COMMENTARY–October 1, 2002

Ambivalent Mothering

The work of mothering is often so arduous and challenging that most mothers will at some point feel ambivalence toward the responsibility of mothering.  Stay-at-home mothers, in particular, will find themselves questioning the value of the work they do in the home because they do not receive a great deal of support from society. 

Most women now work inside and outside of the home because women who work outside the home are supposed to possess a healthier sense of self-esteem and independence.  This leaves women who stay home with young babies and children a bit on the defensive since they need to justify why they stay home.  It is apparently not sufficiently good enough a reason that many mothers like to stay home with their children and feel that their children need them. 

It is taken for granted that stay-at-home mothering is not really an occupation because an occupation is assumed to be work that is done outside the home.  So, regardless of how well and happily child-rearing is progressing, a majority of stay-at-home mothers will question the validity of what they do in the home. 

This subject arose because my sister, a stay-at-home mother of a ten-year-old boy and an eighteen-month-old baby boy, complained to me over the summer that she was exhausted and discouraged.  Granted, my sister was an older mother, a woman who was fortunate enough at the age of 42 to have given birth to a healthy boy. 

She had a right to complain of being tired since she had been breastfeeding her baby on demand since his birth; she also suffered through long months of discomfort and problems with nursing.  She was also a concerned mom who oversaw the well-being of her older son.  She appreciated and understood that her availability and dedication were irreplaceable.  Yet she also wondered if there was an easier way to rear children.

My sister was overwhelmed with caring for and feeding an older child and a baby, cleaning house, cooking meals, and enjoying some free time for herself.  Ultimately, she decided she needed hired help.  It simplified her life to have someone help clean her home and occasionally keep an eye on the baby.  As much as my sister would have liked to do everything on her own, and she did for a while, it was more practical for her to hire someone to help clean her home. 

In general, if a mother can afford to and wants to hire help, she should do so if it enables her to attend better to the needs of her children.  Interestingly, of course, every mother has a different conception of what her children’s needs may be. 

I know of a woman, for instance, who did not breastfeed any of her four children and generally spent little time with any of her children.  She had the full-time help of a nanny and a housekeeper, and she spent the majority of her time shopping.  Christmas photos always displayed four beautiful children who were all dressed alike. 

For this woman, the primary work of satisfying her children’s needs revolved around clothing and beautifying them.  For other women, satisfying the needs of children certainly encompasses the provision of clothing but probably entails more meaningful hands-on participation in their children’s care.

There is nothing easy about child-rearing, especially when parents choose to place top priority on the needs of young children.  Ideally, young babies and children need to be breastfed on demand, and they need the consistent comfort of knowing that an available caretaker loves them and is willing to respond to their needs.  My sister understands this.  Thus, she has been breastfeeding her baby, paying attention to his needs, and enabling him to develop into a healthy human being. 

The baby is a courageous and adorable little fellow who understands very well what is going on in his environment.  When he was three months old, I once took care of him for over three hours, much to his chagrin and mine, in order to give his mom a break.  I tried to feed him warmed expressed breast milk with a spoon, but he had no interest.  I consoled him while he cried for his mom and I carried him in a sling. 

The baby finally gave up and went to sleep in the sling.  He would occasionally open an eye to see if his mom was there.  Confirming her absence several times, and without uttering a whimper of complaint, he simply went back to sleep. 

It was extraordinary to witness a three-month-old baby tolerating and making the best of an unhappy situation.  In the long run, I was very sympathetic to the baby’s plight of missing his mom.  I was less sympathetic toward my sister who felt delightfully rejuvenated by her outing without the baby. 

I do believe that there are times when mothers can leave their young babies in the hands of someone else, primarily a loving father, but not on a regularly scheduled basis.  According to women’s magazines, however, mothers need to separate themselves routinely from their babies so that they can retain their sense of self-identity and their interests outside of mothering. 

