of the women as far as
possible by employing a pluralistic narrative analysis (Frost, 2009)
and through careful researcher reflexivity. The findings were discussed
using psychoanalytic thinking applied in a way that brings a
maternocentric focus to the work.
Narrative inquiry is a method particularly suited to the exploration of
identity, owing to the encouragement of personal reflection and meaning
making. It prioritises human agency, making it a valuable method
for use in radical psychology. Narrative analysis recognises that it is
particularly at times of incoherence in events and breaches in the
individual’s sense of identity that stories are useful and forthcoming
in making sense of changes in the sense of self and in the narrator’s
relationship to their surroundings (Riessman,
1993; Emerson and Frosh,
2004; Bruner, 1987). By going
beyond simple identification of the
stories, to their content, form and context (Halliday, 1973) narrative
analysis of mothers’ descriptions of their external space can provide
insight into how they make sense of their world and of
themselves.
Consider this account from Lucy, a 32 year old mother living with her
partner, a child of four years old and her baby of three months old:
We
could
have
a
bigger
house
which would at least allow me to
have a big room which is a children’s toy room where I can keep all the
stuff and have a designated adult space which we don’t have you know at
the moment. What drives me mad is having children’s toys in my
living space and never really getting to switch off from them. Always
seeing their toys about. And um to have a bit more space.
The account describes Lucy’s need for more physical space. She wants to
have a 'bigger house', 'a big toy room' and a 'designated adult space'.
She describes a desire for compartmentalisation of her space with
designated and separate spaces for children and adults. Her account
tells us that she believes that having more space will enable her to
switch off from her children. Not being able to switch off from
them 'drives (her) mad'. Winnicott’s
(1958) notion that the infant grows when
‘alone in the presence of another’ can be used to
consider Lucy’s account. She is saying that she is unable to be
alone in the presence of her children. Even the sight of their
toys means she is unable to switch off from them. Winnicott
proposed that the infant can be soothed by the containing presence of
its pram as a symbolic representation of its mother. Lucy
describes how the reminders of her children leave her with the feeling
that she cannot escape their presence and this 'drives her mad'.
A link between physical and psychic space is made when Lucy talks about
how she gains “headspace”:
Strangely
you
would
think
having
five
babies would not give you any
space but it did. We would put them all in a line there and
whatever we were drinking tea or champagne and we would talk and we
would listen hard to what somebody else was telling you. You do
feel as though it’s head space because you’re not separated but
"headspace" is how I would
describe it because that’s what you’re
wanting.
This account describes Lucy being with other mothers and their
children. It highlights her pleasure at being in the
non-impinging presence of her infant. Winnicott’s
(1960) concept of the
good-enough mother creates a facilitating environment in which she
enables her child to discover itself and its boundaries gently.
Lucy speaks of being at one with her baby
('you’re not separated') whilst having what she wants for herself -
'headspace'.
Feminist researchers (e.g. Parker 2005)
have highlighted that mothers
use other mothers as mirrors and measures of what they should expect of
themselves. This can bring a fear of judgement and criticism but
also contains potential for the recognition and acceptance of ‘maternal
ambivalence’ (Parker, 2005). Lucy’s
description of obtaining what she
wants through being able to talk to the mothers of five other babies
highlights the value of this opportunity to her.
Lucy is a mother who represents the normalised ‘good mother’. She
had a profession as a TV producer, lived in a stable marriage in a
middle-class urban environment. She epitomised the group of women
who are perceived as finding motherhood easy. However some of her
accounts vividly illustrate the frustrations and the level of
desperation she sometimes felt when she was with them:
But
when I feel that I’m being pushed, because I’ll give I’ll happily
give everything to them that I have, but.... but then I’ve given and
I’ve given and I’m RIGHT at the end of my tether. Just I’m there
staring over the precipice and they’re MERCILESS. They just give
you a good shove over the edge. They totally don’t care and they will
watch you free-falling. You know, fascination.
