Horrible Mothers

Horrible Mothers PDF Author: Thie Vieira
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1438985851
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
This seemingly simple but truly complex question" True or false: "My mother was a good woman." This item has appeared in one form or another on countless psychological inventories over the years. The culturally-prescribed answer is, of course, "True." Even the people most abused by their mothers tend to rise to defend "Mom." The rationale varies: "She was basically good"; "She was never cut out to have children"; "She simply had no idea how to be there for me"; "Perhaps if she hadn't had me..."; "Maybe it was I who turned her into a bad mother?" As early as 1954 in his work with abused children, psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbairn observed that a child acknowledging to herself or anyone else that she had a bad mother or that her mother was a bad woman was tantamount to admitting that the child was, by association, a bad person --and so it becomes an act of self-preservation to hold that one's mopther is good, never mind all evidence to the contrary. In Horrible Mothers, pshychotherapist Alice Thie Vieira takes us into the world of individuals who have endured devastating damage at the hands of society's most sacrosanst icon: the Mother. Vieira does so with four chief aims: 1. to label abuse so as to be able to acknowledge it; 2. to recognize that the sanctification of motherhood is a burden that society has foisted upon them; 3. to help mothers understand how their mothering may have hurt their children; 4. to help victims of horrible mothering grasp the unfairness of what was done to them, to comprehend how it affected their lives, and acknowledge what they have endured so as to break free from unhealthy attachments to their inadequate mothers, and thus move forward and better realize their potentiality.

Horrible Mothers

Horrible Mothers PDF Author: Thie Vieira
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1438985851
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 122

Get Book

Book Description
This seemingly simple but truly complex question" True or false: "My mother was a good woman." This item has appeared in one form or another on countless psychological inventories over the years. The culturally-prescribed answer is, of course, "True." Even the people most abused by their mothers tend to rise to defend "Mom." The rationale varies: "She was basically good"; "She was never cut out to have children"; "She simply had no idea how to be there for me"; "Perhaps if she hadn't had me..."; "Maybe it was I who turned her into a bad mother?" As early as 1954 in his work with abused children, psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbairn observed that a child acknowledging to herself or anyone else that she had a bad mother or that her mother was a bad woman was tantamount to admitting that the child was, by association, a bad person --and so it becomes an act of self-preservation to hold that one's mopther is good, never mind all evidence to the contrary. In Horrible Mothers, pshychotherapist Alice Thie Vieira takes us into the world of individuals who have endured devastating damage at the hands of society's most sacrosanst icon: the Mother. Vieira does so with four chief aims: 1. to label abuse so as to be able to acknowledge it; 2. to recognize that the sanctification of motherhood is a burden that society has foisted upon them; 3. to help mothers understand how their mothering may have hurt their children; 4. to help victims of horrible mothering grasp the unfairness of what was done to them, to comprehend how it affected their lives, and acknowledge what they have endured so as to break free from unhealthy attachments to their inadequate mothers, and thus move forward and better realize their potentiality.

Horrible Mothers

Horrible Mothers PDF Author: Loïc Bourdeau
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496218272
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
For too long the main narratives of motherhood have been oppressive and exclusionary, frequently ignoring issues of female identity--especially regarding those not conforming to traditional female stereotypes. Horrible Mothers offers a variety of perspectives for analyzing representations of the mother in francophone literature and film at the turn of the twenty-first century in North America, including Québec, Ontario, New England, and California. Contributors reexamine the "horrible mother" paradigm within a broad range of sociocultural contexts from different locations to broaden the understanding of mothering beyond traditional ideology. The selections draw from long-established scholarship in women's studies as well as from new developments in queer studies to make sense of and articulate strategies of representation; to show how contemporary family models are constantly evolving, reshaping, and moving away from heteronormative expectations; and to reposition mothers as subjects occupying the center of their own narrative, rather than as objects. The contributors engage narratives of mothering from myriad perspectives, referencing the works of writers or filmmakers such as Marguerite Andersen, Nelly Arcan, Grégoire Chabot, Xavier Dolan, Nancy Huston, and Lucie Joubert.

Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a "Good" Mother Would Do

Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a Author: Sarah LaChance Adams
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231166753
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
When a mother kills her child, we call her a bad mother, but, as this book shows, even mothers who intend to do their children harm are not easily categorized as ÒmadÓ or Òbad.Ó Maternal love is a complex emotion rich with contradictory impulses and desires, and motherhood is a conflicted state in which women constantly renegotiate the needs mother and child, the self and the other. Applying care ethics philosophy and the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone de Beauvoir to real-world experiences of motherhood, Sarah LaChance Adams throws the inherent tensions of motherhood into sharp relief, drawing a more nuanced portrait of the mother and child relationship than previously conceived. The maternal example is particularly instructive for ethical theory, highlighting the dynamics of human interdependence while also affirming separate interests. LaChance Adams particularly focuses on maternal ambivalence and its morally productive role in reinforcing the divergence between oneself and others, helping to recognize the particularities of situation, and negotiating the difference between oneÕs own needs and the desires of others. She ultimately argues maternal filicide is a social problem requiring a collective solution that ethical philosophy and philosophies of care can inform.

