Mother Blame Research Articles

Mother Love and Mental Illness: An Emotional History

Most scholarship on the medicalization of emotions has focused on projects that locate emotions, one way or another, within individual brains and minds. The story of mother love and mental illness, in contrast, is a medicalization story that frames the problem of pathological emotions as a relational issue. Bad mother love was seen as both a pathology (for the mother) and a pathogen (for her vulnerable child).Moreover, different forms of pathological mother love—smothering love, ambivalent love, love that masked an actual desire to dominate and control—were supposed to have different effects on children, ranging from lack of fitness for military service to homosexuality to juvenile delinquency to outright psychosis, especially schizophrenia. Understanding why mother love came to be associated with mental illness—and, equally, what led to this viewpoint’s rapid decline into disrepute—requires us to go beyond simply invoking the trope of “mother blaming” and leaving things at that. This essay is a first effort at a richer narrative, one that blends perspectives from the history of emotions and the history of science and medicine.

Parents Whose Children have Oppositional Defiant Disorder Talk to One Another on the Internet

This paper presents the results of a qualitative frame and discourse analysis of an electronic support group or blog site where parents (usually mothers) discuss managing their children with either medically or mother diagnosed oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). This is a particularly important topic in an era of e-scaped medicine characterized by powerful circulating discourses around medicalization, children’s mental health issues, mother blame and intensive mothering. The findings document that the mothers adopt a medicalized understanding of ODD, on the one hand, in that they use the terminology, and borrow from, discourses regarding other mental and developmental issues such as depression and ADHD. For example, they focus on biological causation and brain chemistry as causative. On the other hand, their understanding of ODD does not reflect the symptoms necessary for a medical diagnosis. They support one another in this paradoxically medicalized conception of ODD through particular social support strategies in which they reinforce to one another that they are not to blame, that others don’t understand and that (with blog support) they are not alone. The implications of this for theories of medicalization, mother blame and intensive mothering are discussed. Some practical and clinical consequences are considered.

Mother Blame, Fat Shame, and Moral Panic: “Obesity” and Child Welfare

This article seeks to examine the scholarly journal articles and print media that describe the intersections of child protection and pediatric “obesity,” arguing that presentations of these cases and related interventions rest at the nexus of dominant discourses of child-centered parenting and fears of the “obesity epidemic.” The messaging in both scholarly literature and news media on this topic echoes taken-for-granted truths about fatness and parenting and applies them to the contentious terrain of child welfare. In so doing, this literature reifies myths of both poor parenting and bodily failures and inscribes these failures on the bodies of the children described therein.

Gendered processes in child protection: 'Mother blaming' and the erosion of men's accountability

The Inquiry Report of the Roscommon Child Care Case (HSE, 2010) was the first Inquiry Report into intra-familial child abuse and neglect in the Irish context to explicitly identify a gender dimension to its findings. This paper seeks to build on these observations and argues that an analysis of the gendering processes that underlie understandings of and responses to neglect, violence and abuse can make child protection policy and practice more effective. The absence of an analysis which places gender at the core of policy and practice in child protection and family support raises serious questions about the differentiated responses to women and men who are subject to and perpetrators of violence, rape and abuse. Constructions of femininity and masculinity within child protection which systematically excludes fathers and mitigate sexual abuse by mothers must be addressed in order to enhance the support offered to parents and the quality of protection available to children. In addition a discourse of ‘mother-blaming’ which renders women responsible for matters over which they have little control and the reinforcement of men’s power when their abuse remains invisible in professional interventions are the unintended consequences of ignoring the gender dimension of work in this challenging field. The findings of this paper suggest that a gender lens may contribute to better practice in child protection and the greater likelihood that children will be protected and parents supported, each according to their need.

Surplus suffering, mothers don’t know best

This paper reports on a qualitative interview study of 16 mothers whose children had received a diagnosis with one, or more, mental health issue. It is based on retrospective accounts from mothers describing the early days of noticing that something seemed a bit problematic with their child. When they tried to discuss their concerns and asked for advice from family and friends their concerns were usually dismissed. When they took the child to the doctor, the doctor initially denied the mother's own assessment of the child. Other professionals weighed in and often blamed the mother and denied her reality too. These findings are discussed in terms of the theories of surplus suffering, good and intensive mothering, mother blame and stigma. Implications for practice are considered.

