Mother Love/mother Hate: The Power Of Maternal Ambivalence

by Rozsika Parker

Many a loving mother has had fleeting feelings of hatred toward her children - the desire to hurl a howling baby out the window or to lock a teenager out of the house. In this provocative book, Rozsika Parker argues that these ambivalent feelings not only are common but can actually have a creative impact on mothering.
Mother Love/Mother Hate boldly illustrates how a mother's desire for devotion coexists with the impulse to hurt and desert. Parents will find Parker's insight into the conflicts that beset them illuminating and deeply reassuring. Reversing the conventional psychoanalytic approach, in which maternal ambivalence has been understood chiefly from the point of view of the child, this book gives precedence to the mother's perspective. Drawing on interviews with mothers, clinical material from her practice as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and a wide range of psychoanalytic and literary sources (including Virginia Woolf, Anne Tyler, Simone de Beauvoir, D. W. Winnicott, Melanie Klein, and John Bowlby), Parker explores experiences of maternal ambivalence in a culture painfully and profoundly uneasy about its very existence.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 25, 1996

Reviews

[Asif Rafique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an inspirational struggle of mothers which has changed whole political scenario of the country.She has written it so well,i guess i have quoted this book numerous time.hugely recommended

[Sarah]

Rec by Andrew Solomon in nytimes books