Bad Mother

Bad Mother PDF Author: Ayelet Waldman
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0767932161
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
In our mothers’ day there were good mothers, indifferent mothers, and occasionally, great mothers. Today we have only Bad Mothers: If you work, you’re neglectful; if you stay home, you’re smothering. If you discipline, you’re buying them a spot on the shrink’s couch; if you let them run wild, they will be into drugs by seventh grade. Is it any wonder so many women refer to themselves at one time or another as a “bad mother”? Writing with remarkable candor, and dispensing much hilarious and helpful advice along the way—Is breast best? What should you do when your daughter dresses up as a “ho” for Halloween?—Ayelet Waldman says it's time for women to get over it and get on with it in this wry, unflinchingly honest, and always insightful memoir on modern motherhood.

Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers

Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers PDF Author: Sady Doyle
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 1612197922
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year This “witty, engaging analysis” of female monsters in pop culture offers “provocative and incisive” commentary on society’s fear of female rage and power (Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her) Women have always been seen as monsters. Men from Aristotle to Freud have insisted that women are freakish creatures, capable of immense destruction. Maybe they are. And maybe that’s a good thing. Sady Doyle, hailed as “smart, funny and fearless” by the Boston Globe, takes readers on a tour of the female dark side, from the biblical Lilith to Dracula’s Lucy Westenra, from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. She illuminates the women who have shaped our nightmares: Serial killer Ed Gein’s “domineering” mother Augusta; exorcism casualty Anneliese Michel, who starved herself to death to quell her demons; author Mary Shelley, who dreamed her dead child back to life. These monsters embody patriarchal fear of women, and illustrate the violence with which men enforce traditionally feminine roles. They also speak to the primal threat of a woman who takes back her power. In a dark and dangerous world, Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers asks women to look to monsters for the ferocity we all need to survive. “Some people take a scalpel to the heart of media culture; Sady Doyle brings a bone saw, a melon baller, and a machete.” —Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once

Bad Mothers

Bad Mothers PDF Author: Tamar Hager
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781772581034
Category : Childbirth
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
While the image or construct of the "good mother" has been the focus of many research projects, the "bad mother," as a discursive construct, and also mothers who do "bad" things as complicated, agentic social actors, have been quite neglected, despite the prevalence of the image of the bad mother across late modern societies. The few researchers who address this powerful social image point out that bad mothers are culturally identified by what they do, yet they are also socially recognized by who they are. Mothers become potentially bad when they behave or express opinions that diverge from, or challenge, social or gender norms, or when they deviate from mainstream, white, middle class, heterosexual, nondisabled normativity. When suspected of being bad mothers, women are surveilled, and may be disciplined, punished or otherwise excluded, by various official agents (i.e. legal, medical and welfare institutions), as well as by their relatives, friends and communities. Too often, women are judged and punished without clear evidence that they are neglecting or abusing their children. Frequently they are blamed for the marginal sociocultural context in which they are mothering. This anthology presents empirical, theoretical and creative works that address the construct of the bad mother and the lived realities of mothers labeled as bad. Throughout the volume, the editors consider voices and acts of resistance to bad mother constructions, demonstrating that mothers, across time and across domains, have individually and collectively taken a stand against this destructive label.

There Are Moms Way Worse Than You

There Are Moms Way Worse Than You PDF Author: Glenn Boozan
Publisher: Workman Publishing
ISBN: 1523515643
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 65

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Book Description
A rhyming illustrated humor book for moms who feel they're not doing a good job (and that's all moms, right?). Packed with scientifically true examples of terrible parents in the animal kingdom, to remind and reassure any mother that there are way worse moms out there.

The Bad Mothers' Book Club

The Bad Mothers' Book Club PDF Author: Keris Stainton
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1409175871
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
'I needed a funny easy book because of the days we're living in and The Bad Mothers' Book Club was perfect.' Maria, 5 stars The laugh-out-loud new comedy about family relationships from the ebook bestseller! Meet Emma, the new Mum on the block. Since moving to the Liverpudlian seaside after her husband's career change, her life consists of the following: long walks on the beach (with the dog), early nights (with the kids) and Netflix (no chill). Bored and lonely, when Emma is cordially invited to the exclusive cool school-mums' book club, she thinks her luck may finally be about to change. But she soon finds the women of the club aren't quite what they seem - and after an unfortunate incident involving red wine and a white carpet, she finds herself unceremoniously kicked out. The answer? Start her own book club - for bad mothers who just want to drink wine and share stories. But will this town let two book clubs exist? Or is there only room for one queen of the school gates...? Perfect for fans of Why Mummy Drinks.

BAD MOTHERS

BAD MOTHERS PDF Author: Molly Ladd-Taylor
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814751199
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
There really are women who are less than good mothers. However, during the past quarter century, the definition of bad mother has changed with changing lifestyles and changes to the family structure. Mothers today are blamed for a host of problems. Drawing together the work of prominent scholars and journalists, and individual cases, BAD MOTHERS marks an important contribution to the literature on motherhood.

Mothers

Mothers PDF Author: Jacqueline Rose
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374715831
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A simple argument guides this book: motherhood is the place in our culture where we lodge, or rather bury, the reality of our own conflicts. By making mothers the objects of both licensed idealization and cruelty, we blind ourselves to the world’s iniquities and shut down the portals of the heart. Mothers are the ultimate scapegoat for our personal and political failings, for everything that is wrong with the world, which becomes their task (unrealizable, of course) to repair. Moving commandingly between pop cultural references such as Roald Dahl’s Matilda to insights on motherhood in the ancient world and the contemporary stigmatization of single mothers, Jacqueline Rose delivers a groundbreaking report into something so prevalent we hardly notice. Mothers is an incisive, rousing call to action from one of our most important contemporary thinkers.