This might be helpful advice for some women.  Not all mothers, however, experience the crisis of losing their self-identity upon becoming hard working mothers.  In fact, there are many women who feel that their lives are enriched immeasurably by being around their babies constantly.  If anything, their identity as women becomes stronger, and it would not occur to them to leave home without their young babies. 

Certainly, neurosis might be involved in a mother’s attachment to her baby in rare cases, but in most cases the bond between a mother and her baby is healthy and profoundly normal.  For some women, for example, it may simply not be worthwhile to go out for a manicure or a movie with a friend. 

The separation of a mother from her baby should be fine as long as the mother has thought about what she wants to do.  If, on the other hand, she leaves her baby because general advice is being given to that effect, a separation between mother and baby may not be wise. 

There is an interesting concept in Buddhist philosophy that explains the relationship between a person and his environment that can be applied to a baby and his needs.  An individual is a discreet entity while the environment consists of all that is external to the individual.  It would appear that a baby is completely alone and independent in a vast environment. 

The baby, however, is actually wholly dependent upon his environment for his survival.  The air, the food, the water, the human companionship, the space, and all else that is in his environment permit him to function as a human being.  In other words, a baby is a living human being who can function because he exists in his environment.  Without an environment, the baby cannot survive as a human being. 

In Buddhist philosophy, this concept of an individual and his environment is summarized as “two but not two.”  The individual and his environment are inextricably linked together.  It would be fallacious to think that any individual is completely independent of his environment.

If we apply this concept to the mother-infant dyad, we might better appreciate why a mother and infant should not be separated for prolonged periods of time.  For one, the human infant is an extremely immature creature.  The anthropologist Ashley Montagu explained that the human infant remains immature far longer than any other living progeny.  It is a deception to believe that the human newborn is a mature individual who can survive infancy uneventfully. 

The advent of artificial infant feeding over the past century seems to have obviated the need for mothers and breastfeeding, but that is a delusion.  It is true that infant survival has improved, but infant and child morbidity has increased dramatically.  The incidence of physical and mental problems among children continues to increase, yet parents cast a blind eye toward preventing such ills. 

At the root of preventing the incidence of physical and mental illnesses among children is the need to correct the misconception that the mother-infant dyad is expendable.  A mother is a unique entity because she was capable of carrying a fetus in her womb and giving birth to a newborn.  A mother who bears a child is exceptionally qualified to care for her newborn. 

Pregnancy prepares the breasts for their lactating duties, which includes the formulation of specific ingredients that will go into mother’s milk.  Such custom made milk is most ideally produced when a mother is closely attached to her baby.  By staying together, a mother and baby are exposed to the same environment, and the mother’s breasts create milk that contains particular antibodies that help to ward off infection in the baby.  The closeness between mother and infant is a naturally designed way of protecting the health of both mother and baby.

Given the human baby’s extreme immaturity, the baby’s environment needs to be that much more attuned to providing the intimate and loving care that a baby needs to grow and develop into a humane being.  There is simply no one more ideal to provide such care than the mother who bore the baby.  Despite this fact of nature, it is readily believed by most adults today that babies will not only survive their early childhood but also thrive under the care of anyone other than mother. 

This means that the one person, the mother, who is uniquely related to her baby is given the anonymity of being just another caregiver.  Clearly, the concept of “two but not two” is not being applied to the mother-infant dyad in far too many cases.

Consider, for example, a friend of my sister who is a mother of two young children.  She does not breastfeed her young infant, and she did not breastfeed her two-year-old toddler.  She sleep-trained her older daughter, and she has full-time help.  By all appearances, my sister’s friend has the freedom to indulge herself however she wishes since she is not bound to her children physically through breastfeeding or co-sleeping.  In comparison to my tired sister, her friend looks energetic and happy. 

