Barbara Almond (1938–2016)

Ambivalence is the ability to hold two completely contrasting emotions about an object or person at the same time. Almond writes in detail about a specific type of ambivalence--maternal ambivalence--in which mothers or mothers-to-be can both love and hate, fear and fetishize, or disdain and desire children. Rather than say this is unique to "bad mothers," Almond disects and demonstrates the ways that all women have this form of ambivalence. She shows the good and the bad of maternal ambivalence, from motherlove and self-sacrifice to child murderers and narcissistic mothers. She uses examples from her own clinical experience and literature.

It seems appropriate that my feelings about this book are mixed. One the one hand, I appreciated her discussion of a topic that is all to often ignored, especially by women. She does an excellent job of showing how being a perfect mother is disasterous to mother and child, extoles the "good enough mother" and explains the emotions that women often try very hard to ignore and deny. I appreciated her use of literature, not because I thought she had a great understanding of the literature, but because the characters she chooses to personify these feelings are much more fleshed out than her human case studies who are probably too embarassed to be as honest as an author hiding behind his or her characters. On the other hand, her use of psychoanalysis to explain much of this condition got downright annoying. She focuses so much on early childhood (infancy and toddlerhood) and incest issues (the dreaded Oedipal complex) that she took away from her own thesis--that maternal ambivalence is normal and can be seen in wonderful, terrible, or mediocre mothers. Also, while her writing was technically excellent, she often went an entire chapter without saying much of anything. Her chapter on the ambivalence felt by the mothers of special needs children was especially disappointing and, while she brushed the surface of it, she always stopped short of saying anything useful about the ambivalence of step-mothers.

In general, as an introduction to the notion of maternal ambivalence, this is an excellent resource. It is clear that this is a field that bears much more research and I appreciated seeing something approaching scholarly consideration of the topic. There are plenty of books in the popular press about this topic (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Parenting Out of Control, Perfect Madness), but very few delve into the actual mind of mothers. This helps pave the way for more serious looks at a universal and important topic.… (mais)