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Motherless Daughters

Page 44

by Hope Edelman


  254 As Denes-Raj and Ehrlichman discovered . . . : Ibid., 316-319.

  254 But Dr. Denes-Raj . . . : Veronika Denes-Raj, personal communication, October 15, 1993.

  261 It’s the reason why the . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, questions 1 and 12 (see Appendix A).

  262 “Everyone who is born . . . ”: Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors (New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1990), 3.

  Chapter Eleven: The Daughter Becomes a Mother

  265 While remaining adult and . . . : Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1978), 89-90.

  265 At the same time, a new mother . . . : Ibid., 90.

  265 As the psychiatrists Sol Altschul . . . : Sol Altschul and Helen Beiser, “The Effect of Early Parent Loss on Future Parenthood,” in Parenthood: A Psychodynamic Perspective, eds. Rebecca S. Cohen, Bertram J. Cohler, and Sidney H. Weissman (New York: Guilford Press, 1984), 181.

  266 It’s no surprise . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, questions 1 and 22 (see Appendix A).

  266 Half of all . . . : Ibid., question 13f.

  267 Watching one life end . . . : Naomi Lowinsky, personal communication, November 21, 1992; Carolyn Cowan, personal communication, November 24, 1992.

  267 As the psychotherapist Selma Fraiberg . . . : Selma Fraiberg, “Ghosts in the Nursery: A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Problems of Impaired Infant-Mother Relationships,” in Clinical Studies in Infant Mental Health (New York: Basic Books, 1980), 166.

  268 But if the mother suffered . . . : Gordon Parker, Parental Over-protection: A Risk Factor in Psychosocial Development (New York: Grune & Stratton, 1983), 22.

  269 Fearing that the child . . . : Deborah B. Jacobvitz, “The Transmission of Mother-Child Boundary Disturbances across Three Generations,” Development and Psychopathology 3 (1991): 515.

  269 The child then grows up anxious, guilty, and phobic . . . : Bowlby, A Secure Base, 37.

  269 When Mary Ainsworth . . . : Mary D. Salter Ainsworth and Carolyn Eichberg, “Effects on Infant-Mother Attachment of Mother’s Unresolved Loss of an Attachment Figure, or Other Traumatic Experience,” 160-183.

  271 If, as Carl Jung proposed . . . : C. G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 188.

  271 Socially, he moves through lands . . . : Lowinsky, The Motherline, 42.

  271 “The amazement of sons . . . ”: Ibid., 41.

  274 When the mother-daughter relationship . . . : Phyllis Klaus, personal communication, November 25, 1992.

  275 When Nancy Maguire, Ph.D. . . . : Nancy B. Maguire, “The Impact of Childhod Maternal Loss on the Transition to Motherhood” (Ph.D. diss., The California School of Professional Psychology, 1-2).

  276 As the sociologist Susan Maushart . . . : Susan Maushart, The Mask of Motherhood (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 49.

  277 . . . these are nevertheless times . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 24 (see Appendix A).

  277 . . . . forgetting that women of the . . . : Marshall H. Klaus, John H. Kennell, and Phyllis H. Klaus, Mothering the Mother (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1993), 34.

  277 In their studies of 1,500 . . . : Ibid.

  278 When asked, ‘Who helped you . . . ’: Hope Edelman, Motherless Mothers (New York: Harper Collins, 2006), Appendix 1, Motherless Mothers Survey, question 31.

  278 When the same question . . . : Ibid., Appendix 2, Control Group Survey, question 26.

  278 Because their needs often went unmet . . . : Cynthia J. Pill and Judith L. Zabin, “Lifelong Legacy of Early Maternal Loss: A Women’s Group,” Clinical Social Work Journal 25 (Summer 1997), 189.

  281 In the early 1990s . . . : Donald S. Zall, “The Long-Term Effects of Childhood Bereavement: Impact on Roles as Mothers,” Omega 29 (1994), 219-230.

  282 “The bereaved women saw the impact . . . ”: Ibid., 227.

  282 Zall, as well as other researchers . . . : Ibid.; Maguire, “The Impact of Childhood Maternal Loss on the Transition to Motherhood.”

  282 They also think of themselves . . . : Gina C. Mireault, Toni Thomas, and Kimberly Bearor, “Maternal Identity Among Motherless Mothers and Psychological Symptoms in Their Firstborn Children,” Journal of Child and Family Studies 11 (September 2002), 287-297.

  282 Nonetheless, many of these studies . . . : Zall, “The Long-Term Effects of Childhood Bereavement: Impact on Roles as Mothers”; Edelman, Motherless Mothers.

