2/14/2023 0 Comments The monster within barbara almond![]() Shelley lost her own mother as an 11-day-old baby, and then grew up to lose an infant of her own. ![]() I'm not sure I follow that, but come to think of it, I'm really thirsty.įrankenstein is more persuasive. The Bad Seed) that reflect maternal fears about the "monster within."įor instance, in a chapter on "Vampyric Mothering" (stage moms should avoid this one), Almond floats a theory about Bram Stoker's Count Dracula as a figure who represents a "condensation of mother-child bonding gone wrong" - a scary, insatiable, baby-like creature who feeds on the living. This will be not be news to anyone grazing through the wide world of blogging mothers, but Almond pushes the subject into new territory by combining some case studies from her own practice with an examination of some novels and movies (including … I have never hurt him and don't believe I will, but I have had to leave the room he was in, go somewhere else, and just breathe for a while, or cry." She quotes the American writer Anne Lamott, the new mother of a baby with colic: "I'm okay for the first hour … then I start to lose it. The problem is not so much the ambivalence, but the guilt and shame some women feel when they discover that they're imperfect parents, or that their children aren't adorable every hour of the day. However, as California psychiatrist and author Barbara Almond points out in her book about "the hidden side of motherhood," ambivalence is a normal part of every intense and powerful relationship. But any flash of resentment or anger toward the baby is soon buried by guilt: Mothers aren't supposed to feel that way. Some women spend thousands of dollars pursuing fertility treatments, only to be ambushed by guilt when they discover that caring for a newborn is not all bliss. We're afraid that we aren't good enough mothers, or we get hung up on avoiding the mistakes our own mothers made with us. Part of the joy of childbirth is this often unacknowledged wave of relief that the waiting - and the worrying - is over.īut maternal fears take many shapes, and can bedevil women at every stage of motherhood. ![]() "Does he have all his fingers and toes?" is often the first thing a new mother says. Every pregnant woman, no matter how much she looks forward to motherhood, still wonders if "something could go wrong" with her baby.
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