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Title: The Myth of Motherhood
Author: Lee Comer
Date: March 1972
Language: en
Topics: Feminism, Gender, Class War
Source: Retrieved on 20.09.2021 from https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1628&context=alr

Lee Comer

The Myth of Motherhood

THE EMPHASIS on the class struggle in revolutionary thinking has

obscured the significance of traditional sex roles and nowhere is this

more apparent than in the mistaken belief that child rearing is, of

necessity, the responsibility of women. In fact, other than the optional

first few weeks or months of breast feeding, there is no biological

connection between the bearing of children and their rearing. Women both

in and outside the Women’s Liberation movement are busily mouthing this

radical idea, but it is evident that as far as their own lives are

concerned, and in their attitudes to others, it remains an empty ideal.

The fact that women everywhere are oppressed is not here in question.

Many women have come to terms with their oppression by internalising it;

they do not know that they are oppressed. Others knowingly embrace it.

Thus a woman will be pleased if she’s whistled at in the street and,

more seriously, will defend her right to make a man, her man, happy at

the expense of her own happiness. This is more than sacrifice; when she

projects her ambitions and aspirations on to her children and her

husband and when their achievements are embraced as her own, she is

signing away her life, suspending it on an illusion which the first puff

of wind will blow away. She is living vicariously, her personality

atrophies and ultimately she suffers total loss of identity. Women who

recognise this state of affairs for what it is and who therefore

attempt, however feebly, to reject it in their own lives, are almost

certainly doomed to failure for the simple reason that it is impossible

to escape the ideal of motherhood. Childless women who see no need for

Women’s Liberation are living in cloud cuckoo land, first because their

notions about their autonomy are as illusory as the married women’s who

believe that sharing the housework and the decisionmaking means

liberation, and secondly, because they feel they ought, one day, to have

a baby. Motherhood is society’s golden carrot. It is a super-human woman

who can live her life without a backward glance, wondering whether she

can really be fulfilled or satisfied with only relation ships, a

satisfying job and whatever else she wants out of life, without having a

child somewhere along the line. And why? Because of this one central

assumption which underlines everything that pertains to women, that a

woman’s true purpose in life and the pinnacle of her fulfilment is

motherhood. The professional planners of industrial society — the

psychologists, educationalists, doctors, sociologists, advertisers and

the media, using the different means at their disposal, magnify and

elevate the importance of the mother/child relationship. And the

amateurs who tread reverentially in their wake translate these

assumptions, prejudices and dubious findings into conventional wisdom,

so that no-one will be allowed to miss the point. Thus we arrive at this

supposedly self-evident truth; a child needs its mother and, by

implication, a mother needs her child. In actual practice, of course, a

mother is not regarded highly. If she were all the special things that

these people would have us believe, then surely they would take her

needs into account. But this is not the case. The mother with prams and

push-chairs isn’t in the forefront of the planners’ minds when they

design every new building with flights of narrow steps. Even in what is

regarded as the woman’s domain, like department stores, high rise flats,

etc., women with young children are simply not catered for. In fact,

every aspect of our environment is designed with one thing in mind, the

adult healthy male; mothers, along with the physically disabled and the

very old are ignored. This is just another of the ways in which society

operates a double standard. But this one has perhaps some of the most

far-reaching implications, the burden of which has to be borne by the

mothers. Caring for children is a difficult and important job of work

but considered in the commodity producing terms that we are conditioned

to value, the mother contributes nothing of market value and as a result

is not recognised economically. It must not be forgotten that it is

cheaper for the establishment to recognise the woman’s job in spiritual

rather than economic terms and for this reason, if for no other, it is

in the establishment’s interest that the status quo be maintained. The

most damaging way in which this is illustrated is in the desperate lack

of day nursery and pre-school nursery facilities. It is worth noting

here that the 1967 Plowden Report on Primary Education recommended that

one of the major priorities for the Ministry of Education was the

setting up of state run nursery schools for three to five-year-olds.

