When a mother kills her child, we call her a bad mother, but, as this book shows, even mothers who intend to do their children harm are not easily categorized as ÒmadÓ or Òbad.Ó Maternal love is a complex emotion rich with contradictory impulses and desires, and motherhood is a conflicted state in which women constantly renegotiate the needs mother and child, the self and the other. Applying care ethics philosophy and the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone de Beauvoir to real-world experiences of motherhood, Sarah LaChance Adams throws the inherent tensions of motherhood into sharp relief, drawing a more nuanced portrait of the mother and child relationship than previously conceived. The maternal example is particularly instructive for ethical theory, highlighting the dynamics of human interdependence while also affirming separate interests. LaChance Adams particularly focuses on maternal ambivalence and its morally productive role in reinforcing the divergence between oneself and others, helping to recognize the particularities of situation, and negotiating the difference between oneÕs own needs and the desires of others. She ultimately argues maternal filicide is a social problem requiring a collective solution that ethical philosophy and philosophies of care can inform.

Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year This “witty, engaging analysis” of female monsters in pop culture offers “provocative and incisive” commentary on society’s fear of female rage and power (Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her) Women have always been seen as monsters. Men from Aristotle to Freud have insisted that women are freakish creatures, capable of immense destruction. Maybe they are. And maybe that’s a good thing. Sady Doyle, hailed as “smart, funny and fearless” by the Boston Globe, takes readers on a tour of the female dark side, from the biblical Lilith to Dracula’s Lucy Westenra, from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. She illuminates the women who have shaped our nightmares: Serial killer Ed Gein’s “domineering” mother Augusta; exorcism casualty Anneliese Michel, who starved herself to death to quell her demons; author Mary Shelley, who dreamed her dead child back to life. These monsters embody patriarchal fear of women, and illustrate the violence with which men enforce traditionally feminine roles. They also speak to the primal threat of a woman who takes back her power. In a dark and dangerous world, Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers asks women to look to monsters for the ferocity we all need to survive. “Some people take a scalpel to the heart of media culture; Sady Doyle brings a bone saw, a melon baller, and a machete.” —Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once

When a mother kills her child, we call her a bad mother, but, as this book shows, even mothers who intend to do their children harm are not easily categorized as ÒmadÓ or Òbad.Ó Maternal love is a complex emotion rich with contradictory impulses and desires, and motherhood is a conflicted state in which women constantly renegotiate the needs mother and child, the self and the other. Applying care ethics philosophy and the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone de Beauvoir to real-world experiences of motherhood, Sarah LaChance Adams throws the inherent tensions of motherhood into sharp relief, drawing a more nuanced portrait of the mother and child relationship than previously conceived. The maternal example is particularly instructive for ethical theory, highlighting the dynamics of human interdependence while also affirming separate interests. LaChance Adams particularly focuses on maternal ambivalence and its morally productive role in reinforcing the divergence between oneself and others, helping to recognize the particularities of situation, and negotiating the difference between oneÕs own needs and the desires of others. She ultimately argues maternal filicide is a social problem requiring a collective solution that ethical philosophy and philosophies of care can inform.

When a mother kills her child, we call her a bad mother, but, as this book shows, even mothers who intend to do their children harm are not easily categorized as "mad" or "bad." Maternal love is a complex emotion rich with contradictory impulses and desires, and motherhood is a conflicted state in which women constantly renegotiate the needs mother and child, the self and the other. Applying care ethics philosophy and the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone de Beauvoir to real-world experiences of motherhood, Sarah LaChance Adams throws the inherent tensions of motherhood into sharp relief, drawing a more nuanced portrait of the mother and child relationship than previously conceived. The maternal example is particularly instructive for ethical theory, highlighting the dynamics of human interdependence while also affirming separate interests. LaChance Adams particularly focuses on maternal ambivalence and its morally productive role in reinforcing the divergence between oneself and others, helping to recognize the particularities of situation, and negotiating the difference between one's own needs and the desires of others. She ultimately argues maternal filicide is a social problem requiring a collective solution that ethical philosophy and philosophies of care can inform.

