COMMENTARY–October 10, 2003

Narcissism and the Resentment

of Motherhood

On Mother’s Day in 2002, the New York Times published an article titled “Admitting to Mixed Feelings about Motherhood” in its Sunday Style section.  Ostensibly, the Style Section would appear to be an odd place to find an article about motherhood, but the media appear to treat anything related to women as a fashion statement. 

In the article, Elizabeth Hayt (New York Times, May 13, 2002) suggests the following two things about modern-day motherhood.  First, the general public views motherhood in the context of a Hallmark card-type of motherly happiness.  Second, it is taboo for women to experience motherhood as anything other than one of contentment and fulfillment. 

She contends that the first two views of motherhood will not persist because “another version of motherhood is beginning to seep out, with some mothers speaking up–in the impassioned tones of those breaking a taboo–about the drudgery of child care, the isolation of the playground and their loss of identity.”  Hayt suggests that it is now becoming acceptable (or even fashionable, I might add) to complain aloud about the toils and deficiencies of motherhood.

I believe that women need the opportunity to express themselves freely about motherhood and, for the most part, many women do exactly that.  In fact, most women probably maintain their sanity by expressing verbally the discontent that lies in their hearts and minds. 

The comedian Chris Rock addresses women’s ability to complain.  In a funny vignette, Rock expostulates on the reasons why most husbands need a break between leaving work and returning home to their families.  He jokes that as soon as a man sets one foot through the doorway, his wife is yapping on and on about what happened to her during the day.  Half an hour later, the man will be lucky if he has set the other foot through the doorway because his wife is still complaining. 

This vignette does not hold true for every family, although it is a fairly accurate description of how I interact with my husband when he returns home from work.  I trust that I am not alone since Chris Rock’s audience was laughing hysterically:  he certainly hit a chord with them.  Anyway, it is not a new phenomenon that many women, including myself, need to relieve themselves of their burdens through verbal complaints. 

As a rule, I dislike describing the responsibility of motherhood as a burden since, at the risk of sounding like a Hallmark card, so much of it is enjoyable and fulfilling.  There are times, however, when the work of mothering is so exasperating that a mother can seem to do no right for her children.  Inevitably, she feels guilty for everything that goes wrong. 

In a sense, I should be happy with the New York Times article since it declares the normalcy of women admitting to having mixed feelings about motherhood.  Yet, instead of feeling encouraged, this particular article disturbs me. 

It is not that I believe in the Hallmark card-version of motherhood at all.  In fact, I agree with the article that anyone who does believe in such a version of motherhood is bound to be disappointed.  After all, there is something unnatural about such a saccharine view of anything, including motherhood. 

Everything in life is fraught with dual aspects, good and bad, so it impossible for motherhood to encompass only sweetness and kindness.  Even so, many women are under the impression that good mothering is instinctive and natural.

The article mentions that many women view motherhood as a universally instinctive human experience.  A woman who gives birth is supposed to magically transform from whomever she was into a loving and caring mother who never begrudges anything she does for the sake of her children.  This view of motherhood is simply wrong. 

First of all, there is no such thing as instinct in human behavior.  The anthropologist Ashley Montagu clarified decades ago that human beings lost their instincts during the course of human evolution.  What we deem to be instinct is actually learned behavior. 

A woman can experience the joy of motherhood not because she has the instinct to do so, but because she learns to do so.  She may have learned to love her newborn for many reasons.  Perhaps her friends love their children, her mother cared for her lovingly when she was a child, or she read about the importance of the mother-infant bond.  A woman loves her child not because she has such an instinct, but because she has learned to love her child. 

If women were endowed with the instinct to care lovingly for their children, then all children in the world would probably be fulfilled, healthy, and happy.  In reality, there is a tremendous variety of maternal behavior, and some of it is profoundly negative and harmful.  Motherhood has very little to do with instinct and a great deal to do with learned behavior. 

