I'm afraid of being a bad mom. Fear of being a bad mother. And this is a thought

“My pregnancy was happy, I dreamed of taking care of the child, but now my daughter is six months old, and I often don’t understand what she needs, and sometimes I even get annoyed with her!” – 30-year-old Nastasya laments.

Even though more and more fathers are involved in parenting, the mother's influence continues to be emphasized. But “today’s economy cannot refuse the participation of women, which means that most women will not be able to devote themselves entirely to motherhood,” notes crisis and family psychologist Irina Shuvalova.

I'm torn.“If you change the perspective and look from the point of view of the woman herself,” the psychologist continues, “by dealing only with children, she risks losing her independence, and this is one of the main values of our time. Therefore, most try to stay in the profession, but they still need to cope with raising a child, relationships with a partner, planning, and even their own emotions!”

Such multidirectionality gives rise to internal conflicts. Ideas about what it means to be “good” are contradictory in themselves: to realize oneself in the family or in work? Become like your mother or do the opposite? Is it possible to take time for yourself? So women are doomed to doubt.

I'm losing my bearings. Becoming a parent means a lot of changes. Our self-image, place, role, daily life changes. The usual coordinate system is collapsing, new guidelines are required. There is something to worry about! According to psychoanalyst Virginie Meggle, mothers consider themselves “bad” when they feel weak: “This is a silent request for support, encouragement, to calm the feeling of loneliness. They need to be encouraged, like a child who is experiencing difficulties.” After all, raising children takes us back to our childhood and to our own weakness.

I want to be perfect. The feeling of powerlessness hides the “desire for omnipotence.” “Women have high demands on themselves; in the illusion of absolute power, they imagine that they can be everything, give everything,” continues the psychoanalyst. But here the principle of reality comes in: despite good intentions, they have no power over everything, and even less over the child himself.

“The baby is defenseless, vulnerable and unable to communicate his needs; the mother must guess them, and this, of course, does not always happen,” reminds Irina Shuvalova. The greater the responsibility and fear for the child, the more acute the feeling of guilt and one’s own imperfection, the stronger the desire to control everything, to insure yourself everywhere, which, in turn, is doomed to failure. This creates a vicious circle in which the mother loses strength.

What to do

Ask for help

Anxiety will not help you better care for your child, especially since it is transmitted to him. So take care of yourself: seek support and help - first of all from the child's father, but also from other people you trust. The point is not to stop worrying, but to worry “quality”, with greater benefit for yourself and for the child.

Trust yourself

An excess of instructions and recommendations for parenting, sometimes mutually exclusive, can drive a woman who wants to do the right thing crazy. Look for answers, but trust yourself, listen to your feelings, follow your values, act in accordance with what seems good to you personally.

Be consistent

A child does not need a perfect mother. He needs a stable, consistent parent whose reactions are understandable and predictable: a parent he can rely on. Therefore, it is better to get angry and express dissatisfaction than to try to curb your anger by feeling guilty. It is the contradictions between what a parent thinks, says, feels and does that is harmful to the child.

My decision

Anna, 41 years old, lawyer

“I gave birth to a child late, and a lot of things came as a surprise to me. I considered myself strong and mature, and suddenly it turned out that I couldn’t do anything like a girl. Of course, I had a bunch of books about parenting, and I read them all, but I couldn’t do it. Fortunately, I told my sister and friends about what was bothering me. It became much easier when I realized that I am not the only person in the world who does everything “wrong”. I'm still not doing well, but I'm asking for advice. Women’s solidarity exists, and I take advantage of it.”

We all hope to be good and caring parents to our children. But for some of us, this desire turns into a real problem. What are the reasons?

What to do

Ask for help

Trust yourself

Be consistent

My decision

Anna, 41 years old, lawyer

During consultations we often come across the fear of being a bad mother. This destructive feeling is hidden in many of us... And we need to decisively abandon it. This feeling is an additional burden, additional stress, uncertainty, which spoils the interaction with the child. Instead, the conviction should come: “I am a wonderful mother. I - best mom for your child!

Women really want to do everything right. Especially when it comes to raising children... Sometimes it seems to me that modern women It's better to know less. After all, you read all sorts of smart books on education - and you realize how far you are from the ideal!

I once thought that if I told my friends about natural parenting, I was doing a good thing. Now I know for sure that I must stubbornly remain silent until asked. No matter what mistakes a person makes... Even on the Internet, I strive to talk more about myself than to give advice. Just describing my experience...

Sometimes you want to hint to a friend that you shouldn’t teach your baby to walk by the hand. Or introduce complementary foods on a schedule, replacing feedings. Or cleaning the apartment while the baby is sleeping...

But then I realize that if a person is ready for such information, he will find it on the Internet. Or he will ask you after seeing your example. In other cases, all these subtleties are clearly unnecessary.

I am a supporter of natural parenting. But now I’ll say something for which other supporters of natural parenting will blame me. By and large, all this is unimportant.

The tragic consequences caused by walking with a child in a stroller are doubtful. As are the tragic consequences of pediatric complementary feeding. And much more. But maternal self-doubt and perfectionism are not very good. Again, not a disaster. But if a woman has a fear of being a bad mother, it is better for her to listen less to sublime instructions.

