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What life as a mother is really like?
DISSECTING ROOM
What life as a mother is really like?
first two weeks, her husband had to take time off work because she could not cope . . . Fortunately her daughter Motherhood and Mental Health was a good baby who cried little, and Ian Brockington. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1998. Pp 612. gradually positive feelings developed.” £29.95. ISBN 0-19-2629352. Brockington does not mention that the baby’s passivity and goodness may about her “failure to breastfeed”. (This otherhood and Mental Health, have been a response to the mother’s begs the question as to whether anyone now in paperback, is an depression, and her depression, may, in can say a woman has “failed” on the enormous, erudite, and turn, have been a response to her third post-partum day.) “Her husband impressive book. The foreword aptly partner’s insistence on having a baby. made the decision to bottle-feed”, and describes it as a “monumental Another woman sought a moved into the hospital with her. “Her compilation of case-reports”. Writing it termination when a fortune-teller told must have entailed a huge amount of agitation continued to mount: she her that her baby would be handiwork. But potential readers should not could not rest, and accused her capped, but this was “interdicted by turn to it for anything about mental husband of testing her out. The fifth her husband”. She gave birth to a baby health. Its focus is pathology—and night she was screaming and shouting, with atresia of the rectum and became every kind of pathology you can and had to be physically restrained.” imagine. Ian Brockington recognises deeply depressed. “ECT relieved the On the sixth day her husband was this and states in his preface that “The depression but the rejection remained “unable to calm her”. She was goal is health, but the book unresolved.” may read like a catalogue To become a mother is a of tragedies—depression, major life crisis. It forces Kevin Robinson psychosis, abuse and other change in self-perception catastrophes—which make and relationships, as well maternity seem a risky as change in our priorities. venture”. It brings excitement, selfThere lies a problem. questioning, and, almost Brockington allows only 14 invariably, a keen sense of pages to discuss the normal guilt, because as mothers relationship—in a book of we are never as good as we 612 pages. Lacking a basis want to be. There may be in description of the the heady excitement of psychological transition to falling in love, but also motherhood, these accounts a heavy burden of of mental illness are responsibility for this new, curiously disconnected and and vulnerable life. bizarre, often lively, but Winicott used to say that always disturbing. Reading the normal psychological them, you ask, how did this state of a woman in the woman get in such a state weeks and months after of utter confusion? What childbirth would, in happened to push her over anyone else, be regarded as the edge? There are no mental illness. To become answers. The author also a mother is to be on an ignores cultural meanings emotional rollercoaster. It and values, and mothering is the depth of these in different societies. We are feelings that enables a offered, instead, short Kevin Robinson took this photograph of his father’s legs 5 woman to be alert to anecdotes about patients days after triple bypass surgery at St Vincent’s Medical respond to her baby’s need who are seen, for the most Center, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA. A photographer for for her. They have part, out of social context. 18 years, Robinson’s work has been shown around biological survival value. Brockington describes a Connecticut, Denver, and Santa Fe, USA. The Dance of Life Maternal emotions have manic depressive woman, was shot in natural light with a 1953 Rolleiflex. too often been presented for example, who became as sweetly tender, offering “somewhat withdrawn and pleasure similar to that of admitted to the mother and baby unit uninterested in her son”. It was her a child playing with her doll. This is “and became a competent mother”. ninth baby. He comments that her a predominantly male view of “Five weeks after the birth her other births had been “without motherhood that is utterly at variance husband was able to return to work.” incident”, and does not seem to think with the facts. (So that’s all right then.) that there is any link between her Motherhood and Mental Health gave Another woman had a planned depression and the demands made on me the impression of a kindly, pregnancy, but said she was “really her by mothering such a large family. concerned, and fatherly psychiatrist doing it for her husband”. At 24 weeks He also makes assumptions about who hasn’t a clue about what life as a she asked for a termination. “All I women’s “normal role” as wives and mother is really like. could see was gaol bars—a prison mothers, and is concerned about Sheila Kitzinger sentence.” “A daughter was born by deviations from this norm that impact Thames Valley University, Wolfson forceps delivery . . . She did not want on men’s lives. One woman had a baby School of Health Sciences, her on the breast. Her only feeling was “after several years of happy marriage”. London W5 2BS, UK On the third day she was very tense relief that she was ‘out’. During the
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The Dance of Life
378
THE LANCET • Vol 351 • January 31, 1998
What life as a mother is really like?
