"Bad" Mothers: The Politics of Blame Re: Radio Doug

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>You can't manage a chronic illness, be it a "mental" illness or 
>>otherwise, by blaming yourself.
>
>Who's blaming oneself? Blame mom!
>
>Doug

Blaming moms is what psychoanalysts often does.  Left-wing and/or 
feminist psychoanalysts have tried to blame authoritarian, 
patriarchal, and/or sexually predatory dads or father figures 
instead.  Either way, it's no political help.  Psychoanalysis has 
been a problem, rather than a solution.

Cf.

*****   _"Bad" Mothers: The Politics of Blame in Twentieth-Century America_
Edited by Molly Ladd-Taylor, Laurie Umansky
ISBN 0814751202
400 pages
Paperback
$20.00
Publication date: 11/1/1997
Also available in Cloth

In the past quarter century, "bad" mothers have moved noticeably 
toward center stage in American culture. While Susan Smith will 
eventually fade from the tabloids, the monster mother that she 
represents has a storied and long history. Mothers have been blamed 
for a host of problems, from autism in children (due to chilly 
"refrigerator" mothers), to homosexuality (attributed to "smothering" 
moms), to welfare dependency and crime (caused by black "matriarchs" 
and single mothers).

Some mothers are not good mothers. No one can deny that. There are 
women who neglect their children, abuse them, and fail to provide 
them with proper psychological nurturance. While such mothers have 
always stimulated the American imagination, the definition of what 
constitutes a bad mother has expanded significantly in recent years. 
Indeed, with a distinct minority of American families living the 
two-parent, one-worker lifestyle once considered the norm, we all 
face the discomfiting question, Do most mothers now qualify as "bad" 
mothers in one way or another?

Drawing together the work of prominent scholars and journalists, 
_"Bad" Mothers_ considers such diverse topics as the mother-blaming 
theories of psychological and medical "experts," bad mothers in the 
popular media, the scapegoating of mothers in politics, and the 
punitive approach to "bad" mothers by social service and legal 
authorities. The volume also includes the stories of individual "bad" 
mothers, from sterilization survivor Willie Mallory to rock star 
Courtney Love. Ably edited by two leading scholars, _"Bad" Mothers_ 
marks an important contribution to the literature on motherhood.

Molly Ladd-Taylor is Associate Professor of History at York 
University in Ontario and author of _Mother-Work: Women, Child 
Welfare and the State, 1890-1930_.  Lauri Umansky is Assistant 
Professor of History at Suffolk University in Boston and author of 
_Motherhood Reconceived: Feminism and the Legacies of the Sixties_, 
also available from NYU Press.

<http://www.nyupress.org/product_info.php?products_id=68>   *****
-- 
Yoshie

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