Good Mothers

I had planned to start off my reading on motherhood with some of the alarmingly visceral memoirs that have been published in the past decade or so – Lorna Sage’s Bad Blood and Andrea Ashworth’s Once in a House on Fire both being on my bookshelves. But when I really looked at January through my window, I knew that it would not be a cheering experience to read about the most extreme of dysfunctional families, and instead I found myself veering towards the narratives of good mothers. Elizabeth in her German Garden, Mrs Ramsey in To the Lighthouse, the ever loving Sido in Colette’s reminiscences, even the comic mother in Delafield’s Diaries of a Provincial Lady, all float off the page like a breath of gentle spring air, soothing, invigorating, revitalizing. What makes a good mother is very clear; good nature is essential, as is a sense of humour, consistency is fundamental, as are serenity and calm. Good mothers always see their children clearly, through a veil of redemptive love, no matter what behaviour they exhibit, they always give the benefit of the doubt, they are flexible and accommodating and fun. Is anybody else feeling tired yet or is it just me? It’s quite hard being a good mother, if literature is any indication, unless one has the good fortune to be born with the nature of a gentle paragon. But there are many areas of tolerance; mothers never have to be intellectually right, in fact being eccentrically wrong and a little ditzy is often viewed benevolently. They don’t have to be organized or efficient or effective. There isn’t even much of an obligation to be a good housekeeper or perform any sort of valuable contribution to society. Not so long as the mother earns her place on the planet by always seeking out and identifying the love in any situation. There’s a scene I enjoyed a great deal in Rebecca West’s This Real Night, where a friend of the family demands to know the meaning of the perplexing phrase ‘Architecture is frozen music’ from the mother, Claire, whom he regards as something of an oracle.

‘Mamma said, “Yes, I’ve read that before. I can’t remember who said it. I should think it was someone who knew nothing about music, probably with the intention of pleasing a musician. Unmusical people often try to please musicians by talking about music just as people who have no children try to please people who have by talking about children, and in each case what they say usually falls wide of the mark. It is very strange and bound to create awkwardness,” said Mamma, looking earnestly into Uncle Len’s eyes, anxious to give him the benefit of her experience, since it was information he wanted, “it is as if there are two great enclosures, and the people inside know they are inside, but the people outside do not know they are outside.”’

I must remember this ploy next time someone asks me to explain some obscure phrase of theoretical writing, and attribute it to a misplaced desire to please (which in some sense it undoubtedly must be). But I’m also intrigued by the image that is constructed here of the two enclosures, the inside and the outside, the circle of safety that contains those who know and the perilous position of those outside and ignorant, and the mother who sees both and feels compassion. Because right down at the roots of the good mother is, I think, the ability to conduct the child from the place of uncertainty, insecurity and not knowing, to the inside of the enclosure where all is safe and understandable. The psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion discusses this maternal maneuver in terms of alpha and beta elements. Beta elements are like raw, horrible, upsetting emotions or sense impressions, nameless things that torment and trouble. It’s the job of the mother to transform these, whenever they appear in the child, into something manageable, something containable. For instance, if a mother and child are on a plane and they traverse a sudden patch of turbulence, the child will look to the mother full of anxiety and dread. If the mother can transmit to the child the knowledge that what is happening is quite ok, open to explanation and quick to pass, then the child will be reassured, and eventually s/he will download the ability to transform fear into reassurance for him or herself. If, however, the mother only mirrors back to the child the terror the child feels and confirms the danger and menace of the situation then the child is lost in ‘nameless dread’ and may well develop phobias in later life.

And so mothers – good mothers – gain the reputation of being able to laugh in the face of danger, of being able to tame tigers with their cool hands, and of remaining unflustered and innovative as the waters rise. It seems a lot to ask of any woman, but after spending nine months marinading in a cocktail of powerful hormones, most mothers suddenly develop unexpected superpowers that do make them utterly fearless as far as their babies are concerned. Most mothers are stupendous in a crisis, commandeering tanks, riding bareback, wrestling crocodiles, etc, etc. What is infinitely harder is to find the patience to respond to the sweet, dulcet sound of one’s child’s voice raised in the relentlessly compelling, regularly repeated, demand to ‘Mummy! Look!’ across a ten-hour period. Most mothers I know would walk across burning coals for their children, and cross unchartered oceans, but recognize they might not be responsible for their actions if they have to assemble the Thomas the Tank Engine jigsaw puzzle for the fifteen millionth time. It’s something else I’ve noticed in literature; there’s no song and dance made about it but good mothers only remain good mothers by cultivating some seriously effective escape routes. Self preservation, far from being incompatible with good mothering, is absolutely essential to it.