by Hope Edelman
Five Stages of Grief
Fleming, Elizabeth
Fonda, Jane
Ford, Diane
Fraiberg, Selma
Freud, Anna
Freud, Sigmund
Furman, Erna
Garafolo, Janeane
Garber, Benjamin
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader
Glickfield, Bette D.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Granot, Tamar
Grief
and adolescents
and adults (See also Fathers (and grief)
anticipatory
brought public
and busyness
and childbirth
and children
and connections to dead parent
and creativity
culture of
cyclical nature of
and dates or times of year
and death of second parent
and emotional abandonment
and experiences of mother loss
and families
and homicide
importance of feeling and expressing
and isolation
and later losses
and later relationships
lifelong
and “parental trigger,”
prolonged
and September 11, 2001, attacks
stages of
STUG reactions
suppressed, hidden, and unresolved
and therapy
and transitional times in life See also Adolescents (and mourning); Adults (and mourning); Children (and mourning); Fathers (and grief); Feelings; Mourning
Griffin, Susan
Guiding Your Child Through Grief
Guilt
and ability to mourn
about wish that mother dies
and adolescent mother loss
and anger
and childbirth-related illness
and Chowchilla kidnapping
and illness
and “magical thinking,”
and mourning
over rebelling against mother
and physical distance from mother at loss
and siblings
and suicide
survivor
Hammer, Signe
Harper, James M.
Harris, Maxine
Hargitay, Mariska
Hargitay, Mickey
Harvard Child Bereavement Study
Heart disease
fear of repeating mother’s
Heaton, Patricia
Hegel, Georg
Helplessness
of fathers
Homer
Homicides
Hoopes, Margaret M.
Hurd, Russell
Idealization of mothers
Identity
and birth order
and children and adolescents
conflict
and death of both parents
feminine
and life stories
as parent
split between mother and child-self
views on formation of
and young adults See also Mother loss (and identity)
Illness
and ambiguous loss
and anger at mother
and daughter’s resentment
effects on daughters
percentage of causes of death by
and physical changes
and preparation for death
and unresolved grief
In My Mother’s House
Incarceration
Incest
Intimacy
Isolation
and adolescents
from family
and orphans
of pregnant motherless women
Jacobson, Gary
Jefferson, Thomas
Johnson, Miriam
Jung, Carl
Kalinich, Lila J.
Kant, Immanuel
Kash, Kathryn
Keats, John
Kennedy, John F.
Kerr, Barbara
Kersee, Jackie Joyner
Klaus, Marshall
Klaus, Phyllis
Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth
Lauck, Jennifer
Lesbianism. See Women (with women)
Lincoln, Abraham
Loneliness
The Loss That Is Forever
Love
allowing
and anger
lack of
looking for
and loss
and money
and motherless women
and mourning
sex as
substitutes
Lowinsky, Naomi,
Lusskin, Shari
Madonna
Maguire, Nancy
Marriage
delaying
and fear of loss
by motherless daughters See also Fathers (and remarriage)
The Mask of Motherhood
Matridentity
Matrophobia
Maushart, Susan
Memory
absent
and adolescent mother loss
divergent
earliest, of mother
and early childhood mother loss
and late childhood mother loss
Menopause
Menstruation
Mental illness
Michelangelo
Midlife Women and Death of Mother
Milburn, Alison
Minelli, Liza
Minot, Eliza
Minot, Susan
Mireault, Gina
Mishne, Judith
Mitchard, Jacqueline
Mitchell, Margaret
Monroe, Marilyn
Mortality
awareness of
quest against
Mother-daughter relationships
adolescence
early childhood
late childhood
later adulthood
and symbiotic identification
and womanhood
young adulthood
Mother loss
and accommodation
adolescent
and ambivalence toward mother
and attending to ghost
and birth order
as blessing
and career
causes of
compared to father loss
and “counterphobic mechanisms,”
and creativity and achievement
and delinquents and prisoners
denial of
different sibling experiences of
early childhood
as equalizer among women
and fantasy of return
and freedom and autonomy (See also Mother loss (and independence, self-reliance, and personal strength)
and identity
and “if only” syndrome
and independence, self-reliance, and personal strength
late childhood
later adulthood
and “magical thinking,”
and mother’s image
and negative projections
not talking about it (See also Fathers (not talking about loss)
and nurturing
and personality
and prior losses
and quality of care afterward
and relationships (See also Love (looking for)
and sanctification of mothers
and vulnerability to death
young adulthood
See also Death
Motherhood (of motherless daughters)
and baby’s gender
and infant care
and mother loss
and pregnancy
and raising children
and separation from mother
Mothering Ourselves
Motherless Daughters (first edition)
Motherless Daughters (organization)
Motherless Mothers
Motherline<
br />
Mothers
abusive
adolescent replacement
and attachment
cold, unaffectionate, or distant
controlling
death of: age of children
death of: age of mothers
desire to reunite with(See also Mother loss (and fantasy of return)
and feminine identity (See also Identity (feminine)
gathering knowledge of lives of
honoring, through achievement
missing of
as primary female image and guides
substitutes
Mothers and Daughters: Loving and Letting Go
Mother’s Day
Mourning
and abandonment
ability
and abusive mothers
at age of parent’s death
and anger
and another woman
anticipatory
and arrested development
and birth order
blocked, incomplete, or delayed
and childbirth
and creativity
and death of second parent
and detaching from mother
emotions based on
in families
and fathers
and later losses
and later publicity
and later relationships
as lifelong process and in cycles
male versus female
and memory
and mother substitutes
national
and orphans
and pain
and parenting
from safe distance
and sanctification of mother
and sibling competition
and stages of grief
and sudden death
and supports
and surviving parent
and transitional times in life
Worden’s four tasks of See also Adolescents (and mourning); Adults (and mourning); Children (and mourning); Grief
Multiple sclerosis
Murders. See Homicides
Nager, Elizabeth
National Alliance for Grieving Children
Natural disasters
Never Too Young to Know
Nurturing. See Fathers (nurturing); Mother loss (and nurturing); Pregnancy; Women (with women)
O’Donnell, Rosie
Of Woman Born
Oklahoma City bombing
Orphans
adults
children
emotional
and fathers
number of
Overachieving
Pain
and creative play
and displacement
need to embrace
Parents
as cold or inconsistent caregivers
loss of (See also Fathers (loss of); Mother loss)
styles and experiences of, among motherless women
surviving, and children’s grief and long-term adaptation. See Fathers
Parker, Dorothy
Personality. See Mother loss (and personality)
Pietrzyk, Leslie
Pine, Vanderlyn
Poe, Edgar Allan
Pogrebin, Letty Cottin
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Postpartum period
Pregnancy
Quindlen, Anna
Rando, Therese
and traumatic bereavement
Redmond, Lula
Rejection
feelings of
and strength
threat of, and fathers
See also Abandonment
Relationships. See Love (looking for); Mother-daughter relationships; Mother loss (and relationships); other specific topics
Reorientation
Resentment
in adolescence
and birth order
and illness
and mourning
and siblings
toward fathers
Revenge
Rich, Adrienne
Robbins, Martha A.