Mothers Whose Children Have ADD/ADHD Discuss Their Children's Medication Use: An Investigation of Blogs

This article presents the results of a frame and discourse analysis of Internet blog sites where parents (usually mothers) discuss their concerns about medication use by their children with attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD). This is a particularly important topic in an era characterized by powerful circulating discourses around the contentious medicalization of, and prevalent pharmaceutical treatments for, ADD/ADHD, as well as the mother blame associated with having a child diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. The findings document that the mothers see ADD/ADHD as legitimate medical diagnoses and view themselves as caretakers of children with brain and neuro-chemical anomalies affecting the behavior of their children. They favor pharmaceutical use and describe themselves as experts in the difficult and complex issues related to pharmaceuticalized parenting. At the same time their adoption of medicalization is contingent as they express specific critiques of some doctors, some types of doctors, and critically evaluate science.

Walk a mile in my shoes: Life as a mother of a child with Asperger's Syndrome

In this study, we explore the experiences of mothers with children who have Asperger's Syndrome. A qualitative inquiry was adopted in our study. Fifteen women participated in in-depth interviews, six of whom produced a solicited diary that offered a more in-depth insight into their lives. Thematic analysis was used to examine themes from the transcripts and diary entries. A number of themes emerged from the interview and diary data. First, the women articulated their perceptions of motherhood which included perceptions of an ideal mother, the mother role, the physical and emotional health of mothers and the mask of motherhood. Second, the data revealed the moral career of motherhood which discussed mother blame as a main issue. The findings of this study have implications for health and social care provided to women who are mothers of children with Asperger's Syndrome.

Narratives of Mothering: Women’s Writing in Contemporary France by Gill Rye

RYE, GILL. Narratives of Mothering: Women’s Writing in Contemporary France. Newark: UP of Delaware, 2009. ISBN 978-0-87413-040-9. Pp. 221. $52.00. Mothers have long been an object of study in literary writing and criticism, and the focus of feminist and psychoanalytical theories. The 1970s and 1980s saw an abundance of texts in which mother-daughter relationships, in particular, were at the center of diverse discourses. Previously, very few of such narratives were told from a mother’s point of view. Rye argues that a new generation of women appearing on the French literary scene in the 1990s is again making mothers, maternity, and mothering “fashionable” (20), but with a double twist. First, mothers are no longer the objects but rather the subjects of discourses, and the critic therefore focuses on texts where “the mother is herself either the first-person narrative subject, or, in third-person narratives, the figure whose point of view is paramount” (17). Second, contemporary women’s writing reflects on complex changing practices in French society (in particular new laws, new family patterns, and new technologies) and their subsequent impact on mentalities and ways of parenting. Rye explains that her preference for the term “mothering” (over “maternity” or “motherhood”) “lies in its ability to privilege the multiple and individual experiences of mothers” (31–32). The first part of her study succinctly covers the historical , theoretical, and literary contexts in which the issue of mothering has evolved in both French and Anglo-Saxon feminisms, and then proposes an overview of mothers in French literature. It shows that contemporary voices portray different aspects of complex subjectivities and experiences in controversial new ways: these different outlooks on mothering coincide with the weakening of psychoanalysis as the dominant French theoretical paradigm. In each of the following chapters, informed by appropriate theoretical work, Rye narrows her study down to two stylistically different texts that illustrate similar aspects of what it means to be a mother in the present French cultural moment. Interestingly, part 2 (“Mothering: Loss, Trauma, Separation”) challenges common notions of the joys of motherhood. Representative authors Camille Laurens and Laure Adler place the death of their child at the center of Philippe (1995) and A ce soir (2001), formulating a model of mourning different from Freud’s and Melanie Klein’s and suggesting that recurrent grief “is not necessarily pathological” (53). By giving voice to the body through childbirth and miscarriage , Christine Angot’s autofictional Interview (1995) and Leïla Marouane’s Le Châtiment des hypocrites (2001) work through other pains and sufferings, such as rape, torture, or the contradictions of “what it might mean to be ‘presque consentante ’” in an incestuous relationship (61). Marie Ndiaye’s La Sorcière (1996) and Chantal Chawaf’s La Sanction (2004) offer a revision of the mother-daughter relationship, underlining a sense of powerlessness in front of maternal responsibilities and stereotypes of the good mother. Part 3, “New Stories of Mothering,” picks up on the notions of empowerment and disempowerment. It explores the managed ambivalences of a single mother who loses custody of her son (Week-end de chasse à la mère [1996] by Geneviève Brissac), the anxieties of another who cannot cope and commits a tragic act (Véronique Olmi’s Bord de mer [2001]), the need for visibility in lesbian couples, with the legal issues they face in reproduction, parenting, and co-parenting (Eliane Girard’s Mais qui va garder le chat? [2005], and Myriam Blanc’s Et elles eurent beaucoup d’enfants... histoire d’une famille homoparentale [2005]). Finally, Rye 822 FRENCH REVIEW 84.4 revisits the “ubiquitous culture of mother blaming” (141) and studies how Angot’s Léonore, toujours and Darrieussecq’s Le Mal de mer contrast with it. Clearly written, this book shows that “the figurative power of the female reproductive body is [currently] taken to new horizons” (74) and that women’s narratives “reveal how their individual experiences as mothers [continue to be] in tension with ideologies of good mothering” (116). Rye’s insights are both well-informed and illuminating. Davidson College (NC) Catherine Slawy-Sutton THIBAULT, BRUNO. J. M. G. Le Clézio et la métaphore exotique...

