Posted by Dinah on February 26, 2011, at 8:07:21
In reply to Re: Ferber, posted by morgan miller on February 26, 2011, at 1:34:45
Neglect can cause harm, certainly. But not all misattunement is neglect. Neglect is a loaded term, often implying carelessness or indifference. That's an implication depressed mothers aren't guilty of just because they're depressed.
My point is that even the "healthiest" of parents, and even under the best medical advice, can do things that could conceivably cause psychological damage to a vulnerable infant. And I'm assuming that both by genetics and the soup of placental stress hormones, a depressed mother is more likely to give birth to a child likely to be particularly vulnerable.
Parents let children down. Even babies. The myth of the all nurturing mother is a myth. "Healthy" mothers can and do bring their infants to day care where there is a less than one to one ratio, usually through necessity not indifference. "Healthy" mothers might drink or smoke or take drugs, and there is both physical and emotional repercussions for the child. "Healthy" mothers are separated from their infants for reasons beyond their control, just as depressed mothers may be separated in some ways from their infants, for reasons beyond their control. "Healthy" mothers leave babies feeling the pain of loss and suffering the fear of abandonment alone to cry until they throw up and give up the hope of having their cries bring the succor of a parent's arms and cease to cry for attention and become more "agreeable". To the parents they're more agreeable of course. And they do this on the advice of doctors, who seem to be working under the assumption that a baby crying in loneliness and fear and for consolation is doing so as a manipulation. And frankly, some "healthy" mothers will look at their babies without joy because babies are not always a joy on a minute by minute basis. Of course they are as a whole. But a colicky baby or a fretful baby or even a perfectly normal baby does not elicit feelings of joy all the time from any but the most saintly of mothers. A particularly fretful baby may elicit joy on an infrequent basis, and may even elicit a conditioned negative response. Heck, the reward centers may be no more than a biological urge to let down milk, not a call to joyous interaction. Healthy parents can and do cause harm to their babies with no more intent to harm than depressed mothers.
Obviously mothers who are suffering from post partum psychosis or who are so depressed that they are unable to care for their child are in need of assistance, and their child should be properly cared for. But for milder forms of depression, I'd pick a depressed mother over a selfish, self centered, or immature one. In fact, I suspect one evolutionary advantage to depression in mothers may be to make them more aware of their potential deficiencies as parents, and more anxious to provide proper care. Even if it's without a spark of joy. Given the historically young age of parents, that may be even more of a possibility.
And again frankly, where the h*ll are the fathers in these studies. Only mothers can give the proper nurturing to infants?
What is this about for you? You've brought it up more than once. Is this about deciding whether or not to have children for yourself? Is it reflecting on the harm you may have done to your own child? Or is it about explaining your own emotional distress in terms of what others did to you, instead of in terms of what biological vulnerabilities you have? Even though those biological vulnerabilities were completely beyond your control and the result of faulty genes or prenatal experience? Does it give more hope to assume that the reason is post birth experiences, because those can be corrected through therapy? While more intrinsic causes imply that one is flawed forever? Everyone is flawed forever in one way or another. It doesn't mean they are doomed.
Have you read Daniel Goleman's work on Social Intelligence. I think that's the one. In which he says that research is showing that a mother's interactions with a baby are in part influenced by that baby's own personality? That babies aren't small blank slates ready to be formed by the world, but come into the world with a fair amount of personality already made?
If you try hard enough, you can find reasons why an adult can be the way they are. Every child, if they go back to infancy and speculation on what their moments of attunement were like with their parents, will find reason enough for any psychological distress. If that's important to you, then that's fine. I could do it too, if I liked. I *wish* that my mother was merely a dedicated and conscientious mother who was depressed herself when I was an infant. If that's all my son has to complain of when he's older, I consider myself to have given him a far healthier childhood than I had myself. Which is the evolutionary ideal I think. Will it lead to a better outcome? That depends on him and his own inborn characteristics as much as it does on me. Mind you, I doubt that's all he'll have to complain about when he's older. "She's too smothering." "She's too distant." "She's too odd." "She's overly concerned with convention." "She never trusted me." "She always trusted me." And if I was a perfect mother - which I'm not "It was too much pressure to be so perfect." Ideal mothering for one child doesn't suit another. And any child, in a therapist's office, can find some reason why their mother is to blame for them being there. If that child has to look back to their infancy and the way their mother looked at them without a spark of joy, their mother has reason for pride, not shame.
I doubt I'll be that lucky. I continue to be imperfect to this day.
Maybe instead of saying that mentally ill parents are harmful to their children, it could be generalized to "imperfect parenting is harmful to children." And since perfection is sadly lacking in this perfect world, the unnecessary modifier could be removed leaving "parenting is harmful to children." How harmful it is seen to be may be more up to the child than the parent.
poster:Dinah
thread:979678
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110220/msgs/979813.html