Woman; The Perfect Mother

Good evening and welcome to woman. Tonight's program is the first of three programs we will be devoting to motherhood and motherhood is a very traditional topic but recently many people have begun to write and think about it in a very traditional way more openly and honestly. My guests this evening are two such people. They are Angela Baron the bride a psychiatric nurse working on a doctorate in developmental psychology and author of a book titled The growth and development of mothers and also surely surely is a founder of a parental stress hotline to help troubled parents and prevent child abuse. She is also the author of a book titled Mothers Day is over. Welcome to both of you. Angela why do you think women have babies. They have babies for all sorts of reasons that they don't like to admit to themselves. I think they're the reasons that they admit out loud and they and the reasons that never quite get admitted out loud. I think some of the reasons that you nit admit out loud is that somehow if

your time has come and after a while when your friends start recommending fertility doctors and you've been married for two or three years and your father hints you and your mother hints about becoming grandparents. I mean these are all reasons on a more conscious level I think why you have children do it to please your parents to to prove that you're a woman to prove that you can do it. All your friends are doing it so that you can gripe when you go to somebody's house about the high cost of cereal for your for your child kind of thing. I think there's that there's some sense in which it's a little little bit like gambling too. You want to see what his genes and your genes together will look like. I mean you're all sorts of reasons though that you don't admit I mean some people may not even admit those reasons. Dr. Spock at one point in his baby child book talks about people having. Babies because they love children and I would think probably that is one of the reasons why you don't have babies Are you afraid I take issue with him

there because I think most of us don't even have that much contact with children especially as our own families are getting smaller. We may be in love with the idea of being in love with children. We may have all sorts of ideas about how lovely it will be I know I had all sorts of dreams about. I've always been overweight and I had visions of suddenly being more athletic than I'd ever been. You know I would I would go to the seashore and go swimming with my child and somehow I'd be more one with nature with a child than I had been before. Again I think of other reasons that you don't admit out loud that they say pertain to my own experience has to do or you know I was in a job that I didn't like all that much and it was sort of time that I should start having a child and and getting pregnant was one way of distancing myself from job pressures. Surely you were a mother later. Yes yes we were married for about eight years.

When Lisa was finally born and I had always wanted children quote wanted I think for so many reasons that Angela touched on. I've been nodding and you know it's so much of it. I had a vision of what I would be as a person and with children somehow that a better person. Oh much better looking too. Yes. And are capable of remarkable in all of these things. And it also never occurred to me that that I I never question. I never said do I want to have children. Of course I wanted to have children. All married women want to have children. And of course all unmarried women want to get married and have children. It's just ingrained. And in addition to being very programmed and having a lot of really foolish ideas about what parenthood was all about I had a lot of social pressure because of the eight years.

You want to hear about the recommendations for fertility drugs and doctors. I can write chapter and verse on that week I couldn't get past conversations with people when they would say Do you have children. And I would say no. The next question was When are you going to start your family. And if I said I don't know they would say don't you like children. Oh yes my husband and I have been trying and I was recommended to the world's greatest gynecologists and someone even gave me some literature and said I could talk to them any time about adoption. You know the other thing that that happens besides wondering if you're barren. People start wondering whether in fact they're not too selfish to have children you know. And people sort of you know talk about when you'll settle down. I always found it sounded like death. I mean you know I can remember being pregnant and my mother saying to me well maybe now you'll stop flitting around you'll settle down.

I thought never. Never. How do you know I have a child that will never settle down. Because in fact in some ways I thought I saw that as sort of my my death warrant. You know if I did settle settle down. Yes I think a lot of the feelings so that that you don't admit out loud or you barely are in touch with really do affect how you operate there as a parent when you do become on set and I think you have to sort of get in touch. At least I found that the more you realize all the crazy reasons why you decided to have a child that you didn't admit to yourself you know it all. Especially now with contraceptive being contraceptives being readily available. There's so much decision making and that's part of it. And you like to think that you've been very rational. I mean you you just yeah what was the propitious time. And there is something about that that makes you I think even more wary of looking at some of the crazy feelings which I think are always going to be with us. And it's only when you look at some of these what I rather like to call normal crazy feelings that everybody has but everybody thinks are crazy.