  283 Watching a child go through . . . : Altschul and Beiser, “Early Parent Loss,” 176.

  285 Not surprisingly, this is . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 22 (see Appendix A).

  Chapter 12: The Female Phoenix

  292 “Then one day walking round . . . ”: Virginia Woolf, “A Sketch of the Past,” 81.

  292 Ever since Freud . . . : Sigmund Freud, “The Relation of the Poet to Daydreaming,” Sigmund Freud: Collected Papers, vol. 4,173-183.

  293 Including statesmen . . . : Marvin Eisenstadt, André Haynal, Pierre Rentchnick, and Pierre de Senarclens, Parental Loss and Achievement (Madison, Conn.: International Universities Press, 1989), 201-225.

  293 When the psychologist Marvin Eisenstadt . . . : J. Marvin Eisenstadt, “Parental Loss and Genius,” American Psychologist 33 (March 1978): 217.

  293 But other studies . . . : Ibid., 218.

  294 Because a mother’s death is . . . : Denes-Raj and Ehrlichman, “Effects of Premature Parental Death on Subjective Life Expectancy, Death Anxiety, and Health Behavior,” 317.

  295 Loss doesn’t give a . . . : George Pollock, “On Siblings, Childhood Sibling Loss, and Creativity,” Annual of Psychoanalysis 6 (1978): 481.

  297 Throughout childhood and adolescence . . . : Barbara Kerr, Smart Girls, Gifted Women (Dayton, Ohio: Ohio Psychology Press, 1985), 23.

  298 Curie’s father . . . : Ibid., 36.

  298 Parker and her father exchanged . . . : Marion Meade, Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? (New York: Penguin, 1987), 23-27.

  299 . . . which the psychologist Barbara Kerr . . . : Kerr, Smart Girls, Gifted Women, 63.

  299 A child’s contradictory impulses . . . : Martha Wolfenstein, “The Image of the Lost Parent,” Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 28 (1973): 455.

  299 The art that a motherless daughter creates . . . : George Pollock, “Process and Affect: Mourning and Grief,” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 59 (1978): 267.

  300 . . . the completion of a mourning cycle . . . : Ibid.

  300 Other daughters rely on . . . : Ibid.

  300 Young children often use . . . : Christine Sekaer, M.D., personal communication, February 8, 1993.

  300 Even in daughters who show . . . : Pollock, “Process and Affect,” 267.

  303 “Once Ane and her papa . . . ”: Branwen Bailey Pratt, “Charlotte Brontë’s There Was Once a Little Girl’: The Creative Process,” American Imago 39 (Spring 1982): 31-39.

  307 “diminished sense of crisis . . . ”: Harris Finkelstein, “The Long-Term Effects of Early Parent Death: A Review,” Journal of Clinical Psychology 44 (1988): 3.

  Epilogue

  315 In the redwood ecosystem . . . : Mia Monroe, park naturalist, Muir Valley National Monument, personal communication, October 14, 1993.

  Index

  Abandonment

  and devaluation

  emotional

  expectations and fear of

  and fantasies of reunion

  feelings of

  and healing

  and idealized mother image

  physical separation

  and sensitive children

  Abuse

  childhood

  and security

  sexual, fear of See also Mothers (abusive)

  Acceptance

  Accidents

  as cause of mother loss

  fear of repeating mother’s

  Addams, Jane

  Addictions. See Alcoholism; Drugs; Love (subs
titutes)

  Adolescents

  and daughter-mother relationships

  and delinquency

  and fathers

  and love substitutes

  and “magical thinking,”

  as minimothers

  and mother loss

  and mourning

  orphans

  and peer groups after mother loss

  suicides of

  and transference

  See also Identity (and adolescence)

  Adults

  and bereavement support

  and later loss

  later years of

  and mourning

  orphaned

  and rebellion against mothers

  who experience parental loss

  young See also Anger (among adults); Grief (and adults); other specific topics

  African Americans

  AIDS

  Ainsworth, Mary

  Alcoholism

  and adolescents

  after mother loss

  of both parents

  as cause of mother loss

  and later relationships

  and unresolved grief

  Altschul, Sol

  Alzheimer’s disease

  Angelou, Maya

  Anger

  and abandonment

  among adults

  among children and adolescents

  and birth order

  and caregiving

  of father

  and guilt

  and illness

  inability to express

  need to get past

  postpartum

  and self-reliance

  as stage of grief

  and stepmothers

  and suicide

  toward father

  toward mother

  toward siblings

  Anxiety

  about future loss

  and children and adolescents

  of girls raised by fathers

  and pregnancy

  and raising children

  and relationships

  Arrested development

  Attachment

  after early mother loss

  daughter-mother, in adolescence

  “earned-secure,”

