Mothering and Ambivalence

Parenting, single motherhood and the breakdown of the family are all subjects of current political and social debate in the West, and there is little agreement among cultural commentators on what mothers should be, what children need, and how those needs conflict with the needs of the parents. Feminists have played a large part in these debates in recent years, reacting particularly to negative portrayals of single mothers in the media and the implication that they are the source of other social problems. The contributors toMotheringand Ambivalenceaddress these issues but counters the reluctance of current feminist literature to embrace psychoanalytic understandings of dependency, identity and anxiety. Drawing on professional experience, they use psychoanalysis to go beyond the often simplistic claims of the political debate on mothering. In their discussions of parenting and gender relations within families, the authors also surmount the narrowness ofpurely feminist polemics, keeping in view the importance of the diverse identities for women who become mothers.