That was four years ago and very little has been done. The most

effective way of saving the state’s money, of keeping children at ho.ne

with mothers until they are five, is to emphasise over and over again

the exclusivity and significance of the mother/ child relationship. We

are bombarded with this stuff from every corner and no woman is immune

to it. From Bowlby to Woman’s Own, it is everyone’s prerogative to state

with absolute certainty that a child needs its mother, and, deprived of

her constant and exclusive care and attention, the child will suffer

unmentionable difficulties and will probably turn out to be a

delinquent. Dr. John Bowlby is the arch perpetrator of this. In his own

words: It appears that there is a very strong case indeed for believing

that prolonged separation of a child from his mother (or mother

substitute) during the first five years of life stands foremost among

the causes of delinquent character development and persistent

misbehaviour. Bowlby 1947. What is believed to be essential for mental

health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm,

intimate and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent

mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment. 1952

Partial deprivation brings in its train acute anxiety, excessive need

for love, powerful feelings of revenge and, arising from these last,

guilt and depression . . . Complete deprivation . . . has even more

far-reaching effects on character development and may entirely cripple

the capacity to make relationships. 1952 He admitted in 1956 that he may

have overstated his case, but this was only in relation to the long term

effects of institutionalisation (or, what he called ‘maternal

deprivation’) . However, in 1958, in a letter to the Lancet he asserted

that, contrary to general professional opinion, his position remained

unchanged. Several writers have attested to the widespread influence of

Bowlby’s views. In the words of Professor Yudkin and Anthea Holme, in

their book, Working Mothers and Their Children: There can be little

doubt that among the major contributing factors to the general

disapproval which our society extends to mothers of young children who

work outside the home, and the corresponding guilt of the mothers

themselves, are the theses of Dr. John Bowlby. Bowlby’s hypotheses

continue even now to provide both official and unofficial bodies with

supposedly irrefutable evidence in favour of such money saving projects

as closing day nurseries. Grygier et al., in their work Parental

Deprivation: A Study of Delinquent Children, state: The responsibility

for the emphasis on the mother belongs to John Bowlby, a leading

authority on the results of maternal deprivation who has had a powerful

influence on lay and professional people. In view of the vested interest

in keeping mothers at home, we begin to understand why it is that

Bowlby’s views attract world-wide attention while his many detractors,

who have presented a wealth of evidence which does not support his

thesis, remain in relative obscurity. These investigators are only read

by other investigators; they are certainly not read by those people who

popularise scientific findings. If these findings were published the

threat to the social order would be too great. But the threat to the

social order is as nothing compared to the threat to the mothers

themselves— the basis of their lives—their conviction that they are not

only the main ingredient in their child’s Me, but the only essential

ingredient. In other '"'ords, women have embraced the mythology so

wholeheartedly that it is they themselves who constantly reinforce it.

If really pushed, they would admit that their children could do without

their fathers, grandmothers, school, peer group, etc., but, deprived of

their mothers, the children would fall apart. If we are to believe that

women yearn for security, then they must go some way towards satisfying

this need in making themselves indispensable in this way. The most

pathetic way in which this is demonstrated is when a mother is ill. She

staggers on relentlessly, often refusing offers of help. She might

otherwise discover that her children can manage j>erfectly well without

her. Similarly, it frequently happens, when a child falls over and is

comforted by whoever happens to be there at the time, that the mother

rushes up, whips the child out of that person’s arms and says, “There,

there, Mummy’s here”. Such women are reinforcing the child’s

mother-dependence and are thereby postponing the realisation that they

are, in effect, dispensable as mothers. The end result, of course, is

what is known in all the text books as the normal small child, that is,

a child neurotically dependent on its mother. She, being the model

mother, has brought this perfect child into being by constantly

reinforcing every sign of dependence on her that it displays, first its

physical needs and then for its emotional needs. She puts it to bed at

6.30 p.m. so that it only sees its father for half an hour a day, she

rarely, if ever, leaves it with anyone for more than an hour or so, and

she reserves her ultimate contempt for any mother who does not conform

to this ideal pattern. When a child brought up in these conditions is

parted from its mother and suffers distress, the social scientists,

instead of throwing up their hands in glee at yet another example of

maternal deprivation, might be better employed at critically examining

the pre-separation experiences of the child. These social scientists

might also be better employed if they turn their attention to fathers.

