Mothering and Ambivalence

by Featherstone,Brid

• ISBN13: 9780415139106
• ISBN10: 0415139104
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-10-29
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Parenting, single motherhood and the breakdown of the family are all subjects of current political and social debate in the West, and there is little agreement among cultural commentators on what mothers should be, what children need, and how those needs conflict with the needs of the parents. Feminists have played a large part in these debates in recent years, reacting particularly to negative portrayals of single mothers in the media and the implication that they are the source of other social problems. The contributors toMotheringand Ambivalenceaddress these issues but counters the reluctance of current feminist literature to embrace psychoanalytic understandings of dependency, identity and anxiety. Drawing on professional experience, they use psychoanalysis to go beyond the often simplistic claims of the political debate on mothering. In their discussions of parenting and gender relations within families, the authors also surmount the narrowness ofpurely feminist polemics, keeping in view the importance of the diverse identities for women who become mothers.

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors	ix
Introduction: crisis in the western family	1	(16)
Brid Featherstone
The production and purposes of maternal ambivalence	17	(20)
Rozsika Parker
Fathers' ambivalence (too)	37	(17)
Stephen Frosh
The maternal bed	54	(26)
Wendy Hollway
Mothers and daughters within a changing world	80	(9)
Sheila Ernst
Mothers, parenting, gender development and therapy	89	(22)
Susie Orbach
Wendy Hollway
The heaven and hell of mothering: mothering and ambivalence in the mass media	111	(8)
Ros Coward
In the company of women: experience of working with the lost mother	119	(17)
Paddy Maynes
Joanna Best
Parting is such sweet sorrow: the romantic tragedy of a mother-child relationship	136	(16)
Caroline Owens
Group-analytic psychotherapy: a site for reworking the relationship between mothers and daughters	152	(15)
Sheila Ernst
`I wouldn't do your job!': women, social work and child abuse	167	(26)
Brid featherstone
Index	193