Women learn how to be mothers from their cultural environments.  In the affluent and educated world of middle-class America, many women learn about motherhood by reading books.  The fact that women need to read books about mothering indicates how much learning is necessary for women to fulfill their roles as mothers. 

Interestingly, motherhood has become such a cerebral occupation that women depend highly on the advice of child-rearing experts.  Several years ago, for instance, a well-known, pregnant pediatrician proclaimed in The New York Times that she carried Dr. Spock’s book with her to Africa because she so relied on his advice to parent.  It is evident that women, regardless of profession and educational status, do not possess an instinct for motherhood. 

In general, there is some truth to the idea that hormonal changes induced by pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation may trigger a flow of maternal love and affection that that binds women to their newborns.  For instance, the hormone oxytocin is responsible for physiological changes such as uterine contractions and the let-down reflex during breastfeeding.  Oxytocin has been also called the “hormone of love” because it may influence human beings’ ability to bond with others.  Psychiatrist Rebecca Turner speculates that oxytocin may “facilitate the emotional bond between mother and child.” [1] 

Despite significant physiological changes effected by oxytocin, it still takes work to nurture maternal behavior.  Breastfeeding, for example, will continue to stimulate the production of oxytocin and its concomitant physiological effects.  Breastfeeding, however, entails a great deal of commitment with respect to time and maternal availability. 

Women today face inordinate pressure to do an enormous number of things besides mothering and breastfeeding.  They face stress and a reluctance to bind themselves too closely to their babies.  After all, how is it possible for the majority of women to continue to work outside the home and to breastfeed and care directly for their babies? 

Many women think that they cannot choose to continue breastfeeding beyond a few weeks or a few months.  With all the expectations women face today in life, even the natural physiological changes women experience may be thwarted.  The primary point is that the conscious mind is powerful and can defy biology.  In any case, no matter how natural mothering may be, how any single mother carries out her responsibility is as much influenced by culture as it is by biology. 

One would believe that mothering today would be easier in light of the significant technological advances that have contributed to the simplification of household chores over the past century.  In terms of domestic housekeeping, for example, the advent of washing machines, dishwashers, and vacuum cleaners has eased certain aspects of cleaning and maintaining house.

Even with the help of machines, though, a woman’s workload in the home has not actually decreased very much.  If anything, mothers have found their workload has doubled because the majority of women now work outside the home and maintain the well-being of their families and homes.  Women deserve to complain because the work of mothering is no less difficult than it has been in previous generations. 

In a world that is driven by capitalism, motherhood has taken on new meaning.  Almost everything related to motherhood has a price and an adequate amount of money can probably pay for services that a mother would normally have provided for her children and family.  Nearly anything can be purchased, including a nanny’s care, a spot at a day care center, a maid’s service, and a cartload of infant formula.  As long as a family can pay for the services of others, a mother can take a hands-off approach toward mothering. 

It is as if a mother’s presence is no longer necessary for her children’s healthy growth and development.  More families are finding that two incomes provide a much more comfortable and alluring lifestyle.  In addition, growing numbers of women are finding that their children do appear to survive without their direct care.  So, this raises the question of why a woman should bother doing the arduous and grueling work of mothering?

There are differing perspectives on the work of mothering.  Hayt describes Darcie Sanders, a woman who chose to stay home with her kids.  Sanders co-wrote a book called Staying Home: From Full-Time Professional to Full-Time Parent because she found the work of mothering to be difficult but rewarding.  Hayt quotes Sanders as saying the following about mothering:  “I didn’t feel like I was sacrificing anything.  There are aspects of drudgery to it, but for me the benefits so overwhelmingly outweigh those aspects, and anyway, there are aspects of drudgery to any job.” 