Margaret Mead stands alone in recognising that the separation and

insignificance of fathers is not biologically ordered but is a direct

result of industrialisation. At the third meeting of the World Health

Organisation Study Group on Child Development, she said: In very simple

societies, such as the Australian aborigines, many South Sea island

societies, and some African societies, the male takes a great deal of

care of the young infant. But with every society that we have any record

of, with the onset of what you call civilisation, division of labour,

class structure, hierarchies of authority etc., one of the first things

that has happened has been the separation of the human male from his own

baby until any point up to two years, four years, six years, twelve

years. I think one of the things that we may want to discuss here is

whether this is not a condition of civilisation, and whether one of the

origins of creativity in males has not been this preventing them from

having anything to do with babies. Such subversive views about the role

of fathers will not be found in the conventional literature on child

care. As can be imagined, Bowlby has very different views. This is what

he had to say about fathers: In the young child's eyes father plays

second fiddle and his value increases only as the child’s vulnerability

to deprivation decreases. Nevertheless, as the legitimate child knows,

fathers have their uses even in infancy. Not only do they provide for

their wives to enable them to devote themselves unrestrictedly to the

care of the infant and toddler, but, by providing love and

companionship, they support her emotionally and help her maintain that

harmonious contented mood in the aura of which the infant thrives. In

what follows, therefore while continual reference will be made to the

mother-child relation, little will be said of the father-child relation;

his value as the economic and emotional support of the mother will be

assumed. What Bowlby gives us is a beautiful woman’s magazine image of

the contented mother dispensing harmony to her thriving infant with

father coming home on Friday night and smiling as he hands over the

economic support and if by chance he kisses his wife, he is not

demonstrating his affection but only providing her with emotional

support so that the child can continue to thrive. Like Bowlby’s views on

motherhood, this image of the paternal role has filtered down into

popular mythology. It is not difficult to see why this has happened.

Just as it is in the establishment’s economic interest to keep the

mother of young children isolated at home, so it is to keep the father

alienated at work. The system needs his labour, which is of course his

time, and he needs the money he earns by that labour to buy the goods he

makes, so he is advised only to participate in parenthood. He is not

essential, like the mother, but useful in an also-ran kind of way. None

of the lay books on baby care that I have consulted make any reference

to father although I am told that one does have a ‘note to fathers’ at

the end which suggests that he persuade his wife to bath the baby in the

evening when he is at home so that he can watch. Some of the

professional books on child care deny the father’s role completely: when

he is referred to, he is seen only as an occasional substitute mother.

Dr. Spock makes a valiant effort when he addresses himself to ‘parents’