The comparison, however valid, is superficial and ultimately meaningless since everything in life is transient.  A child’s growth and development are the fruition of the many efforts that parents make to provide a child with the optimal circumstances in which to grow.  Ostensibly, my sister’s friend enjoys motherhood and proudly calls herself a “housewife,” but she has little insight into the overt and subtle impact her child-rearing practices are having upon her children.

My sister’s friend, for instance, is proud that her daughter naps daily for two hours and is asleep in her crib no later than 7 p.m. nightly.  She admits with determined righteousness that she sleep-trained her older daughter when she was only a few months old.  During our visit to her home, though, I saw an unhappy toddler who hit her mother and would not listen to her.  The toddler also ignored her baby sister and my baby nephew. 

Some child-rearing experts would casually diagnose the “terrible twos” and pronounce the toddler’s behavior to be normal.  It is easier this way because then no one needs to determine or even think about what would drive a two-year-old to demonstrate such unhappiness.  It is simpler to merely ascribe such behavior as being normal. 

The same can be said of the toddler’s refusal to eat food.  Most pediatricians throw their hands in the air and say that this is normal as well.  A toddler can exhibit meanness, resentment, unhappiness, poor appetite, and the general assumption is that child growth and development is proceeding normally.

Even though my sister’s friend was readily available to her children, she refused adamantly to utilize one tool that pregnancy and childbearing had graced her body with, which was the gift of breastfeeding.  The complex reasons as to why a woman chooses not to breastfeed are numerous, but the consequences of not utilizing such a gift are enormous.  Without breastfeeding, parents need to resort to the use of any tools that will serve to satisfy a young child’s needs. 

Invariably, tools will often fail whereas breastfeeding rarely fails to calm and soothe a baby.  Despite the commonly mistaken notion that a two-year-old child is not a baby and certainly one who does not need to breastfeed, I would aver that if two-year-olds were breastfed, then the incidence of “terrible twos” would decrease dramatically. 

As it stands, parents often misunderstand their young children’s needs.  Instead of satisfying young children’s needs, parents offer them a set of rules and regulations they need to abide by to curb their needs.  The infatuation parents have with rules leads to a nearly religious attitude toward curbing a child’s needs. 

Even in early infancy, parents may enforce strict rules like timed bottle feedings of infant formula, mandatory naps and evening bed times, and forced separations from mother in order to check a young baby’s dependency upon his mother.  The hoped for result is a restrained and patient child, but this is rarely achieved since the imposition of rules does nothing to satisfy a baby’s biological needs. 

A hungry baby should not need to learn how to tame a biological need for nourishment.  His only tool is the ability to cry, so why permit him to cry endlessly when an obvious physical need must be satisfied?  Likewise, an unhappy toddler who does not receive enough attention should not have to resort to bullying her mother or baby sister in order to get attention. 

Parents are educated to believe that the establishment and enforcement of rules are the key tools to ensure the correct development of young children.  It would be satisfactory to establish and enforce rules for young babies and children as long as a true understanding of human development corresponded to the rules.  Even in the year 2002, however, the general public is no more enlightened to the course of human development than in 1957 when Ashley Montagu published his seminal book The Direction of Human Development. 

In that book, Ashley Montagu describes in detail the immaturity of the human infant, the importance maternal availability, the consequences of failure to provide and encourage the mother-infant bond, and the significance of love.  Of great importance was Ashley Montagu’s emphasis upon love and the failure to develop into humane beings in the absence of love.  As much as we seem to understand the concept of love today, there is something amiss in our comprehension because the majority of parents are unwilling to learn how perfectly breastfeeding defines love.

Consider Ashley Montagu’s description of the characteristics of love:

1. Love is not only a subjective feeling which one has, an emotion, but a series of acts by means of which one conveys to another the feeling that one is deeply involved, profoundly interested, in them and in their welfare.  In this sense love is demonstrative, it is sacrificial, it is self-abnegative.  It puts the other always first.  It is not a cold or calculated altruism, but a deep complete involvement with another.

