We always knew you loved us : a mother's rite of passage from parenting children to parenting adult children
Date
2002
Authors
Godine, Sarala
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Abstract
The purpose of this autobiographical inquiry is to make sense of the complicated and demanding societal expectations of mothers. Contemporary Western society has constructed an ideology of the perfect mother that has contributed to almost epidemic proportions of maternal guilt. The family therapy movement, at its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, fueled the flames of this guilt with its notion of the emotional fragility of children, the idea that consequences of childhood experiences would manifest in adult lives, and the apparent culpability of mothers for all of their child's transgressions. In my quest to make sense of these ideas I chose to consult with the two people I felt to be experts on the subject of mothering: my adult children. I invited my adult children to embark on what I called a healing journey and through a series of audio taped conversations over a 10 day period we discussed, in depth, my mothering and their childhood. The intent of these conversations was to explore how such candid dialogue could heal the past, allow closure, and provide a rite of passage to a family-defined role of mother of adults. This thesis recounts my journey through motherhood, the healing journey, and my effort to transform the discourse of guilt that so dominated my mothering. It also examines the myth of the perfect mother through the exploration of some of the patriarchal, societal, and socioeconomic influences on the construct of mother throughout history. Finally, it questions the cause-and-effect thinking that resigns children to the role of passive victims and it challenges the idealization of maternal love. Each one of these ideas serves to disrupt the discourse of maternal guilt and offers mothers who are driven by perfection and burdened by guilt the possibility of rewriting their own motherhood story.