When I was a newmother, I remember


having to face the initial challenge of returning to work and finding adequate day-care for my daughter versus being a stay-at-home mom during those early years. I remember with visual clarity the gut-wrenching feeling of having to decide to drop my baby off at a day-care center with other screaming and crying babies, infants and toddlers whosemoth- ers had probably had to make this same decision; leaving their babies at the hands of virtual strangers for an entire eight hour day, while they toiled away at their jobs.As a social worker,my job also consisted of trying to earn 1920 hours toward my clinical social work license. It was either that or wait the five years until my daughter entered the local public school Kindergarten, which in my town was still divided up into two half day sessions, and therefore, would only supply me with three day-time hours to work. These were my options. The more I thought about it the more I


realized something crucial however: this decision was not entirely my own. Or was it? As I watched my daughter progress through those early years of development, from infancy to toddler stage, through nursing, napping, sitting, crawling, stand- ing and finally walking, I came to accept the meaning of the next stages with a mix- ture of pride and joy but also with an over- whelming sense of fear and protectiveness. My daughter, who had sat up, stood, crawled and walked within what was con- sidered the critical period for normal devel- opmental levels, and was speaking in sim- ple, yet clear sentences, was now terrified of strangers and at most on a level of paral- lel play with playmates. I remember during one nursery school interview, I was informed that no bottles, diapers or dolls would be allowed in the day-care. I pon- dered this asmy fifteenmonth old daughter waddled down the hallway in a Charlie Chaplain-esque stride, clinging to her Raggedy-Anne Doll in one hand while clutching onto mine with another. This I was told, was one of the more nurturing schools. One where parents were actually allowed to come inside and stay with their child all day until he/she was able to attend on his/her own. How, I asked myself, would my only


daughter be able to interact in activities, engage in play with others, listen to instructions, join in and make her needs known, at this early yet crucial develop- mental stage of her life?Was I to blame for my daughter's lack of socialization? Had I done something or neglected to do some- thing critical toward her early development which truncated her growth? I panicked as I envisioned her future, a future without the social skills necessary to navigate through life. How would she react to eventual play- mates, a best friend, a peer group, a first date as she matured? I couldn't help fear-


ing, her inevitable feelings of awkwardness and loneliness at the rejection she might experience of not being invited to a birth- day party, school dance or eventually the prom. Would she be left out of the social


In Praise of Motherhood: From the Angst of Early


Motherhood to the Sweet Surrender of Calming Inner Fears By Lisa Zucker, LSW


scene altogether lagging behind in development because at 15 months she still exhibited play skills on an elementary level? Had I not bond- ed adequately withmy child? I was terrified at the thought of this


notion. Bonding or Attachment Theory, as


noted by John Bowlby, posited that the cru- cial part of bonding in early development, known as the 'sensitive period', involves the early years when a child is attaching to specific caretaker, usually between the ages of approximately 0-5. Bowlby theorized that children are born pre-programmed to attach to caretakers in order to survive. By producing certain social responses which stimulate a response such as crying, smil- ing and cooing, the child is fed and cared for by the primary caretaker. That bond forms the bases for the child's perception of future bonds throughout his/her life. Even more specifically, Bowlby stated that feeding and care taking are not the para- mount phase: it is the response to the par- ticular child's needs, the play and commu- nication phases which formthe bases of the relationship. If the bond does not formdur- ing this critical period, the theory goes on to say, the child may suffer a severe series of consequences as a result. Bowlby labeled the three stages of poor bonding protest, detachment, despair. And according to Mary Ainsworth,


another Attachment Theorist, humans go through four major stages of attachment during development from birth until age two. These phases are: SecureAttachment, in which the child is securely attached to his/her caretaker and receives all the com- fort and nurturance he/she needs exclusive- ly. The next phase is Ambivalence, in which the child becomes extremely upset and unable to cope without the caretaker and shows great despairs when left by the caretaker, but shows little emotion on return of the caretaker. The third phase is Avoidance. In this phase, there is such severe severance from the caretaker that the child shows very little emotion upon departure or return of the caretaker. And the final stage is Disengagement in which the child shows no emotion, neither securi- ty, avoidance or ambivalence due to severe emotional trauma experienced at the hands of the care taker. I imagined watching my daughter in


day-care with her adorable smile, chubby hands and legs which sufficed her ade- quately at home, trying to engage in play


with other children but failing to do so because she hadn't sufficiently surpassed the bonding stage with me at home. I imag- ined the feelings of frustration and anxiety this inability to interact would produce inside of her and subsequently her irritation at being unable to express these feelings. What'smore, there was the impending feel- ing of despair at realizing she could not express these feelings to me directly with words and that I could only guess at what is was that was making her feel afraid, uncomfortable, anxious, confused, satisfied or distraught. Imirrored her imagined feel- ings as I began to feel panic, despair and helplessness. These overwhelming emotions pro-


voked me to analyze my feelings about the source of my pain. For surely, this could not be the reality of the situation. The early years of symbiotic bonding, according to Margaret Mahler, where normal separa- tion-individuation traversed through a series of stages from birth through the dart- ing and shadowing stage, through the beginnings of language development, could not be broken this easily. My daugh- ter had certainly passed through these stages with flying colors, shared the bond that had grown between us and was equal- ly tolerant of our uniqueness and separate- ness. So surely, this could not be reality.At least not the only reality I knew where healthy feelings outweigh unreasonable doubts and fears. Perhaps then, I reasoned, I was some-


where in the middle; a middle ground where, although not ideal, was one where I knew I was doing the best that I could, and that everything would turn out all right in the end. I was as D.W. Winnicott coined a “good enough mother.” However, my neg- ative ruminations persisted in my mind as I continued to persecute myself with over- whelming thoughts of doubt and fear. I analyzed their source and weighed them with the knowledge base I had used so often in psycho dynamic sessions with othermothers and clients. Ultimately, I rea- soned that the feelings I identified as anxi- ety producing, overwhelming and guilt- producing were my own. I began to think about everything I knew as a social worker regarding human development, early child- hood theory and multiple transmission of trauma and realized that our feelings of over-protectiveness toward our children hold up a mirror to our own traumatic lives and bring them to the forefront of our con- science. They have very little basis in real- ity, but are borne out of the need to ratio- nalize our own feelings of attachment and the needs to separate in a healthy manner. They furthermore are justifiable only in recognizing the reciprocal effect they have on our children; being conscious of them serves only one purpose: to extinguish them before projecting them onto our children.


Continued on Page 37


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