at the beginning of his book Baby and Child Care, but he does not keep

it up, and all subsequent references are to ‘mother’. Thus, in all the

serious and popular literature the father’s role as a parent, in

contrast to the mother’s, is drastically under-emphasised. To turn now

to the evidence for and against maternal deprivation. In the first

place, all the original work was done on children in institutions and

the reason is only too obvious; it is virtually impossible to find

children brought up in motherless families, so that the evidence, such

as it is, had to be gathered from the very extreme cases where the

children were totally removed from their own homes. In other words,

these children were deprived of many things besides their mothers, not

least their fathers and love. This fact alone should be sufficient to

dismiss Bowlby’s evidence. As Grygier et al, have pointed out, what

Bowlby and his followers were studying was not the effects of maternal

deprivation but the effects of institutionalisation. These effects can

be, but are not always, harmful. It must not be forgotten that every

child in an institution is there for a reason, such as death of a

parent, break up of a home, or simply that the child is not wanted. Not

one of these reasons can be regarded as being conducive to the child’s

healthy development. None of Bowlby’s findings takes any of these points

into account. The only criticism he does anticipate is the one least

likely to be thought of. That is that the children he observed in

institutions may have come from "poor stock, physically and mentally”,

so that heredity alone might account for their backward development. He

goes on to refute this with devastating logic, by citing the case of

twin goats, one of which was separated from its mother and became

“psychologically frozen” when lights were flashed on and off. He

concludes this with the following statement: This is ample demonstration

of the adverse effects on maternal deprivation on the mammalian young,

and disposes finally of the argument that all the observed effects are

due to heredity. Bowlby is full of such glaring errors of judgment,

gross over-simplification and dogged singlemindedness. For instance, he

warns observers not to be taken in by children in institutions who are,

in his own words, “quiet, easy to manage, well mannered and even appear

happy” because their adjustment can only be “hollow”. In view of what he

has to say about goats and fathers, I hope I have demonstrated that- his

writings do not warrant serious consideration, except insofar as they

affect general attitudes. Before turning to the other evidence it is

worthwhile to refer to what Grygier et al. have to say about the

workability of hypotheses in an area as emotionally loaded as maternal

deprivation. These authors stand alone in questioning the validity of

employing scientific method on human beings: T o determine the effects

of parental deprivation a workable scientific model must be used and at

the present stage of scientific development this would be an

experimental model. Assumed causes must be manipulated experimentally to

see how often they produce the hypothesised effects, otherwise the

preconceived cause may be merely an association . . . The obstacles to

the use of the experimental model on human beings weaken the predictive

power of hypotheses in the social sciences, which, when compared with

those of the physical sciences rank less as laws than as educated

guesses . . . An hypothesis may be confirmed because it has been stated,

not because it is true. A perfect example of a hypothesis being

confirmed because it has been stated is found in a widely quoted study

entitled Working Mothers and Delinquency by Glucek and Glucek, who are

prolific workers in this field. The subject was 500 delinquent boys

matched pair by pair with non-delinquent boys of similar age, cultural

background, etc. The employed mothers were divided into two groups,

those regularly employed and those sporadically employed, in similar

types of work (cleaning, shop work, etc.). Of the delinquent boys 54%

had mothers who were full time housewives, compared to 46% whose mothers

worked, so a slightly higher proportion of the delinquent boys had

full-time mothers. However, when the authors turned to the sporadically

employed mothers, many of whom had themselves been delinquents, and

whose husbands were frequently unemployed and where both parents were

lacking in “self-respect”, they found a higher proportion of

delinquents. With the singlemindedness of a scientist intent on finding

causal relationship between maternal employment and delinquency, and

thereby proving the hypothesis, the authors disregard the other potent

factors which contribute to the waywardness of these children and

conclude: We already have sufficient evidence to permit of at least a

guarded conclusion that the villain among working mothers is the one who

seems to have some inner need to flit erratically from job to job

probably because she finds relief thereby from the burden of homemaking.

Note that there is no mention that this “inner need” might be financial,

owing to the husband being out of work. In their conclusions, the

authors drop their guard to reveal the moralising assumptions and

cliched attitudes which underlie their work: As more and more

enticements in the way of financial gain, excitement and independence

from the husband are offered married women to lure them from their

domestic duties, the problem is becoming more widespread and acute. It

is a problem that should be discussed freely and frankly in all

communities by mothers, fathers, clergy, psychiatrist and social worker.

When these authors use terms like “villain”, “luring”, “enticement”,

“independence from the husband”, their scientific objectivity must be

called to serious question. Similarly, their conclusion that there is a

causal relationship between the sporadically employed mother and

delinquency is highly dubious. Besides the many other factors at work in

the families of these boys, the authors have studiously ignored the fact

that the fathers were also sporadically employed. Many of the studies

into the effects of the working mother suffer from the same lack of

detachment as the Gluecks’ study. Margaret Broughton in her paper

Children with Mothers at Work suggested: ■ . . for mothers who work

because they are bored or lonely probably the answer would be to provide

creches or day nurseries where mothers could leave their children for a

few hours so that they could take part-time jobs. An occasional morning

or afternoon a week would probably keep many women mentally happy.

Despite their lack of detachment, none of the studies yet undertaken has

succeeded in finding a correlation between delinquency and maternal

employment. In fact, as mentioned previously, the Gluecks found a higher

proportion of delinquents from homes where there were full-time mothers.