In contrast, the novelist Rachel Cusk wrote a memoir in which she longed for the freedom she had before her child was born.  Freedom, after all, appears to give one the opportunity to do as one pleases and not to do as one must.  Ms. Cusk is brutally honest about her regret, and most women do feel some regret to different degrees.  Truly, the different views of motherhood are stark, and the argument for greater discussion is valid and important.   There is little doubt that the majority of mothers feel a combination of sincere joy and dedication, as well as regret.

It is unlikely that women truly think that motherhood is simply about love and devotion.  Most people are well aware that rewards are the result of hard work and efforts.  Why would mothering be any different?  Yet more women are beginning to voice doubts about motherhood because it is not exactly what they perceived it to be. 

Complaints are normal and potentially useful, particularly when one works actively to change things to end the complaints.  Resentment, on the other hand, entails passivity and makes one look backward in a helpless, angry way.  Unfortunately, the women interviewed for this particular New York Times article do not complain about motherhood as much as they voice resentment toward mothering.  

Resentment is a strong sentiment, and it is growing among mothers.  Why?  Well, it has become more acceptable to express one’s freedom to do as one pleases.  We live in a society that is predicated upon freedom and, hence, one is free to express one’s feelings. 

A woman who does not enjoy motherhood has the freedom to write about it, and this is what both the writer Naomi Wolf and the novelist Rachel Cusk have done.  This is not at all revolutionary since many other women writers have expressed their distaste for mothering.  In other words, resenting mothering is not at all a new phenomenon.

Decades ago, I encountered Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s late nineteenth century story The Yellow Wallpaper.  This disturbing story recounts the descent into madness of a woman who has recently given birth.  It is a chilling story of a serious case of post-partum depression, and it reveals the darkness of motherhood gone awry. 

In the same era, Kate Chopin wrote the story The Awakening, in which she describes the adulterous affair of a young mother and wife who later commits suicide.  These writers created fictional characters in order to express their decidedly negative feelings about motherhood.  Today, the vehicle of fiction is still being used, but more and more women are writing about the events of their lives as they unfold.

                                               ***

In the fall of 2001, Naomi Wolf came out with a book called Misconceptions:  Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood.  A review of the book by Katie Roiphe criticizes Ms. Wolf for whining about having so much and being grateful for so very little.  Apparently, Ms. Wolf has a loving husband, a beautiful baby who is cared for by a nanny, an office in the backyard of her spacious home, lucrative writing deals, and she can stay home.  While living under these ideal circumstances, Ms. Wolf tells Elizabeth Hayt the following:

Motherhood is supposed to be this gauzy, pastel-painted, blissed-out state that has no depth or complexity.  That is the socially acceptable picture in the mass market.  But women have discovered that the cultural mythology surrounding motherhood has nothing to do with their lives.  Women are hungry for truth.  They want to know they’re normal when they feel overwhelmed, lonely, isolated or ecstatic. 

There is truth in what Ms. Wolf says, but who actually buys into the mass market picture of motherhood?   Can everyone have a perfectly decorated home as depicted by pictures in Pottery Barn or Williams-Sonoma catalogs and issues of Martha Stewart Living magazine?  Those fantasies of perfect home life are the work of the mass market, but few people can afford that lifestyle. 

Surely, Ms. Wolf can, and she might have been disappointed by the lack of fulfillment she received after beautifully decorating her baby’s nursery.  In contrast, the majority of women are too busy doing the very difficult and challenging work of mothering to buy into the mass market image of motherhood as Ms. Wolf claims they do.

Hayt also writes that Ms. Wolf “has made a career of turning her rites of passage into social critiques.”  Ms. Wolf feels free to relay her perspective as an upper-middle class, married woman to declare the truth of motherhood to America.  Again, she knows everything because she experiences it in her life.  If she was disappointed with her experiences with motherhood, then she wishes for the “truth” to be revealed. 

Ms. Wolf does not seem to realize how naïve she ever was to have believed that motherhood would be a “blissed-out state that has no depth or complexity.”  Mothers in the real world know that there is plenty of depth and complexity to motherhood, and no mass market campaign could possibly erase this reality.  Everyone, including Ms. Wolf, has a right to his or her own version of the truth of reality.