Mothers, Domestic Violence, and Child Protection: An American Legal Perspective

In their article, Mothers, Domestic Violence, and Child Protection, Heather Douglas and Tamara Walsh explore the problematic treatment of battered mothers by the child protec- tion system in Brisbane, Australia. Their study documents a number of troubling trends, including mother blaming for failure to protect, inappropriate removals of children from protective mothers, placement of children with fathers who had battered their partners, and the ill-advised leaving ultimatum—the order that a mother who has been battered leave her abusive partner to show her intention to protect her children from further exposure to violence. These trends are not unique to the Australian child protection system. Numerous commentators have documented similar issues in the child protection system in the United States—problems that, to some degree, are created and exacerbated by statutes, case law, and practice.

Suicidal process, suicidal communication and psychosocial situation of young suicide attempters in a rural Vietnamese community

The study aimed to explore the suicidal process, suicidal communication and psychosocial situation of young suicide attempters in a rural community in Hanoi, Vietnam. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, in a community setting, with 19 suicide attempters aged 15-24 who had been consecutively hospitalized in an intensive care unit. In 12 of 19 cases, the first pressing, distinct and constant suicidal thoughts appeared less than one day before the suicide attempt in question. However, distress and mild, fleeting suicidal thoughts had been present up to six months before the suicide attempt in 16 cases. Five respondents had a suicide plan one to three days before attempting suicide. Altogether, 13 engaged in some form of suicidal communication before their attempt. This communication was, however, difficult for outsiders to interpret. Twelve of the respondents were victims of regular physical abuse and 16 had suffered psychological violence for at least one year before attempting suicide. Eighteen of the respondents used pesticides or raticides in their suicide attempts. None sought advice or consultation in the community despite long-standing psychosocial problems. The strategy of reducing the availability of suicide means (e.g., pesticides or raticides) in Asian countries should be complemented with a long-term suicide-preventive strategy that targets school dropouts and domestic violence, and promotes coping abilities and communication about psychological and social problems as well as recognition of signs of distress and suicidal communication.

Connecting father absence and mother blame in child welfare policies and practice

This paper reports the results of research about fathers and child welfare conducted in a mid-size Canadian city. The overall study uses a variety of modalities to assess the current state of child welfare policy, practice and discourse with fathers of children who come to the attention of child protection authorities, with particular attention to fathers of the children of mothers who were adolescent at the time of at least one child's birth. Our research includes birth/biological fathers, stepfathers and men providing emotional, financial or social support to a child or children. This paper reports on the first phase of the study, in which we reviewed a random sample of child protection case files utilising both quantitative and qualitative methods. Our analysis and discussion is informed by a review of recent child welfare literature related to fathers and by related research team members have completed or are currently engaged in, including studies about young mothers in care, kinship care, risk assessment, failure to protect and the narratives of child welfare workers. Our intention is to contribute to reframing child welfare practice, policy and discourse in ways that are more inclusive of fathers and less blaming of mothers.