Roosevelt, Eleanor
Roth, Geneen
Rothenberg, Rose-Emily
Rowell, Victoria
Russell, Colleen
Ryan, Meg
Ryder, Robert G.
Sadness
and abandonment
and adults
and anger
and children and adolescents
postpartum
The Second Sex
Secondary loss
Secunda, Victoria
Security
and abandonment
and achievement
and attachments
and close relationships
emotional
and fathers
and gender identity
and mother loss
and siblings
Self-esteem
and abandonment
and adolescents
and cold parental caregivers
and doulas
and fathers or other surviving parent
and female mentor
and mother loss
and relationships
and school experiences
Separation
and later relationships
from mother, as middle-aged adult
from mother, as young adult
from mother, in adolescence
from mother, with motherhood
and oldest child
physical
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
Sex See also Love (sex as); Women (with women)
Sexual revolution
Shame
and abandonment
and mother loss
Shoplifting
Shostak, Linda
Siblings
and adult mother loss
and birth order
and comfort, protection, and support
and experiences of mother loss
losses of
as mothers
number raising other siblings
and orphans
percentage of interviewees who have
relations between, and mother loss
step
See also Brothers; Sisters
Silence
in families
and fathers See also Fathers (not talking about loss)
Silverman, Phyllis
Simmons, Ruth
Simpson, Nicole Brown
Sisters
and experiences of mother loss
as mothers
relations between, and mother loss
See also Siblings
Sleeping problems
Smart Girls, Gifted Women
Smiley, Jane
Sontag, Susan
Spock, Benjamin
Stein, Gertrude
Stephen, Julia
Stepmothers
and birth order
“evil,”
and father-daughter relations
and mother substitutes
as new mothers
problems with
and sibling experiences of mother loss
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Suicide
and anger
and children and adolescents
of daughters
father not talking about it
fear of repeating mother’s
and feelings of rejection and abandonment
and lesbianism
percentage of mother losses by
reactions to
and trust
Support groups
Swander, Mary
Terr, Lenore
Terrorism
Therapy
and abandonment
and compulsions
and early mother loss
of fathers
and idealized mother image
postpartum
Thomas, Dylan
Toman, Walter
>
Transference
Trust
and fathers
and mother loss
and suicide
Twain, Mark
Twain, Shania
War casualties
Warshak, Richard A.
Wellesley College
When Food Is Love: Exploring the Relationship Between Eating and Intimacy
When Parents Become Partners
When You and Your Mother Can’t Be Friends
Williams, Evelyn
Winfrey, Oprah
Withdrawal
and adolescent mother loss
and adult mother loss
and early mother loss
of fathers
and later relationships
of school-age children
Without You: Children and Young People Growing Up with Loss and Its Effects
Wolfenstein, Martha
Womanhood
and other women
Women
and female life stories
friendships of
movement of
normal losses of
older
with women
Women and Their Fathers
Woolf, Virginia
Worden, J. William
Wordsworth, Dorothy
Zall, Donald
PHOTO CREDIT: DEBORAH VANCELETTE (WWW.PHOTOGRAPHYCHICK.COM)
HOPE EDELMAN has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in creative nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, the Dallas Morning News, Glamour, Child, Parenting, Seventeen, Real Simple, Self, and The Iowa Review. She is the recipient of a New York Times Notable Book of the Year designation and a Pushcart Prize for creative nonfiction. Currently an associate faculty member in the MFA program at Antioch University-LA, she lives with her husband and their two daughters in Topanga Canyon, California.
1 Of the 168 people who died that day, 87 were adult women, although no data exists to show how many of them were mothers.
2 This is driven by steep declines in the death rates of certain cancers, such as breast cancer. The death rate from lung cancer has actually gone up slightly, and the death rate from cancer among African American women has increased as well.
3 More than 532,000 children are currently in the U.S. foster-care system, three-quarters of whom have been placed with nonrelatives. Approximately 126,000 children have mothers who are imprisoned; most of these kids are being raised by grandparents.
4 This is not always true for mothers who never separate or who separate incompletely from their own mothers, and who expect to maintain a similar bond with their daughters.
5 When a daughter is not aware of a mother’s long-term illness, or when the death is unexpected—such as when a mother whose cancer is in remission dies of sudden heart failure—she often responds to the loss as a daughter who has experienced a sudden death.