Maternal Desire
On Children, Love, and the Inner Life
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
Esteemed psychologist Daphne de Marneffe examines women’s desire to care for children in an updated reissue of her “fascinating analysis that’s a welcome addition to the dialogues about motherhood” (Publishers Weekly).
If a century ago it was women’s sexual desires that were unspeakable, today it is the female desire to mother that has become taboo. One hundred years of Freud and feminism have liberated women to acknowledge and explore their sexual selves, as well as their public and personal ambitions. What has remained inhibited is women’s thinking about motherhood.
Maternal Desire is the first book to treat women’s desire to mother as a legitimate focus of intellectual inquiry and personal exploration. Shedding new light on old debates, Daphne de Marneffe provides an emotional road map for mothers who work and mothers who are at home. De Marneffe both explores the enjoyment and anxieties of motherhood and offers mothers in all situations valuable ways to think through their self-doubts and connect to their capacity for pleasure.
Drawing on a rich tradition of writers, such as Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, Carol Gilligan, and Susan Faludi, as well as her experience as a psychologist and mother of three, de Marneffe illuminates how we express our desire to care for children. By treating maternal desire as a central feature of women’s identity—rather than as an inconvenient or slightly embarrassing detail—we can look with fresh insight at controversial issues, such as childcare, fertility, abortion, and the role of fathers. An “absorbing look at the enormous personal pleasure that women derive from mothering….Maternal Desire is a stirring book that celebrates women’s love for their children and mothering while also supporting their interest in careers and other pursuits” (Booklist).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"A professional friend of mine," writes de Marneffe, "says that every time she sees a new book about mothers... she feels mingled dread and hope as a question instantly pops into her mind: 'Is it for me or against me?'" i.e., will the book say that children benefit more from the consistent care given by stay-at-home mothers or from the financial prerogatives provided by working mothers? De Marneffe, a clinical psychologist who divides her time between work and caring for her three children, wants to reframe the question. What, she asks, does the mother want? What if a woman raises her children because she finds it fulfilling? Rarely, purports de Marneffe, does the "public discourse take account of the embodied, aching desire to be with their children that many mothers feel." De Marneffe studies, among other things, feminism (which, she says, fought for the right to have children but neglected the right to care for children), the feelings of ambivalence and pleasure in raising children and the role of other care providers (including fathers) as she strives to evaluate a woman's need to nurture her children. By examining both sides the corporate woman who yearns to be home with her children, and the full-time mom who finds the boredom oppressive de Marneffe avoids sounding judgmental. Her book, with its academic tone, isn't light reading, and many of her ideas taken individually are controversial (e.g., her view that "domestic work complements caring for children"). But she offers a fascinating analysis that's a welcome addition to the dialogues about motherhood. ; it lacks that book's spark and accessibility.