Lucy describes the children’s withholding of appreciation of what she
gives them and that this stirs anxiety within her, almost beyond what
she can tolerate: 'right at the end of my tether'. In the account
above she draws on the maternal discourse of being prepared to give
them everything that she has and expresses her amazement at their lack
of caring appreciation of this. By telling us she is right at the
end of her tether she raises the question of what will happen if she is
pushed beyond this limit. This concern can be understood as an
expression of the potential for maternal ambivalence towards her
children.
In order to separate from the infant the mother needs to recognise the
child as autonomous and differentiated. For this destruction to
remain non-retaliatory it has to be accompanied by love and so, Parker (2005)
argues, maternal ambivalence is essential. The mother’s awareness
of her ambivalence has been raised and her concern for the baby
ignited.
This can enable the mother-child relationship to become more
meaningful. Parker (2005) argues
that in this way the guilt
the mother feels when the baby frustrates or enrages her can be used
creatively and recognised as arising from the conflict of love and hate
for her child. Lucy’s bewilderment at her children’s lack of
appreciation is expressed in her narrative and she goes on to describe
the enactment of her frustration in throwing things at the wall. In
this way the hatred remains psychic and is not directed at the children
in external reality - her ambivalence is managed. If the
recognition of the love alongside the hate is not there because the
undesirable feeling has been split off, the baby is either idealised or
denigrated by the mother. Lucy’s questioning of her children’s
uncaring attitude shows that she does not retain the fantasy of them
being perfect. According to Winnicott
(1958) this allows her to
also relinquish the fantasy of being the perfect mother.
To name these unacceptable maternal feelings of ambivalence however can
challenge women’s fear of harsh moral judgement or criticism of their
motherhood from others (O’Grady, 2005;
Parker, 2005). Perhaps the
significance of references to, descriptions of and quests for space by
mothers, alerts the listener to the urgency of their need to access a
place in which they can discover new boundaries and reformulate their
sense of self – a headspace. The accounts of Lucy’s daily life as
a full-time mother provide a picture of necessary vigilance and
attentiveness during which she is not able to focus on anything other
than the children. They describe how this prevents her from
achieving a sense of separate being, of being able to focus on her
inner world and of using the potential space to effect separation from
the children.
The gratification expressed in Lucy’s account may be because she has
the opportunity to acknowledge the range of maternal emotions she is
experiencing. When a young infant’s ability to tolerate waiting
for the breast to
satisfy them becomes unbearable it perceives the breast as
withholding. In a will to substitution, the infant perceives the
breast as turning from benign to malign causing the child to feel
anxious and threatened by it (Phillips, 1993).
Lucy’s
sense
of
falling
into
a
precipice at the hands of her children might be
understood as an enactment of the will to substitution. She
describes her resentment and lack of comprehension of the children’s
demands:
Look
Mummy’s lost her rag completely. Isn’t that funny” Open mouthed
“Look Mummy’s throwing things at the wall, how funny” and that makes me
even crosser. “HOW CAN YOU? Don’t you understand how much I love you?
How much I will do anything for you? HOW CAN YOU TREAT ME LIKE
THIS?”
Her words include her feelings of anger and love towards her
children. The paradox of simultaneously loving and hating her
children is clear.
Lucy perceives the absence of her children’s expressed affection for
her as a malign presence. Lucy describes that the capacity to be alone
in the presence of her children is frequently denied to her and that
she is unable to retreat to the comfort of a secure inner world that
does not need external stimuli. Her accounts of her experience
describe relentless impingements of reality on her by the demands of
the children and she tells us that she can feel threatened when in
their company. To redress this she seeks to be away from
them. Lucy knows the benefit of physical separation from her
children and has told of her sense of rejuvenation when she achieves
it. However this can only be achieved by replacing her immediate
environment with one in which there is separate space for
her.
As a mother who had formerly worked outside the home, Lucy had the
option of returning to work following her maternity leave.