I overcame this fear when I gave my baby a pacifier. Yes, in the first months my children sucked a pacifier! There were reasons for this, of course. But for supporters of breastfeeding and slings, this is just a nightmare! Most of her friends reacted extremely disapprovingly to this. And I had to make a conscious choice in favor of the “bad mother” instead of the “heroic mother.” At some point, I allowed myself to be imperfect. And it became much easier for me.

This is what I want to say now... Being a “bad mother” is not so scary. In fact, everyone who reads this post is wise and conscious mothers. Otherwise you wouldn't be here, right? It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to deviate from ideal. Even lashing out at children is not a global crime. The most important thing is that you try to be better. Trying to show wisdom and awareness. And this already makes you excellent mothers. Your children are very lucky!

A woman's attitude towards her child is influenced by her early relationship with her own mother. The more warmth there was in this relationship, the easier it is to transfer the experience of love and acceptance into a relationship with your child. And vice versa. If the mother was cold, avoidant or controlling, angry, the woman unwittingly manifests this negative pattern in her relationship with the child. There is no other model.

The situation is even more complicated in the case where the daughter’s rejection was observed over several generations. The deeper the origins of this destructive pattern, the more difficult it is to get rid of it. The main goal of therapy in this case is to restore the flow of love coming from older women to younger ones.

In this article I want to draw the attention of readers to such a phenomenon as a little girl playing with a doll. This experience is extremely important in shaping a little woman and preparing her for motherhood. While playing with dolls, a natural instinct manifests itself, girls learn to be mothers.

So, for example, in the book “The Unconscious Use of Her Body by a Woman,” its author, Dinora Pines, cites the statement of famous psychoanalysts H. Deitch and T. Benedek that a girl’s desire to become the same as her mother " is outlined in play and fantasy long before the real possibility of becoming a mother occurs.”

Soviet psychologist, academician K.N. Kornilov in the article “On the psychology of children’s play with dolls” wrote: “ Having barely left the period of early childhood, having just learned to control her voluntary movements and speech, we already see that the girl begins to nurse her doll, with which she does not part even when she grows from a child into a teenager and even an adult girl, when often the last doll is replaced by the first child."

In V. Hugo's book "Les Miserables" there is the following phrase: " A little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy and just as unthinkable as a woman without children.”

Below I offer an example of working with infertility, in which themes such as the importance of playing with dolls, mother's love and continuity of generations in a girl’s life.

Case Study

Yulia is 32 years old; she and her husband have been wanting a child for a long time, but pregnancy has not occurred. Sometimes in the speech of a young woman the thought slips that she is afraid to be bad mother. All of Yulia’s childhood memories are colored by resentment towards her mother: “She didn’t give it, she forbade her, she beat her...” These are my mother’s usual actions.

And now the elderly mother lives in a state of constant dissatisfaction with life. She only has one favorite hobby- making dolls. “You should see with what love she makes patterns, cuts out and sews parts of future dolls, paints them, and dresses them up.”, says Yulia.

When I asked her to take the place of an imaginary mother - to be a “mother,” Yulia felt that by making dolls, her mother seemed to be returning to childhood. She " plays with dolls", does something she never did as a child. Yulia heard that her mother really wanted dolls when she was a child, "well, at least one, the most unsightly one". But her mother answered all her requests sternly: "No". She didn’t even explain to the girl why she was refusing. "Absolutely no".

Mentally, we traveled back in time, 50 years ago, when Yulia’s mother was a little girl.

When Yulia took the place of her grandmother (mother’s mother) and became a “grandmother,” she felt as if her whole body was filled with something foreign, something that was preventing her from breathing. To my suggestion to fantasize: "What does it look like? What image comes?",” an image of a well filled with tears appeared. This woman really had to go through a lot, and she forbade herself to cry as a child.

During my dialogue with “grandmother,” she had a desire to move the well of tears from her body to the steppe. "Let the animals drink some water, they enjoy salt water". When "grandmother" was freed from the well, she began to breathe deeply, "It's like there's room for the lungs". Now she could see the eyes of her daughter, that little girl who desperately wanted a doll. It became easy for the grandmother, freed from the “well of tears,” to say to her daughter: "Can". And the girl got the coveted toy. She rocked her plastic “daughter,” combed her synthetic hair, “fed” her, played with her, admired her. Using the doll as an example, the girl learned how to handle her unborn child. In her imagination, she received the experience that she so lacked in her relationship with her mother, so that she could then transfer it into her relationship with her daughter.

When the girl had enough of playing with the doll, she was able to grow up. She felt like a woman with a daughter, Yulia, and now she knew how to love her child.

From the look of her mother, Julia realized that she was her loves. There was such warmth in the eyes, and the lips were smiling, and the mother’s hands opened to meet Yulia. And she ran into those open arms! The mother was able to show love towards her daughter, and the daughter gratefully accepted this love.

Any information is imprinted in our brain if it is accompanied by strong emotions. For our psyche, it does not matter whether these events were in reality or only in the imagination.

The feeling of maternal love became a new experience for Yulia. Now she knows what it is to love her child. But for new information to become habitual, it must be repeated many times. It takes time to redirect your psyche and change your attitudes.