Maternal Ambivalence

This writing is another love note to the Covid-era mothers who find themselves in ambivalence they didn’t quite expect and to the creative mothers who wonder about the sacrifice of their creativity for children. May we tolerate the unknowing long enough for the blessing to emerge.

Between sessions this week, and during sessions that were for writing my book, I found myself googling, “ambivalence about having a second baby”. I came across articles I can only describe as annoying that encourage what amount to a pro-con list of whether another baby will destroy a mother and family emotionally and financially, but conclude that it’s “worth it”…

By the grace of the goddesses of google my algorithm is also attuned to something more complex so I came across the writing of Helena Vissing, a psychologist focusing on all things maternal, including maternal ambivalence. Her article about maternal ambivalence and creativity, specifically as it relates to having more than one child, was a balm to my weary, ambivalent soul— I recommend it for all mothers.

She references the work of psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin (who has a special place in my heart), feminist art historian and therapist Rozsika Parker, writer Zadie Smith, and researcher Nollaig Frost who all offer contributions to the creative, functional role of (tolerable) maternal ambivalence. Ambivalence is understood to be the simultaneous feelings of love and hate at once—we want and don’t want something, we love and hate at the same time. Holding this tension, in Jungian terms, leads to the “transcendent function” in which something new emerges from the tension of opposites, even when the tension feels unbearable at times.

Ambivalence can be multi-fold in terms of its psychological function. It can be a defense— we can get stuck in ambivalence that stays in the mind as a way to avoid feeling or knowing what we actually want. Ambivalence can also be the fertile tension I’m referring to here. It can reveal what we wish we wanted, but don’t. It can reveal that we are hesitating on making a decision because we don’t know who we will have to become with the decision made. It can reveal that we don’t want to face Life. But it can also change us.

My ambivalence about mothering and having another child is ever-present, it’s probably the prime characteristic of me as a mother— that I feel conflicting emotions at the exact same moment, most of the time. So of course this is UP when I’m thinking of another child. I actually told a friend recently that I’m the Queen of Ambivalence. I can sit in the between for so long I think it irritates people around me more than me! Yet this experience of having several, often conflicting, feelings has made me more complex, less interested in quick-fixes, less able to tolerate platitudes. It has also made me more compassionate and able to lean into others’ conflicting emotions. In some way, it has de-centered a sense of self for something less immediately knowable.

I can’t really believe I’m even thinking of having another child (that is, if I can as a “geriatric” mother… I just can’t with that language). My postpartum experience was an evisceration. What evisceration literally means: An evisceration is the removal of the eye's contents, leaving the scleral shell and extraocular muscles intact (Wikipedia). Yes, I was fully removed, a shell of who I was, and am now something else entirely.

For those of you who have attended my classes on the descent of the goddess Innana, you know that when I longed for my first pregnancy, it was less about a longing for a baby and more of a longing for transformation. I wanted to be changed. I got what I wanted. I was changed, emptied out in my entirety. I am only now, almost 3 years into motherhood, feeling like my pieces are coming together and most of the time I live in tolerance of deep incoherence and… ambivalence.

So, goddess knows why, I’m thinking of doing this again. To be clear, we have not made a decision, but I want to read more about mothers who are not satisfied by a pro-con list or by those who knew they wanted a slew of kids so just went for it. I want to read about mothers who don’t know (and I think this is actually most of us) and who fucking wrestle with it. I want to read about mothers who know they don’t love mothering and love their kids and wish their minds had more space.

I want to read about mothers who are so bored and overstimulated by mothering and also think about having more children. Like what? How does that make ANY sense? Yet I find myself in this conundrum daily, wrestling with the idea with about 80% of my mental and emotional space. It makes sense because right next to the boredom is delight and wonder.

And what I really want to read is who women are once they are mothers, especially given my current question, to more than one child.

I want to read about the creative potentials and risks of mothering more than one.

My question that is echoing so deep in my bones is, Am I sacrificing my life and creativity for motherhood?

And what I hear when I’m quiet is:

No, dear, but mothering without enough social support, daycare, and financial safety is devastating to the mother.

No, dear, motherhood is not devastating to creativity, inadequate care for mothers is devastating to maternal creativity.

No, dear, motherhood is generative and the trauma of covid parenting is creating freeze in so many of us parents who endured it.

No, dear, mothering another child is not devastating to your creativity, the Perfect Mother is devastating to your creativity.

In this not-knowing, the task is to feel, otherwise we do get stuck in ambivalence as a defense mechanism. To drop deeper than the question, into a feeling is the way into the layers that reveal something else. When I do that I feel so, so sad. And so scared. Devastated by the impact of covid parenting, weeping from the neglect parents felt during the pandemic, and so sad that we are expected to carry on as usual now. We are changed. And I feel scared another round of parenting a new child would feel the same as the near-total isolation of parenting during a pandemic. It’s so scary. And, right next to that, what creates ambivalence is this very tiny small wondering, And another one?

There are so many nooks and crannies to get into and I will leave this note here, hopefully echoing back to any ambivalence you might have. I hope you hear in the echo, Yes, this too, you’re not wrong for not knowing. And let’s sit long enough, with enough care, to be changed by the feelings in the not-knowing.