Motherhood, Spirituality and Culture

Noelia Molina

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429892783
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medizin
• Subtopic: Gesundheitsversorgung

Motherhood, Spirituality and Culture explores spiritual skills that may assist women in changes, challenges and transformations undergone through the transition to motherhood. This study comprises rich, qualitative data gathered from interviews with 11 mothers. Results are analysed by constructing seven unique maternal narratives that elucidate and give voice to the mothers in their transition by in depth exploration of six themes emerging from the analysis. Overall discussion ranges across such realities as:

• desires, expectations and illusions for mothering;

• birth and spiritual embodied experiences of mothering;

• instinctual knowing; identity and crisis, and connections of motherhood;

• changes and transformations undergone through motherhood.

This study presents a unique framework for qualitative studies of spirituality within motherhood research; by weaving together transpersonal psychology, humanistic psychology, spiritual intelligence and the spiritual maternal literature.This book will appeal to all women who have transitioned to motherhood. It willalso be of assistance to professionals who wish to approach any aspect of maternity care and support from a transpersonal perspective. It will also provideunique insights for academics and postgraduate students in the fields of anthropology, psychology, psychotherapy and feminism studies.

Part I

Motherhood and culture

Introduction

Setting the contemporary scene

This study evolved as a response to societal/cultural and psychological changes faced by contemporary society. These changes are different from those in previous generations. As a psychotherapist, I began to encounter mothers who were not at the higher end of postnatal depression, but who presented with a certain maternal anxiety. Although this anxiety was a type of generalised anxiety disorder, it had the potential to progress into other types of anxiety. Some examples were: compulsive obsessive behaviours in the mother and/or treating/ dealing with the baby, and agoraphobia, where the mother ceased to go out anywhere and remained at home with baby, for fear of not coping in public places. Many mothers I encountered also sought counselling for the simple reason that they found the transition to motherhood too overwhelming and could not put into words what they were feeling.

Not being able to ‘put into words what we are feeling’ is a common psychological experience. When applied to the transition to motherhood, it is a multilayer event as some experiences are not recognised at a societal or cultural level. Mothers may feel lost, displaced, dissident in a space that does not acknowledge them. The words of Anita Diamant in the book, The Red Tent described this sentiment perfectly:

Just as there is no warning for childbirth, there is no preparation for the sight of a first child. … There should be a song for women to sing at this moment, or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name the moment.

(Diamant 1997, 269)

This quotation tries to conceptualise or even ritualise the enormous passage of giving birth into some kind of spiritual creative act or practice by showing how challenging this is even linguistically; how hard is to find the words. There is a difficulty in naming an experience if there is no language to acknowledge it.

Mothers who I encountered for years narrated existential fears and anxieties after child birth. They also experienced deep transformations to their social, psychological and interpersonal relationships. Their experiences needed to be conceptualised. They wanted to find an existential meaning to many questions that opened up after becoming a mother. Through these mothers, I began to understand that the maternal experiences of women following childbirth has been neglected in the non-depressed populations. Numerous studies have, and continue to concentrate on postpartum anxiety, stress and maternal anxiety during the transition to motherhood. Most of this work has concentrated on maternal depression from a biological and psychological framework, and also on the mother/infant interaction (Barlow 1997; Bernier et al. 2016; Emmanuel et al. 2011; Gauthier et al. 2010; Liamputtong 2007; Matthey 2010; 2011; Petrozzi and Gagliardi 2013; Garfield et al. 2016; Rallis et al. 2014; Santos et al. 2016; Sockol et al. 2014; Staneva et al. 2015). These studies also tended to evaluate different psychological therapies in the treatment and prevention of postnatal depression. Many studies have developed different quantitative instruments to measure maternal anxiety and depression in the pre- and postnatal period. There were, for example, studies that investigated quantitative instruments to measure the transition to motherhood in clinical settings.