That in fact you can come to terms with the reality of being a parent. And we talk about the reality though. I'd like to talk about what you both call the myth of motherhood. I would like to say one thing as a footnote to what she said you know the same pressure that pressures you into having the babies is the same pressure that pressures you into trying to duplicate the very plastic perfect model of one parent. This is it is coming from the same source. And it's the same thing. And when you have your children as a result of social pressure you're already caught in a crack and you continue after they're born. What about the myth. OK. I would say that the Miss OK Miss Number one I guess is that children in handsome marriage and even can save it. Oh oh definitely can say that. Yes. Yes I'm certainly glad you mentioned that. And that it having children can fulfill you. And fulfill

you as a woman. Or right now you're saying that they're males you both say this in effect in both of your books which you have to tell me why they're myths. Elaborate a little bit more yes on. Yes mistake. Yeah I sort of like to quote without naming anybody. Some of the kinds of my own sort of professional background as a psychiatric nurse I've had occasion to read a lot of the psychiatric theory and in it you find phrases like motherhood is the ultimate fulfillment it is the climax of one's erotic gratification. You find a very distinguished theorist talking about how by becoming a mother you diffuse your own aggressiveness and you help defuse your husband's. Now the notion that somehow being a mother will make you less aggressive will help you be more calm with your husband. Is the climax of your erotic gratification and ultimate fulfillment. If that

isn't mystical language number one. And also I mean slogans like that and they are slogans and sort of make you have ideas that well reality doesn't allow you by them. I mean there is a very real sense in which I sort of thought that being a mother would be the ultimate fulfillment and many ways you're disappointed and then you wonder if it's not you because you read some of your distinguished saying it is the ultimate fulfillment and you find that you don't think this is the ultimate I mean I think yes yes you know when you get winds the way what you're saying is that there's nothing wrong with it not being real to that's right. But there but but we as mothers had to learn that ourselves rather rather painfully because we expected Parenthood to give us so much and to turn us into so much. And when it didn't happen obviously it had to be something wrong with us. A lot of the literature I like to think of as what

men really hope woman can do that they know they couldn't do themselves that they couldn't be fulfilled by being a parent. They like to think that when it sort of comes under the heading of convenience social virtue or that motherhood would be it's a painful experience for a lot of people find it painful certainly childbirth I mean it it it it it can be distorted to be seen as too painful but there is discomfort at the very least and pain connected with it so there's something about calling it the ultimate you know and erotic gratification that somehow sidesteps the fact that it can be a painful experience not only when you're actually delivering the child but when you're on a day to day basis you're trying to function in the role of mother earth. And I think a lot of the sort of wishful. Well a lot of the motherhood mystic is sort of wishful thinking on the part of male theorists projecting onto the woman what they really hope that she can do and would like. To think that their mothers would do for them. There are some good examples in your book. One is what you were referring to

Sylvia Plath. And discussing the description of her suicide in another book that you had read which you go into that just a little bit. Well I remember reading about her. There was a book on suicide where they talked about. Her and it was written by somebody who had known her and one of the things that they talk about is how she towards the end was getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning and writing poetry and then at the same time taking care of her children all day long. And. I was impressed with how the person writing it and wanted to convey the idea she may have been a crazy lady but boy was she a good mother. She continued even though she was more and more getting depressed to function during the day even though she was reading poetry at 4:00 o'clock in the morning in terms of taking care of her children and and in fact they talk about just before she put her head into the gas oven that she put bread and milk out in the children's room so when they would wake up there'd be something for them to eat. And I see this

is sort of the ultimate gesture that she made toward some crazy notion of the good mother and yet the norm there in talking about this talked about in terms of you know even though she was so depressed look at what a good mother she was. Didn't he also say that her reasons were because she wanted to rejoin her dead father and the London cold. She was living in London at the time they're having a very severe winter and mentioned nothing about the fact that she had a miscarriage two years he had two children a miscarriage an appendectomy and her husband. She was separated from her husband and a lot of that which I think is trauma. You know you don't have to be very Freudian or very psychoanalytic to say she had a lot of crises and still was keeping up. I mean there was a clearly a real conflict between her wanting to produce poetry and to sort of do something that expressed herself. And. Having two small children she had to take care of it. There's a complete dismissal in the book of the fact that she the day

to day kind of wearing down of just taking care of chilled without any you know. You know that this could have been in fact a causative factor. I mean I'd sooner think of that word yet it made her depressed and made her commit suicide. Then the mourning to be reunited with your dead father kind of thing. But before we get too far into the program I want you both to make it clear where you stand I mean I think I'm afraid people will get the impression that you're both knocking motherhood terribly. And I know you're not doing that that you're trying to you're making an attempt to be more realistic I think that both of us in similar and yet different ways are trying to put motherhood in perspective. What we are knocking is not motherhood or children but the role of motherhood the way it's evolved the way it is today. It's an impossible role. It's one that guarantees that a woman is going to fail. It's also one that precludes any suggestion that a father is equally responsible for the