Financially the family would benefit but her income was not necessary
to the continued running of the home and family lifestyle. This option
was important to Lucy and she described what a return to work meant for
her:
and
that for me is partly what going back to work has given me, just
a time when I’m not worrying and thinking about them. I mean you
have to compartmentalise in order to go back to work but I do find that
whether whatever I’m doing is boring or tedious or otherwise whatever
it is if it allows me to think with my brain and shut off the Mummy
brain altogether it’s massively rejuvenating
Here Lucy describes her return to work as 'rejuvenating' because it
gives her space in which she can shut off her 'Mummy brain'. Her
account returns to the importance to Lucy of being able to
compartmentalise in order to find space away from her children.
In this account she compartmentalises her time and describes it as
something she has to do in order to shut off the 'Mummy brain'.
By doing so she is enabled not only to create opportunity to be
physically apart from her children but whilst in that separate space
she is able to be other than a mother
This opportunity may afford Lucy a ‘psychic retreat’ from being a
mother. First described by Steiner
(1993) as providing patients
in analysis with an "area of relative peace and protection from strain
when meaningful contact with the analyst is experienced as threatening"
(Steiner, 1993, p1). It is not
difficult to compare this with the
protection from motherhood that Lucy is describing. Although the
process of regular withdrawal and the associated collection of
defences, phantasies and object relations can be harmful to some people
in the long term, the relief represented by the access to this area can
be experienced too. Steiner (1993)
reports that the retreat can
be idealised and represented as a haven. A subsequent account
from Lucy of her time at work includes a sense of freedom that perhaps
supports this:
when
I get to work and sit at my desk I admit to feeling a bit of
freedom you know I quite like that I can go out at lunchtime to the
shops and just look at whatever I want sparkly handbags for as long as
work permits.
Her use of the word 'admit' with which to describe this feeling
suggests a discomfort with this freedom and her enjoyment of it.
Her description of aimless wandering through the shops in her free time
is conveyed as a highly pleasurable experience for Lucy.
Winnicott’s notion of the importance of the use of the potential space
to restore balance between the inner and outer world includes the need
to attain a ‘non-purposive state’. This is the state achieved by
the infant in its protected state of being in the potential space and
is the equivalent to relaxation for the adult, according to
Winnicott. Lucy portrays herself as a busy and alert mother who
is far from a state of relaxation. Her awareness of her need to
be able to enter this state (and her perception that she is prevented
by the need for constant mental and physical vigilance of her children)
can also be considered in her descriptions of wanting space away from
them.
In our final interview Lucy told me that the family were going to move
to a larger house out of the city and that although this would mean her
driving the children everywhere she did not mind because she was able
to focus on something other than her children and yet be secure in the
knowledge that they were in her presence:
I
thought I need more space, I might as well go for it. I don’t
mind. I actually don’t mind getting the children in the car and
driving them places.
With these words Lucy suggests that a solution to being alone in the
presence of her children is to create more space in her immediate
environment. Perhaps she is describing driving the car as a way of
being in the presence of her children but alone. It also seems possible
that Lucy will not be able to create the desired psychic space by
simply increasing her physical space.
Lucy’s accounts provide a way with which to examine how accounts of
space and use of some of Winnicott’s theories can help to provide
insight to mothers’ experiences. Although from the group that
represents the ‘good mother’, this privileged insight to Lucy’s
experiences shows us that they are fraught with anxiety, frustration
and at times, despair. Her descriptions of how she gains from
being alone in the presence of her baby and creates physical spaces
away from her children provides insight into her lifestyle and psychic
experiences. It illuminates the role that access to resources
such as social networks, choices about whether to return to work or not
and opportunities to gain more physical space can play in the mothering
experience.
Discussion
The analysis of Lucy’s accounts highlights that despite her being a
white middle class woman with financial security who fits the norm of
good motherhood she experiences challenges and questions about her
maternal identity that confuse and distress her. The complexity of her
experience and the ways in which she talks about them provides us with
insight to the construction and perpetuation of the norm. It
tells us that even with these resources available to her it is hard for
Lucy to mother her children. The findings highlight the emotional
and spatial margins within which Lucy finds herself as she seeks to
conform to the norm imposed upon her as a mother.
