The Myths of Motherhood

How Culture Reinvents the Good Mother

Author: Shari Thurer
ISBN: 9780395584156

Given a voice, what would the Great Goddess, the Virgin Mary, Snow White's evil stepmother, or Portnoy's mom have said about child care, contraception, bonding, or breast-feeding? Would their feelings have mattered? After all, maternity has been constructed by men over the millennia. Aristotle thought mother's womb merely cooked father's seed. The Church preferred virgins to mothers, and Freud was father-fixated. Even a brief survey of history reveals a diversity of maternal practices and ideals that are at odds with each other as well as with the views of contemporary child-care experts and psychologists. "I cannot recall ever treating a mother who did not harbor shameful secrets about how her behavior or feelings damaged her children," writes Thurer. Today our sentimentalized conception of the good mother casts a long, guilt-inducing shadow over real mothers' lives. Never has there been so much advice and so little agreement. Never have the ideals of motherhood been as ambiguous, psy

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Publish Date: 1994

Subjects: Family & Relationships / Parenting / Motherhood, Body, Mind & Spirit / Inspiration & Personal Growth

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Women's Center (Location: Parenting)