children in the care. And the nurturing. And. I think that. It is such a a terribly phoney role no one can achieve it. And yet I think we we we keep trying. And I I would have to say the experts have done this. The mass media the women's magazines have done by and large with their advertisements and their stories and their friends stories about how children have saved marriages. They run stories about remarkable mothers and put them up as models for us to follow. And we find ourselves doing a lot of. I would say garbage work and girl bitch worrying. And we've lost sight of our priorities. And I think that both Angela and I would like to see us get to the point where we could look at parenthood and say what it is and what some of the options are.

And. You know reorder your priorities where they make sense where they are giving a child love and. Nurturing and ends and good feelings is more important than Then knocking yourself out trying to be a perfect mother to such an extent that you have nothing left over to give in except to tell them to shut up and quit bothering you while you're baking these cookies or whatever it is. You know a lot of my own. Stand can be sort of deduced from the title of my book it's called the growth and development of mothers. And by that. I wanted to do a takeoff in the title of all those books that talk about the growth and development of children. And there are enormous amounts of books on what the mother especially parents generally but mother in particular should do for their children. And the assumption made in most of the literature is that mother is a grown up. She's had her day of. Being taken care of and Else the time for her to take care of her children.

And I really do think becoming a parent is a developmental crisis that is. There are issues that you have to come to terms with and being a parent. Your knee your aggressive. Feelings any feelings any thoughts that you had before you were a parent are the same as the one you are going to have it doesn't transform your There's nothing magic that happens and it's a real mistake to sort of see mother as grown up rather than a person in the process of growing up. OK what does this do a mother. What does what does this do to a mother assuming that she's grown and the minute she has a child I mean we're all assumed to be mature at that moment right. But I think what it does is is that kind of you that she's already grown up doesn't allow her to say what her needs are it doesn't allow her to say. There are times when I feel like blowing my stack. I mean if you read some of the literature they talk about when your child throws a temper tantrum the best thing to do is to be you know they're not. Not to sort of ignore it you know. And because. Because if

you're calm and don't participate it will go away. What people fail to say is that you probably have not gone over gotten over all your own aggressive feelings that. I mean my one of my first responses to my. Child throwing a temper tantrum was to have one of my own. And in fact I found one of the things that I needed you know that then look and I said well you know I'm not much better than she is. And over time and it was only over time where I really deliberately tried to. Take care of my feelings and to show her a better way of handling her feelings and that in fact. You know I sort of grew up and she grew up and the model was not. Mommy is so good mommy isn't going to get angry and expecting her also to be so good and I get angry when in fact it's a crazy view of people I mean I prefer to think that like if you're angry. If you get really angry. It can't be an irresponsible angry. You can still get angry. But the important thing is to let somebody know why you believe you're stuck at a particular

time. Yes instead of being always good as a mother I felt that it really was. Important for me to not start but to say no. You did this and you did this and you did this. Mommy didn't get angry but when you did that and the spilling of the milk was a small thing but do you realize when you did all those other things that I tried so hard not to get angry with you when you did that you know how it is at the end of the day I got so mad that I must say. This may not work for everybody but I feel that in my own experience that if you don't do this. Children say the same thing back to you they say mommy. Boy am I angry with you when I tell you. Yes. Yes and I think you were right. You're bringing out is that children need to know that their parents have feelings. And again the experts and you know all of the pundits childcare don't offer this. It seems there seems to be as a suggestion that since you are grown up you don't have these feelings but if you should have these feelings. Your child shouldn't know

because your child will feel insecure. But using so many books have a chapter at the beginning saying parents have feelings too and it usually is about three pages long and you get the impression that they think the feelings last as long as it takes for you to read that three page chat Yes and it was an aberration. You know. You know you may be angry but it goes it goes away soon as you're back to being normal you know and the normal is in fact being a process growing up and I think in many ways if you just show your struggles to your child I mean that is much more of a real picture of what life's about then sort of that's part of your denial kind of thing. But there's one thing we all seem to have in common is that we all believe everyone else is doing a better job as a mother than we do we see our neighbors as me. As one who just stepped out of the pages of the journal and you know you don't think about all of the things you do but you'll see someone doing something you'll say Oh.