2. Love is unconditional, it makes no bargains, it trades with no one for anything.  It conveys the feeling, the in-the-bone belief, that you are all for the other, than you are always available to give him your support, to contribute to his development as best you can.  Love values the other for what he is, not because he is something you want or expect him to be.

3.  Love is supportive; it conveys to the other that you will never commit the supreme treason that one human being can commit against another, namely, failure or desertion when you are most needed.  Love promises that you will always be present to support the other and that no matter what the conditions you will never fail to offer yourself; that you will neither condemn, nor condone, but that you will always be there to offer your sympathy and your understanding; and that whatever the other needs as a human being he shall have, even though it may be a firm “No.”  Love means that you will be there to help him say “Yes” to live, and to help him have his needs for love satisfied. [1]

If we consider this description of love seriously, it becomes evident that there is a great deal that parents can offer young children in the name of love.  The wisest have said throughout history that it is at the mother’s breast that a child learns the meaning of love.

Truly, the role of mother is phenomenally unique in a child’s life, particularly early on.  Childbearing alone is a task that only women can perform and one must wonder how, given the uniqueness of such a role, the role of mother can be diminished so significantly after a baby’s birth?  The Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda writes that “…when one considers that the mother’s womb is not simply a physical object, but rather is the place where the depths of a human being’s mind are formed, one realizes that the mother of the fetus performs an exceedingly vital role.”  [2] 

A mother’s love is vital for a baby’s healthy growth and development, and no one appreciates this better than a thriving and happy baby.  Moreover, nowhere in Ashley Montagu’s description of love does he mention the need to enforce rules and regulations.  Rules are an inevitable aspect of life, but they should not apply to young babies. 

To enforce rules upon young babies is absolutely meaningless.  Surely, when a baby begins to craw about at around ten months or so, the rules of safety apply.  When he is immobile and so very dependent upon his caretakers, however, one should question the meaning of strict schedules and enforcement of rules. 

How much can a baby learn by being taught external rules when his basic physical needs may not be properly met?  It is the satisfied baby who has the greater capacity to understand rules and the code of cooperative behavior.  The unsatisfied baby is too busy still trying to be satisfied. 

The unhappy toddler I mentioned earlier is, in many ways, the perfect product of today’s child-rearing practices.  Superficially, she is well cared for and prettily dressed, but she is not a content child.  Frustration and anger are already part of this child’s existence despite the trappings of a luxurious upbringing. 

So the question that should be asked is the following:  why does order forced upon young children not beget order when it comes to child-rearing?  At this point, I will clarify that I am specifically referring to the regimen of timed bottle feedings, enforced naptimes and bedtimes, and forced separations from mother.  In order to make their lives easier, many parents choose to advocate schedules. 

I remember visiting a friend once and was appalled when she insisted her eighteen-month-old baby take a nap in her crib when she was clearly uninterested in taking one.  After a prolonged period of time, my friend finally acquiesced reluctantly and brought her crying child out to join us.  I offered no comment because I understood my friend’s dismay that the baby’s nighttime sleep would probably be disrupted because she missed her daily nap. 

I felt intuitively, nevertheless, that I would never tolerate the cries of my baby in a crib far away from me for thirty minutes.  To me, such unhappiness is unnecessary.  In fact, the child’s desperate cries were a manifestation of the type of chaos that results from forcing order upon a child when she is not yet ready to comprehend the meaning of order in her life.

Consider, in contrast, the eighteen-month-old baby who experiences less scheduled order in her life and greater satisfaction through breastfeeding on demand and co-sleeping.  The effect of having one’s needs satisfied early on leads to the creation of more stability and order in a child’s life.  Granted, the work of breastfeeding and the restrictions associated with co-sleeping may be difficult for the parents. 

For instance, when my daughter was about two years old, she had to sleep with my right arm underneath her neck.  Often enough, the absence of my right arm was enough to awaken her and spur her to roam the apartment in search of me.  The constraint was occasionally taxing for me, but that period passed eventually. 

