Pre-Oedipal Motherhood

Of all theoretical writings, those from psychoanalytic, sociological and feminist perspectives have proved the most useful in analyzing the representations of motherhood. Psychoanalytic theorists have examined the mother's unconscious actions, exploring her deep attachment to her children. Sociologists have attempted to trace the mother's actual experience of child rearing, identifying the way that society and culture have affected her behavior and her attitudes. Feminists, especially since the beginning of the liberation movement in the late 1960s, have been concerned with the subordination of women in the mothering role and have offered impassioned and often contradictory ways of thinking about motherhood. In this section of
Klein believed that the resolution of the oedipal complex was not as important as the developmental period which preceded it, when the mother, as the primary nurturer, was the most important “object” in the infant's life. Drawing on Freudian theory, though with major differences from it, Klein established a psychoanalytic school of “object relations” during the 1920s, which focused attention on the pre-Oedipal child's deep attachment to its mother. Klein's importance came from her work with children in psychoanalysis, and, importantly, with her understanding of the significance of the mother on the “inner world” of the child. Although she took into account the father's involvement, she believed the mother was more important to the child because she was the source of its nourishment. The infant, Klein explained, fantasized the mother as the “good” and “bad” breast. As the infant's need for nourishment was its prime concern, nervous and depressive anxieties in later life could be related to the way the child had coped with the nursing experience. Although Klein's work emphasized the importance of the mother, it implied that any problem that the child may have had was an indication that the mother's care had been
Winnicott based his work on Kleinian theories, although rather than concentrating on the fantasies of the child, he focused on the performance of the mother. In radio broadcasts in Britain, he asserted that he did not want to place impossible demands on the mother and asked only that she be good enough, which he defined as adapting to the child's demands, enabling it to develop without anxieties and conflicts. He declared that although the mother must be prepared to put the infant's interests above her own, the child rearing process was natural and intuitive and the child's needs were easy to anticipate and accommodate. Although purporting to comfort mothers, Winnicott considered that problems with the child's growth and development were the result of a lack of maternal devotion. He did not take into account the paradox in his own role as expert and adviser. As Doane and Hodges pointed out, if the mothering role were natural, his recommendations would not be