Like Ms. Wolf, the novelist Rachel Cusk experienced a transformation when she became a mother.  In her book A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother, Ms. Cusk chronicles her journey from pregnancy through her daughter’s early years in life.  Ms. Cusk is a well-regarded literary figure in England, and reviewers suggest that she uses her considerable writing skills to portray poignantly her ambivalence toward motherhood. 

In her memoir, according to Hayt, Cusk “confesses her disgust for breast-feeding and decries the ‘feudal relation’ she slid into with her husband.”  These are strong sentiments, and readers in England responded to Ms. Cusk with a tide of negative feedback, enough so that she went on television to defend herself. 

Ms. Wolf and Ms. Cusk are intelligent women who have written about their experiences with motherhood.  Despite their honesty and candor, though, one cannot help but perceive their self-absorption.  They are women who are used to being the center of attention because of their unique talents.  They have already experienced the fame and status of being established writers. 

They know that the general public is interested in reading their books and evaluating their import.  It is not difficult to imagine that women who have experienced such power and fame are easily confounded by the selflessness that motherhood can and will demand of them.  These women are not accustomed to sharing with or ceding the limelight to anyone else, including a small baby.

Years ago, my sister told me about Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, in which the author describes some of the characteristics of a “crazymaker.”  Such a person is so used to being the star at the center of attention that he or she cannot let anyone else shine.  Such a person needs to hog the limelight. 

Invariably, a crazymaker will drive others, including one’s own progeny, crazy because the need to aggrandize oneself is so enormous.  A crazymaker is, in reality, a narcissist who cannot contemplate the suffering of others, not even that of very young babies. 

In a way, Ms. Wolf and Ms. Cusk may be called crazymakers since they can only experience motherhood by seeing themselves in the starring role.  Regardless of what their babies experience, these women can think consciously only about their own suffering and their own emotions. 

Whether they contemplate the isolation of breastfeeding at home alone or they rue their intellectual superiority over other mothers, these women can perceive only the importance of their own feelings.  What else epitomizes self-absorption better than these women and their writing? 

Other writers like Peggy Orenstein, a woman who is not a mother, will praise anyone who will admit that motherhood is not fulfilling.  It is ironic that she, a woman who writes about suffering miscarriages in the New York Times Magazine, is so keen on denouncing any suggestion that motherhood can be fulfilling and joyful.  In fact, Ms. Orenstein knows so much about mothers (because she interviewed some) that she feels confident that she can suggest that women should not be tied down to their babies. 

Orenstein’s suggestion is that men take over more domestic responsibilities, including hands-on infant care.  Such a suggestion is plausible and helpful, but she casually ignores the importance of breastfeeding and the bond that might bind a mother to her young infant.  This flagrant disrespect for the mother-infant bond is a sign that cerebrally Ms. Orenstein may understand what a mother does, but she certainly does not understand the heart of a mother.

There are millions of mothers who struggle every day to survive in a world that does not pay them to do the work of mothering.  Among those millions, there are some fortunate enough to stay home.  Many other women need to work outside the home and worry about their young children in day care, at home in the care of others, or even home alone.

When we think about these women and their struggles to be mothers, it is shameful that we need to read about women who complain that motherhood is not satisfying enough for them.  Women in the real world are far too busy doing the work of mothering to wonder if they have the time to drive anyone else crazy with their self-absorption.

This brings to mind the historian Christopher Lasch’s astute observation years ago that in the 1960s, liberal middle-class whites were denouncing the bourgeois family structure and suggesting that any alternative family lifestyle was satisfactory for everyone, including African-Americans.  The only problem Lasch saw was that African-American families sought the stability and the normalcy of the two-parent bourgeois family structure. 