The same can be said of breastfeeding since once women become accustomed to it, it becomes second nature for both mothers and babies.  Consequently, one creates greater order in a child’s life by offering to the baby that which appears to be less orderly.

The point is that breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and a mother’s availability are consistent responses to a young baby and child’s needs. 

The mere action of responding to a baby is, in and of itself, an orderly action.  In other words, by responding to a baby’s needs a parent is fulfilling a very fundamental need for order in a baby’s life.  Just imagine how disruptive it is for a hungry baby to wait for a bottle of formula to be heated or to wear a soiled diaper for an extended period of time.  The consistency of responding to a baby’s needs is what creates order within a child’s life.  Forced regimens of feedings, naps, and abandonment by a mother fail to create order in a child’s life and, instead, create rampant disorder.

It is little wonder that toddlers run about creating havoc wherever they go since no one has bothered to respond to their needs either efficiently or satisfactorily.  The seeds of chaos germinate because order in a baby’s life is often imposed externally.  Order arises, however, from within as a response to the way in which a baby’s basic needs are met.

It would be wonderful if both parents could care for a baby throughout early childhood, but this is impractical since it is challenging to live on even one income.  In most cases, a mother’s care is ideal for a baby because of the breastfeeding factor.  At least for the first year of life, and ideally the first two to three years of life, breastfeeding on demand will satisfy a baby so perfectly that order becomes a natural part of a family’s existence. 

Order in family life is attainable only because of the hard work and efforts put forth by parents who understand that there is an objective to satisfying a baby’s needs.  Families benefit enormously when babies are satisfied, and there is no reason to believe that such satisfaction engenders the spoiling of young children.  The fear of spoiling young children by satisfying their basic needs is completely unfounded.  In fact, the exact opposite is true. 

The failure to satisfy basic needs is what leads to the spoiling of children because the latter have an endless need to be satisfied.  From that perspective, we are rearing a large number of spoiled children.  In the adult world, it is more than evident that modern day child-rearing practices have failed conspicuously.  Take, for example, the former CEO of Tyco International.  He allegedly used company funds to fulfill personal needs to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.  He is a prime example of a spoiled person.

Human beings are spoiled because they lack an internal sense of order that should have been created early on in life by having basic physical and emotional needs met.  Structured regimens that are externally imposed upon young infants and children accomplish little and do a great deal of harm.

In their introduction to the book The Dehumanization of Man, authors Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson write the following about the influence the clock has upon human beings:

… a peculiar and profound form of dehumanization was taking place, involving the loss of a sense of subjective control or even participation

in the conduct of daily life.  The old ways have been experienced as the commands of nature, hence of human nature; to submit to nature’s laws was a form of self-direction… The new imperatives were not only external, imposed from without; they were also nonhuman, “alien,” detached from human feelings, and in a real sense “against nature.”  Henceforth human life would not move with the tides, but proceed like clockwork.  [3]

The authors’ description of the clock’s impact upon human existence is significant.  The tide toward mechanization and the regimentation of daily life according to the dictates of time was profoundly dehumanizing. 

By adhering to the clock and its restrictions, many people lost internal guidelines not only of time, but also essentially of order.  Everything had to be imposed upon them from without.  Hence, it is not surprising that the primary problem with child-rearing today is its dependence upon time limits. 

Everything about child-rearing revolves around the clock, from the frequency of infant feedings to the duration of a time-out for even the youngest toddler.  Parents look obsessively at clocks.  They may be angered if a child, for instance, takes too long taking a bath, tidying up a room, or going to sleep. 

Some adults have memories of a childhood in which one was forced to sit at the dining table until one finished eating one’s meal, including all vegetables, no matter how long it took.  In that case, the punishment was meted out to maximize the duration of the child’s suffering at the table.  Since the advent of clocks all over European town squares in the fifteenth century, the compulsion to live by the clock continues, and it still demeans human existence.