first two weeks, her husband had to take time off work because she could not cope . . . Fortunately her daughter Motherhood and Mental Health was a good baby who cried little, and Ian Brockington. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1998. Pp 612. gradually positive feelings developed.” £29.95. ISBN 0-19-2629352. Brockington does not mention that the baby’s passivity and goodness may about her “failure to breastfeed”. (This otherhood and Mental Health, have been a response to the mother’s begs the question as to whether anyone now in paperback, is an depression, and her depression, may, in can say a woman has “failed” on the enormous, erudite, and turn, have been a response to her third post-partum day.) “Her husband impressive book. The foreword aptly partner’s insistence on having a baby. made the decision to bottle-feed”, and describes it as a “monumental Another woman sought a moved into the hospital with her. “Her compilation of case-reports”. Writing it termination when a fortune-teller told must have entailed a huge amount of agitation continued to mount: she her that her baby would be handiwork. But potential readers should not could not rest, and accused her capped, but this was “interdicted by turn to it for anything about mental husband of testing her out. The fifth her husband”. She gave birth to a baby health. Its focus is pathology—and night she was screaming and shouting, with atresia of the rectum and became every kind of pathology you can and had to be physically restrained.” imagine. Ian Brockington recognises deeply depressed. “ECT relieved the On the sixth day her husband was this and states in his preface that “The depression but the rejection remained “unable to calm her”. She was goal is health, but the book unresolved.” may read like a catalogue To become a mother is a of tragedies—depression, major life crisis. It forces Kevin Robinson psychosis, abuse and other change in self-perception catastrophes—which make and relationships, as well maternity seem a risky as change in our priorities. venture”. It brings excitement, selfThere lies a problem. questioning, and, almost Brockington allows only 14 invariably, a keen sense of pages to discuss the normal guilt, because as mothers relationship—in a book of we are never as good as we 612 pages. Lacking a basis want to be. There may be in description of the the heady excitement of psychological transition to falling in love, but also motherhood, these accounts a heavy burden of of mental illness are responsibility for this new, curiously disconnected and and vulnerable life. bizarre, often lively, but Winicott used to say that always disturbing. Reading the normal psychological them, you ask, how did this state of a woman in the woman get in such a state weeks and months after of utter confusion? What childbirth would, in happened to push her over anyone else, be regarded as the edge? There are no mental illness. To become answers. The author also a mother is to be on an ignores cultural meanings emotional rollercoaster. It and values, and mothering is the depth of these in different societies. We are feelings that enables a offered, instead, short Kevin Robinson took this photograph of his father’s legs 5 woman to be alert to anecdotes about patients days after triple bypass surgery at St Vincent’s Medical respond to her baby’s need who are seen, for the most Center, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA. A photographer for for her. They have part, out of social context. 18 years, Robinson’s work has been shown around biological survival value. Brockington describes a Connecticut, Denver, and Santa Fe, USA. The Dance of Life Maternal emotions have manic depressive woman, was shot in natural light with a 1953 Rolleiflex. too often been presented for example, who became as sweetly tender, offering “somewhat withdrawn and pleasure similar to that of admitted to the mother and baby unit uninterested in her son”. It was her a child playing with her doll. This is “and became a competent mother”. ninth baby. He comments that her a predominantly male view of “Five weeks after the birth her other births had been “without motherhood that is utterly at variance husband was able to return to work.” incident”, and does not seem to think with the facts. (So that’s all right then.) that there is any link between her Motherhood and Mental Health gave Another woman had a planned depression and the demands made on me the impression of a kindly, pregnancy, but said she was “really her by mothering such a large family. concerned, and fatherly psychiatrist doing it for her husband”. At 24 weeks He also makes assumptions about who hasn’t a clue about what life as a she asked for a termination. “All I women’s “normal role” as wives and mother is really like. could see was gaol bars—a prison mothers, and is concerned about Sheila Kitzinger sentence.” “A daughter was born by deviations from this norm that impact Thames Valley University, Wolfson forceps delivery . . . She did not want on men’s lives. One woman had a baby School of Health Sciences, her on the breast. Her only feeling was “after several years of happy marriage”. London W5 2BS, UK On the third day she was very tense relief that she was ‘out’. During the
M
The Dance of Life
378
THE LANCET • Vol 351 • January 31, 1998