While the liberal whites praised the single mother households of many African-American women, the same women would have much preferred to find loving spouses to help support them and their children.  The hypocrisy of suggesting alternative lifestyles for people who did not want them is self-evident. 

On a similar note, the hypocrisy of self-absorbed writers like Naomi Wolf and Rachel Cusk is also evident.  They have the luxury of living with financial security and the support of loving spouses.  They have children whereas there are thousands of infertile women who are willing to do anything to bear children that they cannot conceive.  In other words, Ms. Wolf and Ms. Cusk have the luxury of luxuriating in their own abundance.  It is difficult to feel sorry for them when their complaints are so steeped in their self-created misery.

I would think differently of Ms. Wolf and Ms. Cusk if they were actually interested in creating a meaningful discussion about motherhood from the perspective of helping women to better understand the responsibilities of child-rearing.  That perspective would then take into consideration the babies that these women have borne.  The stars of the discussion would then be both a baby and her mother, not just the mother. 

Breastfeeding, for example, would then be seen as difficult and challenging but not disgusting.  Disgust is such a profoundly negative word and it harkens us to an age of ignorance (of merely a few decades ago) when breastfeeding was completely misunderstood. 

Then again, breastfeeding is truly a “you and me” proposal, one that a baby certainly cannot initiate on her own.  A mother has to be willing to give of herself to her baby, and such a proposition is apparently one that disturbs prima donnas like Ms. Wolf and Ms. Cusk.  As they go about mothering their children with resentment, one can hear Wolf or Cush utter plaintively, “What about me?”

                                                   ***

In the early twentieth century, the novelist Edith Wharton wrote the novel The Custom of the Country.  The protagonist is Undine Spragg, a beautiful and spoiled woman whose primary purpose in life is to be praised for her beauty.  She is a spoiled human being who is incapable of thinking about anyone other than herself.  She recklessly discards the love and fidelity of her husband because he cannot give her the wealth or societal status she so desperately wants. 

Undine is a woman who is incapable of loving anyone, including a son she abandons and then, later connives to regain custody of once she realizes that she can gain financially.  In her relentless pursuit of wealth and fame, Undine is heartless and ruthless.  She wreaks havoc everywhere, including her young son’s life.

At the end of the novel, Mr. Moffat, Paul’s new stepfather and Undine’s extremely wealthy new husband, tries to console Paul.  He says:  “Is it because your mother hadn’t time for you?  Well, she’s like that, you know; and you and I have got to lump it.”  [2]

By the end of the novel, despite having become one of the richest and most popular women in New York, Undine is described as follows:  “Even now, however, she was not always happy.  She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them.”  [3]  It turns out that Undine Spragg, despite her fierce ambitions, is a woman who is incapable of knowing what she really wants in life. 

In brief, Edith Wharton portrays Undine as being the perfectly atrocious product of a culture that forces men to work long hours for the sake of earning as much money as possible while women are expected to be uninterested in anything other than spending money and beautifying themselves.  Being a mother and wife holds no attraction for Undine unless it serves to increase her self-perceived standing in society.  Undine sees herself through the reflection of her mirror or through the eyes of those who admired her because she is the ultimate narcissist. 

In his seminal book The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch writes the following:

Notwithstanding his occasional illusions of omnipotence, the narcissist depends on others to validate his self-esteem.  He cannot live without an admiring audience.  His apparent freedom from family ties and institutional constraints does not free him to stand alone or to glory in his individuality.  On the contrary, it contributes to his insecurity, which he can overcome only by seeing his “grandiose self” reflected in the attention of others, or by attaching himself to those who radiate celebrity, power, and charisma.  For the narcissist, the world is a mirror, whereas the rugged individualist saw it as an empty wilderness to be shaped to his own design.  [4]

Contrary to popular opinion, a narcissist does not look at his reflection because he knows or understands himself.  It is precisely because he does not know himself that he needs to keep looking outside of himself for affirmation of his identity. 