Clocks are the bane of a young child’s existence, for a child has no concept of time.  Why do parents suddenly leave a baby and stay out of sight once it is the baby’s bedtime at seven o’clock in the evening?  Why is a parent angry if the baby cries out at 2 a.m.?  Why does a toddler need to eat a snack if she is not hungry at 3 p.m.?  The questions are endless because a young baby or child has no real concept of time, which is an artificial construct human beings have created to institute order. 

For a young baby or child, though, the order provided by a clock is not truly meaningful.  Rather, more imperative than eyeing a clock is the fulfillment of some basic needs such as the satisfaction of hunger.  Thus, a newborn may need to be fed in the middle of the night because he is truly hungry whereas a toddler may call out for someone in the middle of the night because she is lonely.  Both have needs that should be fulfilled regardless of the time involved.

The problem most parents face is that they do not have enough time to fulfill their young children’s needs.  The solution, then, might be to ignore the clock during the early years of child-rearing.  Perhaps parents should not count the hours and minutes spent on any given particular task of child-rearing. 

Perhaps parents should consider permitting the baby to do any or all of the following:  nurse as often and as frequently as she wants by simply offering the breast; fall asleep whenever she wants; fall asleep in her parents’ bed at nighttime; nurse during the night since she has a biological need for nourishment; and wake up when she wishes.  There are many enjoyable activities a baby may enjoy when parents do not adhere to the demands of time.

For some families, the notion of living around a baby’s needs is ludicrous.  For example, I know of a man who insists that his wife has to cook him a hot meal every night.  He will not eat leftovers, and he is not concerned that they have three young children.  In this particular family’s case, I doubt that the care of any of the three young children was of primary importance. 

The father might have wanted a hot breakfast as well, for all I know.  He was the breadwinner, and his wife was only too willing to comply with his demands in exchange for enjoying a comfortable lifestyle.  I do not leave much room to doubt my low opinion of this particular man, but he is the type of father who only recognizes his own needs.

In contrast to this man, there are growing numbers of fathers who comprehend that their support, emotional and financial, is what helps to create fulfilled families.  A helpful father understands that his role is not secondary but profoundly complementary to the role of a breastfeeding mother.  He would not make demands of his wife that would benefit only himself and not her or the baby. 

In fact, it is the father’s sacrifices that permit his wife and baby to experience the freedom of living without adhering strictly to time limitations.  This was definitely the case in our family since I could stay home with my young children while my husband worked full-time outside the home.  Ultimately, though, one can never underestimate the profound impact a father has upon his family. 

Children who are bound to their mothers by breastfeeding and stay-at-home mothering are that much closer to their fathers.  Interestingly, this will be the case no matter how infrequently the father sees his children, as long as he loves and cares about them.  Naturally, it would be more ideal for young children to spend as much time as possible with both parents, but in our current age it is rare for even a mother to stay home with her young baby.  Such is our societal obedience to the dehumanized workings of the clock.

Today, women are forever troubled by the prospect of child-rearing because it appears to rob them of time and opportunity.  This is what my sister was complaining about.  Yet I could not be too sympathetic because she really wanted a baby in her life, and she was fortunate enough to welcome a healthy baby boy into her family’s life.  The truth is that the joy of having a child is associated with a huge responsibility. 

It can be scary to think that parents are responsible for their babies’ well-being, but actually it can be a simple and fulfilling endeavor.  Babies require satisfaction of some basic needs, and it is the consistent response they receive throughout early childhood and afterwards that helps them to establish order in their lives. 

Order is nurtured naturally, and mothers can enjoy child-rearing without imposing upon themselves a deadline to achieve fame and success in society.  For better or worse, mothering is not the path to gain anything but inner satisfaction for oneself and one’s family.  If one has such family values, then there is little need to feel ambivalent toward mothering.

Revised April 14, 2006