  fear of

  hunger for

  and mourning

  patterns of

  problematic, with children

  and relations with surviving father

  and security

  theorists

  Avoidance

  of close relationships

  of loss

  of medical care

  Baiul, Oksana

  Bargaining

  Barr-Harris Children’s Grief Center

  Bassoff, Evelyn

  Beauvoir, Simone de

  Beethoven, Ludwig van

  Beiser, Helen

  Bereavement

  chronic

  experts

  Harvard study of, among children

  models

  and poor health

  programs

  and relations with surviving parent

  rigid ideas about

  traumatic

  Birnbaum, Nan

  Birtchnell, John

  Birthdays

  Blame

  Bowlby, John

  Brontë, Anne

  Brontë, Charlotte

  Brontë, Emily

  Brothers

  and experiences of mother loss

  relations with sisters after mother loss

  See also Siblings

  Burnett, Carol

  Cain, Albert

  Campbell, Andrea

  Cancer

  and anger at mother

  breast

  colon

  fear of repeating mother’s

  as a leading cause of mother loss

  liver

  lung

  lymphoma

  other cases

  ovarian

  uterine

  Caregivers

  and cause of death

  daughters

  and early mother loss

  and later attachment style

  and orphans

  parents as cold or inconsistent

  and sibling birth order

  Chernin, Kim

  Childbirth

  Children

  adjustment of

  and behavioral problems

  and bereavement

  and birth order

  and cause of death

  and Chowchilla kidnapping

  and early childhood mother loss

  emotional lives of

  and future loss

  and late childhood mother loss

  and “magical thinking,”

  and mourning

  psychological defenses for coping of

  sensitive

  and sudden deaths

  See also Grief (and children); Mothers (death of: age of children); other specific topics

  A Child’s Parent Dies

  Chodorow, Nancy

  Circle of Daughters

  Compulsions. See Love (substitutes)

  Confusion

  and adolescent mother loss

  and birth order

  and early mother loss

  and emotional abandonment

  gender

  and mental illness

  and mourning

  and siblings

  Conrad, Joseph

  Coping

  and adolescents

  and adults

  and cause of death

  and fathers

  with illness

  importance of, by surviving parent

  and late childhood mother loss

  and later relationships

  and loss of both parents

  with physical changes

  and prior losses

  and psychological defenses

  strategies and skills

  Cowan, Carolyn Pape

  Crying

  and adults

  and children and adolescents

  and families

  fathers

  and holidays

  inability

  Curie, Marie

  Darwin, Charles

  Death

  author’s account of mother’s

  causes of(See also specific causes)

  children’s understandings of

  experts on

  fear of, at mother’s age of death

  fear of repeating mother’s cause of

  loss of romanticism of

  sudden

  “system,”

  See also Fathers (loss of); Mother loss

  Deborah, Golda, and Me

  Delayed reactions

  Denes-Raj, Veronika

  Denial

  and ability to mourn

  and acknowledgment

  and adults

  and children

  as stage of grief

  Depression

  and abandonment

  and adolescents

  at age mothers died

  and children

  and child’s age

  and fathers

  and illness

  of mothers

  postpartum

  and relations with surviving parent

  and sibling support

  and stepmothers

  of surviving parent

  and unresolved grief

  Desertion

  DeVries, Brian

  Diana, Princess

  Disorganization

  Displacement

  Divorce

  and grief

  and mother loss

  and neglect

  and rejection

  and security

  Dougy Center for Grieving Children

  Doulas

  Downey, Roma

  Drugs

  and adolescence

  as cause of mother loss

  overdoses

  and unresolved grief

  Eating diso
rders

  Eggers, Dave

  Ehrlichman, Howard

  Eisenstadt, Marvin

  Eliot, George

  Emswiler, James

  Emswiler, Mary Ann

  Englander, Arlene

  Estés, Clarissa Pinkola

  Euthanasia

  Families

  and deaths of mothers

  dysfunction in

  extended

  large

  and public grief

  and stories

  Fast, Irene

  Fathers

  and abandonment

  accepting the limitations of

  caring for(See also Caregivers (daughters)

  control of

  coping strategies of

  and early mother loss

  girlfriends of

  and grief

  and incest taboo

  “little girl” of

  loss of

  not talking about loss

  nurturing

  relations with daughters of

  relations with own mothers of

  and remarriage

  as single parents

  split in

  threat of departure of

  types of

  and womanhood and femininity

  Fear

  and Chowchilla kidnapping

  of father loss

  of fathers by daughters

  of future loss

  of having children

  and homicide

  of identifying with mother

  and illness

  and mourning

  and suicide

  See also Abandonment (expectations and fear of)

  Feelings

  displacement of

  expressing, and ability to mourn

  and fathers

  releasing

  suppression of

  Femininity See also Identity (feminine)

  Ferguson, Sarah

 

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