Despite careful efforts to recruit broadly, select the most appropriate
approach to eliciting, gathering and analysing the data and to pay
attention to issues of reflexivity and researcher impact, the fact
remained that all the mothers recruited to this study were white,
middle-class professional women. This can be attributed in part
to the recruitment process that used particular parenting
networks. It can also explain the findings that the majority of
research is carried out with this group of mothers, perhaps
because they are most willing to volunteer and to talk about their
experiences. Several of the participants spoke of how
pleased they were to contribute to research on the topic of second-time
motherhood. They were a group of women with resources that
enabled them to take part (none were working at the start of the
research) and to consider what information was available to them as
mothers. As a white middle-class researcher this group was
relatively easy for me to recruit from.
Lucy’s frequent references to space both before and after the birth of
the second child provide a means to challenge the notion of the
normalised mother by using her references to physical space to gain
insight to her relationship with her psychic space. It may be precisely
because she feels she is part of the group of mothers who are perceived
as having the internal and external resources that are needed to deal
with motherhood that Lucy uses less explicit ways of describing the
struggles and frustrations that she sometimes encounters as a
mother. By seeking to understand the meanings with which she
imbues her talk of space we can gain some insight to the range of
experiences of this white middle-class mother. Lucy sometimes
spoke of space in concrete terms such as 'the things we could do if we
had a larger house', 'I don’t know how I will cope with the amount of
space the double buggy will take up'. She also recounted the importance
of 'headspace' to her, supported by references to herself as 'jelly
brain', having a 'fractured brain' and of her brain feeling 'shredded'.
Interviews with other mothers sometimes had to be rearranged or were
interrupted by unexpected intrusions of partners, babies, children or
social and professional visitors to the interview space of the
house. The mothers frequently referred to the lack of opportunity
to carve out space for themselves. The foregrounding of accounts of
space raised the issue that understanding the experiences of mothers
may be enhanced by further exploration of their talk of space.
Research has focussed on gendered divisions of labour carried out by
mothers in nuclear families with supportive partners. It has led
to discourses of selfishness being used to describe mothers who work
and so do not fulfil the gendered role of child care and household
management and to those who raise children alone (whether by choice or
circumstance). Perceived selfishness in motherhood has developed from
societal concern to protect the child’s best interests. The
existence of such selfishness has been founded on the pervasive
ideology of attachment theory. The discourse of selfishness
accompanying the attachment undertones of these structures extends to
all mothers: those in Lucy’s position, lone mothers, young mothers and
mothers who work. It is enshrined into social policy in the
Children Act (1989; 2004) (Alldred, 1996).
The
1989
Children
Act
was
criticised
as not being detailed enough about what was meant by the
best interests of the child and of leaving unquestioned any ‘common
sense ideas’ invoked by it (Alldred, 1996).
The
subsequent
2004
Children
Act
built
on the importance of secure attachment for the child
with the creation of a Children’s Commissioner to ‘promote awareness of
the views and interests of children in England’.
The focus of these social policy structures on the importance of secure
attachment highlights culturally and historically specific notions of
what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mothering. Using the
psychological discourse of the importance of intense and prolonged
maternal attention drawn from the work of psychologists such as Bowlby,
Winnicott and Spock, seek to regulate families and family life
(Baraitser & Spigal, 2009).
The
emphasis
they
place
on
mothers
not only continues to counterpose women’s and children’s rights
(Alldred, 1996) but also places an
intolerable burden on the modern
mother: “She is duty-bound to love her child; and if she is not
quite criminal for failing to do so, she is at least abnormal” (Miller,
2009). The question such policies pose seems to be how love
for
one’s child is demonstrated to the observing state.