While the image or construct of the "good mother" has been the focus of many research projects, the "bad mother," as a discursive construct, and also mothers who do "bad" things as complicated, agentic social actors, have been quite neglected, despite the prevalence of the image of the bad mother across late modern societies. The few researchers who address this powerful social image point out that bad mothers are culturally identified by what they do, yet they are also socially recognized by who they are. Mothers become potentially bad when they behave or express opinions that diverge from, or challenge, social or gender norms, or when they deviate from mainstream, white, middle class, heterosexual, nondisabled normativity. When suspected of being bad mothers, women are surveilled, and may be disciplined, punished or otherwise excluded, by various official agents (i.e. legal, medical and welfare institutions), as well as by their relatives, friends and communities. Too often, women are judged and punished without clear evidence that they are neglecting or abusing their children. Frequently they are blamed for the marginal sociocultural context in which they are mothering. This anthology presents empirical, theoretical and creative works that address the construct of the bad mother and the lived realities of mothers labeled as bad. Throughout the volume, the editors consider voices and acts of resistance to bad mother constructions, demonstrating that mothers, across time and across domains, have individually and collectively taken a stand against this destructive label.

The first book specifically for daughters suffering from the emotional abuse of selfish, self-involved mothers,Will I Ever Be Good Enough?provides the expert assistance you need in order to overcome this debilitating history and reclaim your life for yourself. Drawing on over two decades of experience as a therapist specializing in women's psychology and health, psychotherapist Dr. Karyl McBride helpsyou recognize the widespread effects of this maternal emotional abuse and guides you as you create an individualized program for self-protection, resolution, and complete recovery.An estimated 1.5 million American women have narcissistic personality disorder, which makes them so insecure and overbearing, insensitive and domineering that they can psychologically damage their daughters for life. Daughters of narcissistic mothers learn that maternal love is not unconditional, and that it is given only when they behave in accordance with their mothers' often unreasonable expectations and whims. As adults, these daughters consequently have difficulty overcoming their insecurities and feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, sadness, and emotional emptiness. They may also have a terrible fear of abandonment that leads them to form unhealthy love relationships, as well as a tendency to perfectionism and unrelenting self-criticism, or to self-sabotage and frustration.Herself the recovering daughter of a narcissistic mother, Dr. McBride includes her personal struggle, which adds a profound level of authority to her work, along with the perspectives of the hundreds of suffering daughters she's interviewed over the years. Their stories of how maternal abuse has manifested in their lives -- as well as how they have successfully overcome its effects -- show you that you're not alone and that you can take back your life and have the controlyouwant.Dr. McBride's step-by-step program will enable you to:(1) Recognize your own experience with maternal narcissism and its effects on all aspects of your life (2) Discover how you have internalized verbal and nonverbal messages from your mother and how these have translated into a strong desire to overachieve or a tendency to self-sabotage (3) Construct a step-by-step program to reclaim your life and enhance your sense of self, a process that includes creating a psychological separation from your mother and breaking the legacy of abuse. You will also learn how not to repeat your mother's mistakes with your own daughter.Warm and sympathetic, filled with the examples of women who have established healthy boundaries with their hurtful mothers,Will I Ever Be Good Enough?encourages and inspires you as it aids your recovery.

A lively and provocative look at the modern culture of motherhood and at the social, economic, and political forces that shaped current ideas about parenting What is wrong with this picture? That's the question Judith Warner asks in this national bestseller after taking a good, hard look at the world of modern parenting--at anxious women at work and at home and in bed with unhappy husbands. When Warner had her first child, she was living in Paris, where parents routinely left their children home, with state-subsidized nannies, to join friends in the evening for dinner or to go on dates with their husbands. When she returned to the States, she was stunned by the cultural differences she found toward how people think about effective parenting--in particular, assumptions about motherhood. None of the mothers she met seemed happy; instead, they worried about the possibility of not having the perfect child, panicking as each developmental benchmark approached. Combining close readings of mainstream magazines, TV shows, and pop culture with a thorough command of dominant ideas in recent psychological, social, and economic theory, Perfect Madness addresses our cultural assumptions, and examines the forces that have shaped them. Working in the tradition of classics like Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique and Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism, and with an awareness of a readership that turned recent hits like The Bitch in the House and Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It into bestsellers, Warner offers a context in which to understand parenting culture and the way we live, as well as ways of imagining alternatives--actual concrete changes--that might better our lives.