Maternal Desire : On Children, Love, and the Inner Life

by De Marneffe, Daphne

• ISBN13: 9780316059954
• ISBN10: 0316059951
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-22
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co

Summary

What is the desire to mother? How do we understand it, talk about it, and think about it? These questions are at the heart of Maternal Desire, a groundbreaking book that gives a voice and a vocabulary to one of the most transforming and powerful experiences in women's lives. If a century ago it was women's sexual desires that were unspeakable, today it is women's desire to mother that has become taboo. One hundred years of Freud and feminism have liberated women to acknowledge and explore their sexual selves, as well as their public and personal ambitions. What has remained inhibited is women's thinking about motherhood. Simplistic images of stay-at-home moms or career supermoms, along with endless debates about what is better for children, continue to obscure the profound meaning of mothering for many women, in all its chaos, complexity, and joy.

Author Biography

Daphne de Marneffe, PhD, is a clinical psychologist experienced in treating adults and children. Educated at Harvard and UC Berkeley, she has lectured nationally on the subject of maternal desire, and her scholarly work has been published in psychoanalytic and feminist journals

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
The "Problem" of Maternal Desire	p. 3
Feminism	p. 23
Psychoanalysis	p. 57
Pleasure	p. 90
Ambivalence	p. 118
Child Care	p. 147
Adolescence	p. 182
Fertility	p. 211
Abortion	p. 237
Midlife	p. 255
Fathers	p. 280
Time with Children	p. 312
Acknowledgments	p. 337
Notes	p. 339
Bibliography	p. 371
Index	p. 391
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