With this understanding of narcissism, it is fairly simple to describe Undine Spragg as a narcissist because she is obsessed with her beauty, her status in society, and her wealth.  Her view of life is limited solely to herself, and she will give nothing of herself to anyone unless she stands to gain something.  As a mother, she gives nothing to her son and repeatedly fails him throughout his young life.  As abhorrent as Undine’s character is, she is the creation of prevailing cultural conditions. 

Edith Wharton lived a century ago in the upper levels of high society in New York City.  She saw that if women were treated as objects of beauty and desire, then they would become as monstrously inhumane and oblivious as is the character Undine Spragg.  Undine has no compunction about her anti-motherly ways because she is so self-absorbed. 

A century later, there is a modern day version of the narcissistic woman in real life that is decidedly different from the fictional character Undine Spragg but also remarkably like her.  Today’s narcissist is different from Undine in that she is better educated, well read, employable, and perhaps financially solvent.  The advent of the women’s movement has made today’s narcissist more qualified to survive alone in society, but it has not helped her to better understand her identity as a mother or wife.

As mentioned earlier, from the perspective of writers like Ms. Wolf, Ms. Cusk, and Ms. Orenstein, motherhood is not about babies or children but primarily about the women who have these children.  They are narcissists who most likely decry the bodily changes associated with pregnancy and childbearing, as did Undine.  They rue the sleepless nights, the initial discomfort of breastfeeding (assuming they choose to nurse), the need to be available to a needy infant, and the altered dynamics of marital relations.  Spiritually, today’s narcissist is very similar to Undine Spragg.

With all that Undine wants to accomplish in her life, she simply has neither the interest nor time for child-rearing. A nurse is hired to help her from the moment her baby is born.  It never occurs to Undine that motherhood can help to improve her character as a person. 

Human development is uninteresting to Undine, and she feels little compunction for the way she ignores her son.  When he squeezes Undine tightly, for instance, because he misses her so much, she chastises him for squeezing her.  She loosens his arms so that she can admire an expensive antique tapestry her new husband bought for her.  When her son mentions that he has won a prize in composition, she tells him to speak of it the next day. 

Undine is interested only in whatever reinforces her concept of her own beauty and excellent taste.  A child does not fit into a narcissist’s life easily because the caregiver has to be mature enough to recognize and to respond to a needy child.  Undine is a narcissist who cannot even perceive her child’s needs. 

A woman has to be interested in her child in order to perceive her needs.  How this interest manifests varies from woman to woman.  Many women fall in love with their babies immediately and wish to care for and protect them.  There is no maternal instinct, however, that drives such a response, although there are hormonal changes that promote maternal behavior. 

Very importantly, most of what we understand to be maternal behavior is learned.  Thus, if women read repeatedly the writings of other women who abhor motherhood, then there is a possibility that an intellectual bias against motherhood may develop.  Also, a great number of women today learn the nature of maternal behavior not by following the example of their mothers but by reading child-rearing books and observing other women. 

One can reasonably assume that a woman who is excited about childbirth and looks forward to caring for her baby will be primed far differently for motherhood than a woman who anticipates the coming of a baby with resentment.  It is not easy to share one’s life with another, especially a baby, if one resents the demands of caring for and loving her. 

What all mothers and fathers, narcissists included, need to remember is that the prime point of pregnancy and childbirth is the well-being of the newborn.  Babies need to be cared for, and if the work is considered to be drudgery, then let us call it that.  At the same time, let us not forget that it is while the so-called drudgery is performed day in and day out that each human newborn grows and develops into a unique individual. 

It would be a shame to perceive mothering as an experience that thwarts and denies a woman her right to enjoy life.  Perhaps narcissists should reconsider their selfishness and look into their babies’ faces to see not their own reflections, but the unique and very special faces of their babies.  Babies, in my opinion, need a lot more attention and love than do their mothers because I presume the latter are mature enough to know how to love others, especially their babies.

Revised April 16, 2006