At the time of my initial literature research, I found very few collections of qualitative data in the study of spirituality in the maternal transition. In 2010, an article was published in the Journal of Nursing Management, entitled: ‘Being in Charge – New Mothers’ Perceptions of Reflective Leadership and Motherhood’ (Akerjordet 2010). This study investigated the importance of emotions as layers of meaning. It concluded that the transformation, growth and transition to motherhood is meditated by reflective self-acceptance, spirituality and increasing self-awareness. This article awakened my belief that it is important to understand what mothers considered to be meaningful emotions, desires and beliefs for their emotional adjustment. It also opened all kinds of questions about the view of women as integrated body/soul/mind beings passing through the unique transformation of becoming a mother. Many studies have been researched from the infant’s perspective, and are so-called baby-centred. There was a lack of woman-centred studies: on how the mother needs to be supported and assisted through the liminal space of giving birth.

Many studies have investigated the neurobiological causes and the diverse biological changes that were likely to happen in pregnancy and during the postnatal period. The social/cultural and psychological studies on motherhood started after the second wave of feminism in the mid-twentieth century. From the 1960s onwards, and after the commercialisation of the pill and other contraceptives methods, the lives of women changed dramatically, with a trend to delay motherhood to latter years. The choice to become a mother is a complex one in which the life of the woman changes forever. These changes have provoked social/economic and cultural shifts in developed Western countries. In the 1990s, studies began to concentrate on midwifery and the need for nurses to be educated in the spiritual dimension of childbirth. At the end of the twentieth century, a turn began to emerge for personal maternal experiences and narratives within the academia. Since 2001, birth and spirituality has also been increasingly researched from the nursing/midwifery framework.¹

The importance of the psycho-spiritual dimensions of motherhood

The relationship between spirituality and motherhood has not been extensively researched, despite the fact that a growing body of scientific research suggests deep connections between religion, spirituality and both mental and physical health. Motherhood is a relatively new academic discipline and has always been considered ‘private work’, and a domain that did not have a ‘voice’ academically. For years, the pre- and postnatal periods have been researched within a biomedical model to improve the wellbeing of mothers and babies. Most of the maternal literature research studies on the process of the transition to motherhood included the constant change and transformation of redefining relationships, professional goals and self-identity. In 2005, a study on the spiritual awakening through the motherhood journey described the changes experienced by mothers as those of having achieved self-acceptance and expansion of consciousness (Miller and Athan 2005). The study recognises that spirituality is an essential and integral part of the mothering experience and that these descriptions are related to the transformation of the spiritual dimension of the self. It concludes that women who navigate this journey unassisted and unprepared are at a high risk of dysfunction.

Spirituality is subjective, intangible and multidimensional. There is little consensus regarding the number and content of the dimensions to sufficiently delineate it. The subjective dimension of spirituality also poses challenges in trying to conceptualise experiences that have unique and individual phenomenological qualities that may impact thoughts, behaviours, lifestyle and personality. A key factor in the definition of spirituality is the widespread need for humanity to search for meaning and purpose in life and consequently the construction of spiritual identity. This study understands the term spirituality as an inherent component of being human, but also acknowledges the difficulty of defining such a term. Spirituality is understood from an anthropological level as intrinsically part of human beings and as composed of physical, emotional and cognitive dimensions. Spiritual needs are as real as our need for love, food and shelter. Spirituality is a basic need, and a need that has been expressed since the beginning of time. The definition of spirituality better suited to this study is one that involves a person’s beliefs, experiences and feelings about the self and important relationships. Indeed, spiritual identity has been defined as that dimension of self that addresses ultimate questions about the nature, purpose and meaning of life, resulting in behaviours that are consonant with the individual’s core values (Kiesling et al. 2006).

Spirituality studies engage multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary fields. By researching motherhood through the academic discipline of spirituality, the whole person in the experience is investigated. In maternal health, many health problems are interrelated. Although some maternal physical issues are more visible, there are other invisible health needs. This shows the importance of a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary study of spirituality when researching human experiences. Thus, researching an important human transition through the academic discipline of spirituality ensures that the ‘full picture’ is being looked at. Many questions began to emerge: what are the spiritual tools and qualities that we have? How do we use them in the transition to motherhood? Many research studies have shown the profound physical, cognitive and emotional changes that mothers undergo, but what about the spiritual changes? How is spirituality mediated in the transition to motherhood? What role does spirituality have in this transition? Can spiritual capacities help this transition? How might they be used by the mother? Does anything change spiritually for a woman once she becomes a mother?