So also did Ferguson and Cunnison in their study °f delinquents in

Glasgow. In 1965 Warren and Palmer looked into the backgrounds of 316

juvenile offenders and found that 98% were without a father or father

substitute compared with a mere 17% who lacked a mother figure. As

Grygier et al. pointed out: Paternal deprivation can no more be seen in

isolation than the maternal variety. In fact, it would seem patently

obvious that no study of delinquency can be undertaken without full

regard of all the factors—economic, social, educational, etc—which

together contribute to the child’s development. The nearest that any

investigator has come to admitting this is Andry who, in criticising

Bowlby, remarked that he did not take account of “interacting

multi-causation”, which is a roundabout way of saying that delinquency

has many causes. In an exhaustive review undertaken by Lois Stolz of all

the published evidence on the effects of maternal employment on

children, she had this to say on the subject of delinquency: The studies

reviewed tend to deny the contention that children of working mothers

are more likely to be delinquent than children of mothers who remain at

home. Nevertheless, the popular image of working mothers and consequent

delinquency, latch key children, etc., still prevails. The following

quotation from a pamphlet entitled Mothers at Work by Sylvia Pearson is

a typical example: The child needs the sense that there is a person who

is the provider of food, comfort and general well being . . . without

this initial foundation . . . the child easily develops a defiant

attitude which leads to delinquency. I recently heard it seriously

suggested in a letter broadcast on the BBC programme ‘You and Yours’

that married women should not be given jobs in view of the widespread

delinquency which results from mothers going out to work. It is clear

that the mother who goes out to work has been seized on and been made

into a scapegoat for the many social and environmental factors which

contribute to delinquency, as that term is understood. In all the

studies reviewed, there is an implicit assumption that maternal

employment and maternal neglect are synonymous. Of course there is no

connection, just as there is no connection between maternal presence and

what Prof. Yudkin sails ‘loving attention’. It hardly seems worth saying

that the harassed mother who stays at home only out of a sense of duty

to her children is as much of a threat to their well being as the mother

who reluctantly goes out to work and is dissatisfied in her job. If the

investigators want to continue in this field, they might try assessing

the effects on the children of the dissatisfied full-time housewife

versus the satisfied working mother. Another area for research might

also be the effects on children of fathers going out to work. Such a

study might yield very interesting results; but as the function of most

studies is to confirm prevailing ideologies rather than to further the

cause of scientific research a study on the effects of paternal

employment will not be forthcoming. Despite all these points, the doubt

will still linger that the mother who works outside the home,

particularly while her children are small, is causing them irreparable

damage. A typical example of the kind of statements that abound in the

media is this one by the actress Prunella Scales, reported in the

Guardian: It’s a physical fact that a mother ought to be with her

children for the first five years of their lives. This is stated as

though it were an immutable law of nature. One wonders what magical

thing overtakes the child on its fifth birthday that it can go to school

and do without its mother for six hours a day five days a week. What is

the basis for this ‘physical fact’? In fact, very few studies of note

have been undertaken on the effects of maternal employment on the under

fives. Lois Stolz suggested, in her review that the reason for this is

that it is generally assumed that mothers with infants do not work. One

study which she and several other writers refer to was undertaken during

the war when the need for women’s labour in the munitions factories and

elsewhere resulted in a rapid increase in the numbers of young children

attending day nurseries. The study is tortuously entitled The Eating,

Sleeping and Elimination Habits in Children attending Day Nurseries and

Children cared for in the Home by their Mother's, by Netta Glass. This

is the only study I have found which used a control group who were cared

for at home rather than an institutionalised group. Again, unlike other

studies, the author investigated home environmental factors, personality

and attitudes of the mother, marital situations, etc. When she studied

the habit disturbances she found that 29 of the home children were

affected compared to 33 of the day nursery children. The difference is

not significant. However, the author states that the mothers of the day

nursery children who presented problems themselves had ‘difficult

personalities’, fathers were more frequently absent among the nursery

children and living conditions were generally worse. The problem

children were, in fact, associated with certain parental attitudes and

types of personality and not with whether the children did or did not

attend day nursery. The author concludes that: There was no evidence to

suggest that children cared for in a day nursery are more likely by

reasons of communal care to present developmental problems than are

children cared for at home by their mothers. There was in addition no

confirmation of the belief that nursery care for children under two is

especially harmful. A study was undertaken by Perry in 1961 in

Washington and dealt with children aged three to five years, of 104

employed mothers. These children were cared for during their mothers’

absence by relatives, child minders with formal training and the like.