Research on young mothers (Phoenix, 1991a)
shows
differences
between
insider
(mothers
under
twenty years old) and outsider (researchers)
perspectives. It demonstrates how outsiders’ perspectives can become
accepted as the norm and insiders’ voices obscured. The work
illustrated in this paper has taken the normalised view of mothers as a
way to gain insight to some of the meanings within Lucy’s
accounts. By understanding that she is drawing on discourses to
portray her maternal experiencesm, the analysis of her accounts enables
the discourse to be pushed aside in a search for what their use may be
obscuring or portraying. The discourse of ‘financial security
making motherhood easier’ is drawn on to inform us of her need for
space away from her children, thus highlighting the insider perspective
that such security does not necessarily ease the experience. For
mothers in different socioeconomic circumstances the discourse of
‘becoming pregnant at a young age in order to gain council housing’,
was reported as ‘laughable’ by the young mothers themselves
(Clark 1989, cited in Phoenix, 2006,
p87).
Analysis of the experiences of young women from poor socio-economic
backgrounds suggests that poverty can be correlated with young
motherhood but is not a cause of it. Young women from poor
socio-economic backgrounds are likely to have little or poor labour
market experience and few education qualifications. Their access
to jobs where they can benefit from career breaks, generous maternity
pay or maternity breaks will be limited. Their pregnancy is more likely
to impact negatively on being able to keep a job in the casual labour
workforce making it difficult to return to it following the birth.
These young mothers are unlikely to enhance their ability to make
independent provision for themselves and their children by deferring
motherhood (Phoenix, 1991b).
For Lucy the issue of returning to work was a choice she could
make because her husband earned enough money to support the family. For
women who are parenting alone or without a supportive partner, working
to earn a living can be not one of choice but of necessity. Women
who seek work when they have young children have to find employment
that fits around childcare arrangements. This often relegates
women who are mothers to poorly paid part-time jobs. Half of all
women with pre-school children are in employment and the majority (65%)
work on a part-time basis (Marks
& Houston, 2002). This
raises additional financial implications of paying for childcare or of
relying on family and friends. Radical psychology can serve
to illuminate such considerations.
For Lucy then the choice to move to a physically larger space in order
to create more psychic space for herself was made. Contact with
her was lost at that point but it can be presumed that her husband’s
income and the type of job he held enabled the new life to be developed
and maintained. Lucy chose to give up employment and become a
full-time mother. The choice to change housing is not one open to
mothers without sufficient financial resources. Research that examines
how gender and social class intersect with ethnicity can highlight ways
in which this becomes pertinent. One example is the role of
kinship networks in childcare. Research shows the extent to which
grandparents in many families provide short-term childcare
(Chamberlain, 2003; Marshal et al, 1998).
For mothers depending on this
support the question of moving away from the location of the kinship
networks’ may be answered for them by considering the impractical
implications of having to pay for childcare that had been previously
provided by family members.
This study has suggested that focussing on the lived experiences of one
mother within particular spaces, may have highlighted ways of being
that have been previously ignored (Majumdar,
2007). Mothers make
up a diverse group that includes single women, women in same sex
relationships and mothers of differing ethnicities and cultures along
with white middle-class women in traditional families, who are
perceived to be living up to the ‘mother ideal’. Illuminating the
meanings in Lucy’s accounts this way serves not only to heighten
insight into her experience but also to shine a light on the lack of
availability of some of these options to others. It allows us to
consider the impact of these restrictions and outcomes on mothers who
do not conform to psychology’s norm. In doing so it outlines
areas of further research that can be conducted through ongoing
consultation with all representatives of mothers and careful,
multiperspectival consideration of what they tell us.
Acknowledgements: I am grateful to all the mothers that took part
in the study and particularly to Lucy for making this article a
possibility. I would also like to extend my thanks and
appreciation to the anonymous peer reviewers for their helpful comments
and ideas, and to Dr Richard Barry for fruitful discussion about the
role of radical psychology. Thanks too to Zainab Ebrahim for
careful checking and rechecking.
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Nollaig Frost is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Middlesex
University. She has research interests in pluralism in
qualitative methodology, motherhood and identity maintenance and
reformulation, and counselling and psychotherapy. Her work on
second-time motherhood draws on psychoanalytic thinking to understand
individual experiences. She leads a large scale national project
(the PQR project) that examines the creative tensions and applications
of combining qualitative methods. Her professional background as a
psychodynamic counsellor shapes her interest in researching clinical
processes.