With all these areas of enquiry, the need is for this study to concentrate on:

• The importance of identifying the academic interdisciplinary partners in the spirituality study.

• The importance of searching for spiritual skills/tools/capacities that can assist the mother in the transition.

• How these capacities are used by the mother.

• The spiritual changes or transformations in the lives of women once they become mothers.

Investigating these lines of inquiry seems relevant and significant to fill the gap of the spiritual dimension in the whole transition to motherhood in the current maternal literature.

The transition to motherhood is a unique experience and seems difficult to standardise. Societal attempts to polarise and express the transition to motherhood in dichotomies may be a way of trying to standardise it. But motherhood resists such terms. I believe that maternal ambivalence has emerged out of these societal attempts to standardise. Postmodern parenting can be sadistically stressful and perfectionist. The deferment of childbearing, low natality rates in developed countries and the ‘buying time approach’, facilitated by assistive reproduction technology, can be the direct consequences of such ambivalence. It is not even about becoming a mother, as voluntary childlessness certainly reflects maternal ambivalence.

In 1935, a young mother using the nom de plume ‘Ubique’ (Latin for ‘everywhere’) from Ballingate (Wicklow) in Ireland wrote a letter to Nursery World magazine in the United Kingdom (UK), expressing her feelings of isolation and loneliness:

Can any mother help me? I live a very lonely life as I have no near neighbours. I cannot afford to buy a wireless. I adore reading, but with no library am very limited with books … I get so down and depressed after the children are in bed and I am alone in the house. I have had a rotten time, and been cruelly hurt, both physically and mentally, but I know it is bad to brood and breed hard thoughts and resentments. Can any reader suggest an occupation that will intrigue me and exclude ‘thinking’ and cost nothing! A hard problem, I admit.

(Bailey 2007, 5)

Women from all over the country experiencing similar frustrations wrote back to her. A group of these mothers created an outlet for their life experiences (marriage life, children and friendships) by writing to each other and creating the Cooperative Correspondence Club (CCC). This secret magazine CCC continued until 1990, 55 years after the first issue was formulated.² Support and networking have always been crucial for mothers. Isolation and loneliness are probably the biggest enemies in any important life transition. The psyche tends to ‘isolate’ itself when an experience becomes in any way difficult. It is not a very beneficial survival mechanism. I have realised, through counselling mothers and interviewing them in research, that they sometimes become like ‘veterans of war’. They find it hard to talk about the ‘action’ (maternal experiences) and become very secretive about their own struggles and feelings. The societal and cultural normalisation of maternal ambivalence would be much easier if there were a ‘maternal agora’ to engage deeply with the real experiences of the transition. I find it challenging to visualise this. The reality is that the technological revolution has in cyberspace monopolised the ‘agora’, and there is no way back from this. Mothers do not need to write to a magazine and wait for months to receive a postal letter. Comments in any maternal forums may be read by millions with a click. There is new-found freedom in being heard and acknowledged.

Back in 2013 I was surveying mothers for a study on stay-at-home mums. I posted a call to participate in a survey in maternal forums, and many mothers were ready to help me. Many wrote to me thanking me for researching such a theme. Mothers also asked me to consider them for any maternal research I might do in the future. I felt the response was overwhelming. They were eager to freely tell me their experiences. Some of them wrote me lengthy responses that I did not need for survey research, but they had the desire to tell me their ‘maternal stories’. It was like entering a parallel universe. Mothers from all over the world at any time of the day are there to ‘chat’ and to ‘engage’.

In postmodern times, mothers are deeply interested in maternal narratives and in validating and making meaning of their own experiences. In many cases, mothers do not feel free to talk about their maternal ambivalence and the array of feelings that this transition provokes: intense joy, love, lost, elation, happiness, sadness, frustration and much more. The light ‘forces’ in operation in the transition to motherhood are easily talked to but it is the opposite with the ‘dark’ forces, which exist within us. They are often denied, degraded and repressed. I...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• PART I Motherhood and culture
• PART II Contemporary spirituality
• PART III Motherhood and spirituality
• PART IV Motherhood and spiritual care
• Index