The children’s adjustment, as measured by nervous symptoms, anti-social

and withdrawing tendencies showed no correlation with any of these

factors, and Perry concludes that: results failed to support the views

of those who oppose the separation of children from their mothers.

Another study was undertaken by Heinicke in 1956. This was a small

explorative study. It dealt with thirteen twoyear-olds, seven of whom

attended day nursery while the rest were temporarily placed in

residential nurseries while their mothers were in hospital. The author

found that the residential children, after the first two days of initial

adjustment to the new routine, did present disturbed behaviour, such as

seeking affection, frequent crying, loss of bowel control, etc., while

the children who returned home each evening presented no problems. The

only point that was brought in connection with the day nursery children

was that they more frequently wet themselves, al though the author

admits that they indulged in more water play than the residential

children. The author draws no conclusion from this study as it was so

small and only covered a period o| nineteen days. However, Prof. Yudkin

suggested that Heinicke’s results: . . . suggest that young children may

fairly quickly adjust themselves to a new routine and to maintain a

close relationship with mother during the parts of the day when they are

together. Bowlby unwittingly provided his opponents with valuable

evidence when he quoted a study by Simonsen: Simonsen compared a group

of 113 children aged between one and four years almost all of whom had

spent their whole lives in one of some 12 different institutions, with a

comparable group who lived at home and attended day nurseries. The

mothers of these children were working and the homes often very

unsatisfactory. Even so, the average developmental quotient of the

family children was normal — 102 — while that of the institution

children retarded was only 93. Now Bowlby gives no indication that he

has appreciated the full implications of this evidence. In a paper

designed to stress the harmful consequences of maternal deprivation he

makes no attempt to account for the normal development of the day

nursery children who were deprived of their mothers for eight or more

hours a day. The emphasis in all these studies, much as their findings

support my case, is always biased towards the possible harmful effects

of partial separation of the child from its parents. I would have been

greatly relieved to have come across a study which set out to

investigate the benefits of partial separation for the under-fives. No

less important would be a study of the effects of maternal

over-protection. An interesting point to consider here is mentioned in

Professor Edward Strecker’s book, Their Mothers Sons. He stated that the

percentage of mother-fixated neurotic G.I.’s in the last war was

‘catastrophic’. A study into the effects of maternal over-protection

should prove as interesting as one on the effects of working fathers.

Myrdal and Klein, in their book, Woman’s Two Roles, had this to say: So

much has been written and said in recent years about the vital needs of

children for maternal affection, and about the dangers of neglect, that

many parents, in particular those who take an intelligent interest in

the emotional development of their children are becoming over anxious on

this score. Very little attention has, in comparison, been paid to the

effects of over-protection, though these may also cripple the

psychological development of the child. I don’t feel that, in the

present climate of opinion, much research will be done either in the

direction of maternal over-protection or the benefits of day nurseries,

nursery schools, etc., although concessions are gradually being made

towards the idea of nursery schools for deprived children. No-one in

authority has yet reconciled the idea that partial separation from the

mother is beneficial to the deprived child while it is harmful to the

‘normal’ child. In reviewing the evidence for and against maternal

deprivation, I have referred to the major works published. Most of the

work was done in the late ‘forties and throughout the 'fifties, when the

subject was ‘hot’, but so effective was the dissemination of the case

for maternal deprivation that it moved out of the realm of controversy

into the realm of acknowledged fact; as a result very little work has

since been done. Before moving on to a statement of my own position, I

will refer to Margaret Mead’s study entitled, Some Theoretical

Considerations on the Problem of Mother Child Separation. Unlike other

workers she is able to look at the subject dispassionately and brings it

admirably into perspective: At present the specific biological situation

of the continuing relationship of the child to its biological mother and

its need for care by human beings are being hopelessly confused in the

growing insistence that child and biological mother or mother surrogate,

must never be separated, that all separation even for a few days is

inevitably damaging and that if long enough it does irreversible damage.