Gee I haven't rolled in dancing class and I probably should because it's a confidence builder. Mostly because somebody else is doing it and doing other things. And. You really do believe it. But I've had the opportunity to really hear mothers and really listen to them. And I find that so many of the women are doing it perfectly. And this is not to say there aren't those who do and aren't happy. But so many of the mothers that look so great are are having the same sorts of conflicts and. They don't have any conflicts. Now they have me in my community but it's you know it's we all look at each other and think everybody else. They have raised us really key. You know there is in a competitive society like ours where all sort of gung ho creating perfect products and if you read the childcare literature the traditional role for the woman is to create the superior product that is your child should both be intelligent

and yet emotionally not retarded your child should be both a beauty and and yet expressive. Your child should be assertive and at the same time not get into a fight. And those a lot of the virtues that we even try to sort of. Put forth in our kids are my child my child doesn't like his children. My daughters always telling me that those are good since there have been a lot of those are values. In fact Mothers are supposed to. Nurture and the child. See. This today at odds with each other they are going to each other and we're so eager for our child to be I mean especially in a traditional role is that if you do define yourself in terms of strictly child care or making kind of thing the way that you do look for success for your child to be successful. And I think that in itself puts on pressures and the more you know. And you know I think we're very public so that we read an awful lot of the literature and take in

more and more expectations for what we should be. And only half year when people say you know it isn't really like that. What effect is this having on all of us then. Well I think that. For one thing. We have to start looking at what it might be doing to the children. I have a feeling that. Our so called child centered culture is causing us to rear in large groups of neglected children emotionally neglected children. I think that mothers are having more difficulty really nurturing. You know I keep saying to people what does the car pool for the Little League have to do with your so-called natural role. Really think about all of the things that have been added to the maternal role besides giving birth and nursing and nurturing. There's a very long list and good mothers do all of these things and good mothers follow all of the. Advice conflicting. I might add of the

experts and I think we're confused. And I think that we're. We're really not. Able to be the kinds of mothers that. Well. Would Foster. A. Healthy. Happy. Children but you have frustrated mothers I think you have pushy mothers you have the sort of Portnoy's Complaint kind of you know so important that kind of thing always that you know the stereotype of the mother who's always there with chicken soup and always doing doesn't allow you any independence. But the society created her. And the society at the same time is great creating. I mean that kind of thing is destructive I think to women in that. It makes them in fact not allow themselves to be persons kind of thing. But at the same time I think it's bad for children because the notion that somehow you do for your child. This presuppose that at some point the child will then become independent. I don't think children automatically become

independent if you in fact keep doing for your child keep being self-effacing I think the more in a family you negotiate needs and realize that everybody has needs and negotiate them in an atmosphere of good will I think. I mean that makes more mental health sense to me anyway. All right well we're being told by the women's movement certain things and we're being told by you know Dr. Spock one thing a lot of people in between. How is anybody to know what to do. I mean it's I mean as you describe it I really are saying that it's impossible to function as a mother. We have to find I think we can start and I suppose here to more people saying. Making some suggestions. But I think we can start by clearing away some of the the garbage. That's associated with the myth. Do you mean values wrong values. Yes. Incorrect values or invalid values if you will. And I think that we can approach parenthood. For reasons that. Are not to save a

marriage or to please an in-law or to please a. Parent. I think we can approach it by wanting to have a child. But I think that we should we really ought to know what's involved. And I think both of us have tried to provide a pretty good job description. Of what's involved. Angela certainly hit the need for women to grow that they weren't just automatically grown up. And. That you have to prepare to prepare. Besides besides preparing for the realities of the task the care of the child and these things and the responsibility and how it feels to have this you know really. Responsibility you have to prepare early. We have one minute left. I know that you both agree or disagree on certain levels with some things that are coming out of the women's movement on this subject. Why don't you talk about that in the time we have left. You know what one of the biggest thing that I have if you will I hate the

women's movement it's that many if you do the traditional thing that is become a mother. There's the there's some suggestion that you've copped out that in fact you must be conservative if you've done the traditional thing and I think we should not look just at it I think we should look at the old lifestyle. The old role of motherhood and look at women's needs. I think that women's movements done that for us. Look at her needs. Kind of thank you both thank you Shirley Redell author of Mothers Day is over. And Angela McBride author of. Worked on funding provided by public television stations Foundation and

the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.