What is “good mother’s myth”?

As a psychologist who supports pregnant parents and new parents, I was pleased to interview Nancy Lady. Good mother myth It was released on January 21. We talked about the meaning of this myth, how it hurt the mother, and the role of the family chief.

Dr. Juli Hula (JF): What is a “good mother’s myth?”

Nancy Lady (NR): This myth has a variation because everyone will bring her bad ideas to her motherhood, but her big idea is that “good moms” always her needs and interests. Priority is to give priority to children and families. The idea is that all women have a “maternal instinct” set. pregnancy And the birth and good mother can basically do it on their own, and become more powerful with selfless love.

It sounds very outdated when you spell all of it, but it still exists in our media and online maternal messages. It took me many years to see that I have these unpopular and inconsistent expectations. When I felt like I didn’t know what my new baby needed (where was my mother’s instinct?), I not only had a hard time learning how to take care of him, I felt like I had failed to know what I didn’t know.

JF: What you explained is what I have seen over and over again Psychotherapy Practice. A mother who inherits the wrong expectations that taking care of the baby should come naturally. Despite the fact that he is still learning, his mother is expecting him to become a maternal “expert.” In your experience, how does “good mother myth” hurt your mother?

NR: Obviously, I feel sick. Because what we do, that’s not enough. “Good” is an impossible standard. There is always another mother who looks a little better.

And it shows the second big problem. Achieving after good good, we are going out to what ideals that unconsciously interrupted for someone else’s ideas about how the motherhood should look.

In this way, we really steal the joy of the mother because we are focusing on external verification. Rather than trying to be a “mother”, if you can reconstruct a specific new person and rediscover yourself on the way, there are many magic in that regard.

JF: As a psychologist, at least in the world, many of the first “so -called” mother’s experts Child development And psychology was a man. In your opinion, how did the family mayor contribute to “good mother’s myths”?

NR: The family -headed system is very important for our culture and the economy as a system, so it is meaningful to refuse to see individual mothers as humans or to provide material support. It has been rejected to provide things.

We depend on the mother and provide a huge amount of unpaid and underestimated labor.

As a sociologist Jessica Cararco and Economist’s Nancy Folble, the American economy does not work without mothers’ labor. FOLBRE claims to incorporate the value of breast milk into GDP. Imagine that you can think of important contributions to the economy, not an unproductive time, who is not wasted the time spent in nursing and pumping!

JF: What kind of advice do you have to your mother as your own mother?

NR: I don’t really believe in advice. I believe that we build a community and seek help. That is the biggest thing. To be honest about where you are struggling, and ask for help when you need it. Your baby doesn’t have to be a supermom. As the anthropologist Margaret Mead said, what a baby and a child need is a loving care from “many warm, friendly people”. And if you are a new mother, you will also deserve that care!