This . . . is a new and subtle form of anti-feminism in which men —

under the guise of exalting the importance of maternity — are tying

Hvomen more tightly to their children than has been thought necessary

since the invention of bottle feeding and baby carriages. Actually,

anthropological evidence gives no support at present to the value of

such accentuation of the tie between mother and child. On the contrary

cross-cultural studies suggest that adjustment is most facilitated if

the child is cared for by many warm friendly people . . . It may well

be, of course, tfiat limiting a child’s contacts to its biological

mother may be the most efficient way to produce a character suited to

lifelong monogamous marriage, but if so, then we should be dear that

this is what we are doing. This article began with the statement that

there was no biological connection between having babies and rearing

them. Mothers are no more essential to their children than are fathers,

grandmothers, or indeed anyone who loves them with the right kind of

care and understanding. By the term ‘love’ I don’t, of course, mean

‘mother love’, a sentiment which masquerades as the most pure and ideal

form that love can take and is so ably characterised in the media by the

young mother whispering sweet nothings to her picture book child as she

washes up. In its extreme form the term ‘mother love’ implies the kind

of sacrificial commitment which is thought to be seen in the animal

world, with mother defending her young. (It appears, however, that among

the higher primates, it is often the father who defends the young in

cases of extreme need. In addition, there are several species where the

father cares for as well as protects the young: see Dismissions on Child

Development, W.H.O. Study Group, 1955.) Instead of recognising this for

what it is — the protection of the young for the perpetuation of the

species — we have applied it to human female behaviour and

sentimentalised it into a travesty of love. Thus, the ‘good’ mother is

the one who wraps her child in a blanket of love, attends its every

whim, thwarts its wishes only when there is physical danger, prepares it

well in advance for every possible little upset and anticipates all its

needs. She sincerely believes that she is doing everything in her power

to produce a happy child and then wonders where she went wrong when the

child sucks its thumb, wets its bed, attacks other kids and finally, in

adolescence, turns against her. The other side of the same coin may be

the child who is chronically timid and so dependent on its mother that

even she recognises that something is wrong. This dependency may be

carried over in the adult who finds difficulty in functioning

independently and who constantly seeks reassurance and confirmation of

its identity in other people. Certainly this kind of upbringing is

widespread and keeps the Child Guidance clinics very busy. Perhaps the

most lethal aspect of such ‘good’ maternal care is the conscious

anticipation of the child’s needs. There is confusion over the need for

an awareness and understanding of the child’s needs, at each stage of

its development, with the anticipation of them. The mother who

consciously provides for each need as or even before it arises is living

the child’s life for it. Instead of allowing the child to discover the

world around it for itself, the mother becomes the mediator, the

provider of that world. All that the child is learning is how to conform

to its mother’s expectations. It should be possible to challenge all of

these basic beliefs about what constitutes good parenthood without

presenting a wholly negative picture. Germain Greer suggested in her

book, The Female Eunuch that children don’t need ‘bringing up’; given

that their physical needs are met, they grow up anyway. It would seem

axiomatic to most people that children need the active intervention of

adults in the growing up process. This is what ‘bringing up’ is supposed

to mean. What it should mean is the presence of several “warm friendly

people” who are ready to respond to the child’s needs as and when they

arise. This would require a conscious stepping back by the adults so

that the child is allowed to determine for itself the quality and extent

of the adult/child relationship. Such an approach may well result in a

child who really does use its home like a hotel, giving and taking only

what is necessary to live its own life in a totally independent and

self-reliant way. This method of child-rearing is not an empty and

unattainable ideal. It is practised unconsciously in many families and

in its mildest form has been described as ‘healthy neglect’. As the term

suggests, it consists more of what it is not than what it is. The

essential point about it is that it avoids all the dangers of an

excessive mother/child attachment. The child is thus freed from many of

the burdens that a supposedly well brought up child has to bear — the

responsibility of fulfilling its parents’ expectations, of returning

their love and sacrifice and of compensating them for their

inadequacies. Instead of being bullied into being a credit to its

parents the child is allowed to be a credit to itself. For those

essentially middle-class parents who have eagerly embraced the whole