She's From a `Good Family'

In this article, the author explores the performances and practices of motherhood and childhood as they materialize in a private elementary school setting in Ottawa, Canada. The author analyses the ways the ideology of intensive mothering and the intensification of children's lives intersect and inform one another in this setting. She argues that these mutually reinforcing conceptualizations are maintained through surveillance and mother blame that result in narrowing possibilities for the lives of both women and children rather than creating spaces of childhood and motherhood envisaged in a capacious and mutually productive way.

Mothering Through Domestic Violence, * Lorraine Radford and Marianne Hester, * London and Philadelphia, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006, pp. 7 + 176, ISBN 1843104733, 19.99

If domestic violence affects mothering, is our culture or the mother to blame? This short book on the plight of mothers suffering domestic violence makes for an informative and refreshing read. It aims to challenge the ‘mother blaming’ culture in which domestic violence is embedded and argues that a mother’s role should not be comprised or undermined by the abuser, the courts or current policy. Radford and Hester summarize their three main arguments in diagram entitled ‘The Three Planets’, which gives a useful visual representation of the complex dynamics between domestic violence and the ideological assumptions it entails (Planet A), child protection and welfare (Planet B) and, finally, visitation and contact (Planet C). It is accompanied by a detailed explanation of how mothers frequently ‘lose out’ in the system because they are blamed either for not protecting their children enough or for leaving the family home (even when advised by social services to do so). The fact that children suffer psychologically and perhaps physically from this is also highlighted, although the authors acknowledge that the relationship between violence and child well-being is complex, with several risk and protective factors to consider. Indeed, the book notes there is still a much work needed to investigate the impact of domestic violence on children.

Giving voice to the burden of blame: a feminist study of mothers' experiences of mother blaming.

Mother blaming has been identified as a pervasive and serious problem and it is known that the professional literature has strong and entrenched mother-blaming messages. Using a feminist approach, this paper explores mother blaming as it has been experienced by a group of mothers themselves. Analysis of narrative exposes mother blaming as a burden that complicates the already-complex responsibilities that comprise mothering. Health providers are among those identified by women as being particularly likely to attribute problems with (even grown) children to maternal fault. Implications for practice and research are drawn from the findings of this paper.

Mother blaming: a covert practice in therapeutic intervention

In this article I will discuss the continuing discursive support for idealised motherhood, describe some ways mother blaming is practiced within therapeutic intervention and discuss the implications of this for social work practice. The article is based on a qualitative study of professionals who provide therapeutic intervention for sexually violent children and their families. The case examples discussed come from this study and describe the roles attributed to mothers in causing and maintaining their children's sexual violence.

Mothers and Children: Feminist Analyses and Personal Narratives, and: The Price of Motherhood: Why Motherhood Is the Most Important--and Least Valued Job in America, and: Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment, and Transformation (review)

It has been fifteen years since I delivered an address to my own institution on motherhood. As a tenure-track, newly minted Ph.D., I spent weeks on research for this address and was frustrated that I found so little in the feminist literature. Of course, there was Nancy Chodorow's psychoanalytic reformulation and Adrienne Rich's work on the institutionalization of the mothering experience. There were other individuals, too, who urged us to consider the transformation process of woman to mother, the love/hate, separation/individuation process between mother and child, self-hate and mother blame, and motherhood as a biologically based [End Page 181] investment. Overall, however, I found a dearth in rich feminist analyses of motherhood. I was particularly excited, therefore, to review three new books that not only privilege a discourse on mothers but that also offer a feminist analysis. The good news surrounding all three works is that the feminist theoretical analyses informing each book are sophisticated and rich, a clear reflection of the substantive development of feminist theory in the past decade. The bad news is that the descriptions of mothers' lives and the experience of motherhood remain virtually the same as that described in my early reading of the literature. As Ann Crittenden puts it in The Price of Motherhood:

Working Families: The Transformation of the American Home

Preface Introduction by Rosanna Hertz and Nancy L. Marshall PART ONE: Changing Families 1. The Rise of the Dual-Worker Family, 1963-1997, by Linda J. Waite and Mark Nielsen 2. Gendered Careers: A Life Course Perspective, by Phyllis Moen and Shin-Kap Han3. Getting Younger While Getting Older: Family-Building at Midlife, by Lillian B. Rubin 4. Men's Family Work: Child-Centered Fathering and the Sharing of Domestic Labor, by Scott Coltrane and Michele Adams PART TWO: Changing Workplaces 5. Family-Responsive Benefits and the Two-Tiered Labor Market, by Cynthia H. Deitch and Matt L. Huffman 6. How Are Small Businesses Responding to Work and Family Issues? by Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes and Leon Litchfield 7. Part-Time Work Arrangements and the Corporation: A Dynamic Interaction, by Marcia Brumit Kropf 8. Toward a New View of Work and Family Life, by Ellen Galinsky 9. Work, Family, and Globalization: Broadening the Scope of Policy Analysis, by Harriet E. Gross PART THREE: Heartstrings and Pursestrings: Gendered Views from Within 10. Changing the Structure and Culture of Work: Work-Family Conflict, Work Flexibility, and Gender Equity in the Modern Workplace, by Kathleen Gerson and Jerry A. Jacobs 11. Workplace Policies and the Psychological Well-Being of First-Time Parents: The Case of Working-Class Families, by Heather-Lyn Haley, Maureen Perry-Jenkins, and Amy Armenia 12. Work, Family, and Gender in Medicine: How Do Dual-Earners Decide Who Should Work Less? by Lena M. Lundgren, Jennifer Fleischer-Cooperman, Robert Schneider, and Therese Fitzgerald 13. From Babysitters to Child Care Providers: The Development of a Feminist Consciousness in Family Day Care Workers, by Heather M. Fitz Gibbon PART FOUR: Children's Experiences 14. Children, Work, and Family: Some Thoughts on Mother Blame, by Anita Ilta Garey and Terry Arendell 15. The Kinderdult: The New Child Born to Conflict between Work and Family, by Diane Ehrensaft 16. Passing between the Worlds of Maid and Mistress: The Life Story of a Mexican Maid's Daughter, by Mary Romero 17. Eavesdropping Children, Adult Deals, and Cultures of Care, by Arlie Russell Hochschild 18. Pick-Up Time at Oakdale Elementary School: Work and Family from the Vantage Points of Children, by Barrie Thorne Contributors Index

When it all goes wrong – challenge to mother blame: forging connections between mother and daughter

This article outlines our clinical development as therapists working with mothers and daughters showing a high level of psychological distress and searching for a way to remain connected. We explore the contemporary discourses of mothering and mother blame to enrich our practice and enable women to acknowledge responsibility constructively and move from the paralysis of blame, shame and guilt. Within the context of these restraints we elaborate our model of working which aims to establish a therapeutic alliance with both mother and daughter and enables exploration of the complex levels of contextual and emotional meaning which underpin their relationship. We aim to develop mutual empathy without sacrificing appropriate responsibility. We believe that systemic practice has inadequately addressed these issues in clinical practice. We encourage greater transparency and self‐reflexivity in our encounters.

Manufacturing "Bad Mothers": A Critical Perspective on Child Neglect • Fathers and Developmental Psychopathology • Mothers and Sons • No Voice Is Ever Wholly Lost

Manufacturing "Bad Mothers": A Critical Perspective on Child Neglect • Fathers and Developmental Psychopathology • Mothers and Sons • No Voice Is Ever Wholly Lost

Reclaiming the Mother‐daughter Relationship after Sexual Abuse

This paper seeks to provide direction to therapists working with mothers and daughters after a disclosure of father‐daughter sexual abuse. The importance of the mother's belief in and support for the child's recovery is highlighted, as are some of the cultural assumptions about mothers and daughters which negatively impact on the relationship. Despite paying lip service to offender responsibility, there continues to be a culture of mother blaming in the child sexual abuse and family therapy literature on incest. Current research findings challenge some of the prevalent myths about mothers’ responses to their children's disclosures. Few clinical sources have addressed this issue, and therapists who reject the mother blaming literature are therefore left with little guidance as to how to work more effectively with mothers and daughters. Consequently they may unwittingly further undermine the relationship. Work with mothers and daughters as they recover from intrafamilial sexual abuse is discussed, and key therapeutic themes and guidelines for practice presented. We explore the significant theme of the rebuilding of trust between mothers and daughters and facilitate a process whereby the woman is able to bear witness to and acknowledge the trauma experienced by her daughter.