In Bonding
Kyndra Wilson explains how she resolved to take her own approach to motherhood
Lucy Beresford shares her knowledge on attitudes towards motherhood
The Last Taboo
Although more and more women now make the decision not to have children, there are still those who struggle to believe that women will not come to regret making the decision to remain childfree.
And while asserting that you would rather not have children is one thing, admitting ambivalence or even regret after starting a family is still controversial. Some things, it seems, should still not be said.
But this has not prevented some women from coming forward to attempt to question the idea that women are always fulfilled by being mums.
Speaking at a conference on Modern Motherhood this week, senior associate of the Young Foundation, and former journalist, Yvonne Roberts, said:
"Jane Lazarre, who was a feminist who influenced me a lot, she said, ‘The only thing that seems eternal and natural in motherhood is ambivalence.’ I think there is ambivalence in motherhood. The ambivalence is constantly exploited now; it’s almost as if you want to erase motherhood completely. What I feel very strongly is that we don’t have a clue about motherhood.”
"I know several people who actually had babies because their partners wanted them, not because they wanted them, and they were very ambivalent about it. I think we need more honesty about those sort of things.”
In the past ten years a number of autobiographical books have been published by female authors detailing the minutiae of their lives as mothers. Many of these tackle the messier, darker aspects of the role. This genre of writing, tagged by some as ‘Mumoirs’, is contributing to the growing movement towards an overhaul of the imagery of motherhood.
One of the most notorious of these books is the uncompromising, "No Kids: 40 Reasons for Not Having Children", by the French author Corinne Maier. Maier's intention was to attack what she saw as the pervasive pressure on women in France to produce children. Explaining her work to the Sunday Times last year Maier observed:
“I thought it would be fun to take a dig at the myth that having a child is wonderful.”
But blunt statements made in the book such as, "You will inevitably be disappointed by your child," led to accusations of selfishness and bad taste on forums across the internet, suggesting that the issue is still something of a taboo.
However, Maier is not alone in expressing these views.
The British author Rachel Cusk generated much media-fuelled debate with her book ‘A Life’s Work,” published in 2001, in which she admitted feeling ambivalent towards her role as a mother.
Writing for the Mothers Movement Online, Kyndra Wilson admitted the struggle she had faced in bonding with her daughter. Having failed to feel the instant, all-consuming love for her child that other people and societal norms told her she would, Kyndra resolved to take her own path through motherhood. On the left is an interview with Kyndra in which she talks about her writings and the reactions they provoked.
Lucy Beresford, a psychotherapist and author, published a novel entitled "Something I'm Not" in February of this year. The book deals with the issue of women who find that motherhood is not something which comes easily or naturally to them.
In researching the novel she spoke to a number of mothers who had struggled to form attachments to their children, or regretted having them. She spoke to us about her understanding of the issue.