mythology— the strong attachment to the mother, the child’s yearning for

love and security, its need for constant understanding and guidance—to

be told that they give too much attention to their children would be

intolerable. Similarly, these people will defend to the last the myth

that the basic requirement for the child’s healthy development is

security. The pursuit of security must in part explain the strange

behaviour that afflicts previously enlightened people when their first

child is bom. They no longer live in the present, taking from each day

as much as it can offer; they start planning for something called the

future. They buy a house, build a solid wall of insurance around it,

they start thinking about a second child, not necessarily because they

want one but to provide a companion for the first, and in order to keep

this unwieldy edifice in repair the father’s job and the prospects that

go with it begin to assume an inordinate importance. In the name of

providing their children with security these parents are denying them

the raw material on which our experience is based, namely the

unpredictability of it. In fact, security is another of the tools

manipulated by society to make you stay where you are and work hard.

Security is commonly believed to be strengthened by consistency. In

dealing with children many parents are preoccupied with presenting a

consistent and rational front. This is characterised by those inane

conversations where the adult is conscientiously explaining the reasons

for his actions, treating the child as though it were a miniature adult,

capable of fullreasoned thought. This is the modem equivalent of "not in

front of the children, dear”, our parents hissed at each other when they

should have a row. Their belief in doing everything nicely and

respectably matches the present belief in the efficacy of reason. Both

types of parents could leam something from the one who gets cross with

the kids simply because they are being naughty. That parent does not

dress himself up in special clothes whenever he deals with his kids. The

respectable and the consistent parents are disguising their real selves

in order to present their children with an idealised version. The

following quotation from the World Child Welfare Congress of 1958

exemplifies the attitude to child rearing which should be strenuously

rejected: . . . our most important task in regard to every child with

whom we are concerned is to give him maternal and personal love . . . we

must be there for them. In fact, if we are not the visible and tangible

centre of their world and if we are not the stable hub of every change

all our efforts are in vain. Is it loving a child to make yourself the

centre of its universe? And is it really love that compels parents to

protect and defend the child against all the minor upsets it encounters

outside the home instead of allowing it to come to terms with them in

its way? Most of what goes under the guise of good parental care is an

elaborate rationalisation of gross possessiveness. It attempts to bind

the child to the mother and provides a manipulative object whereby the

parents rationalise their personal dissatisfactions. This is often

consciously expressed by well-meaning parents who boast that they are

giving their children what they themselves lacked. What is understood as

‘loving’ children is, in fact, using them. Laing, in his book The

Politics of Experience expressed this point very forcefully: From the

moment of birth . . . the baby is subjected to these forces of violence,

called love, as its mother and father have been and their parents and

their parents before them. These forces are mainly concerned with

destroying most of its potentialities. This enterprise is on the whole

successful. By the time the new human being is fifteen or so we are left

with a being like ourselves. A half-crazed creature more or less

adjusted to a mad world. This is normality in our present age. Love and

violence, properly speaking, are polar opposites. Love lets the oth er

be, but with affection and concern. Violence attempts to constrain the

other’s freedom to force him to act in the way we desire, but with

ultimate lack of concern, with indifference to the other’s existence or

destiny. We are effectively destroying ourselves by violence

masquerading as love, (my emphasis) So love lets the child be with

affection and concern. A mother isn’t letting her child be when she

makes herself indispensable in its eyes, neither is she when she

concentrates all the care in herself instead of sharing it with others.

And she isn’t letting it be when she projects her concern for its

welfare on to it, making it feel responsible for her feelings when it

‘fails’ to fulfil her expectations. The woman who cuts and trims her

poodle into a travesty of a dog, takes it proudly out on a leash to show

off to the neighbours, only allows it to play with other poodles, is not

a far cry from the mother who professes to ‘love’ her child. When we

have learnt to disengage ourselves from the children that we care for,

liberating them from the pressure to conform to our image of them, we

will be loving them without violence. In the process we will be going

some way towards liberating ourselves.