NECESSARY LOSSES

by compound complex 37 Replies latest jw friends

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  compound complex

  The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow

  JUDITH VIORST

  In the first chapter, The High Cost of Separation, Viorst discusses our absolute need for a mother in our early years, and what a challenge it is for children to become distinct individuals, separate from their mothers. Even children who are injured and abused by their parents, still cry for their mothers, who represent safety. Abandonment by mother is inevitable in the natural course of life, when a mother goes back to work or has another child, but extended separation can cause pain and permanent damage. Even grown adults who cannot stand to be alone can trace their feelings of abandonment to childhood separation from mother. Viorst gives examples of adults who have achieved much, but who are emotionally immature due to early separation trauma, which can result from mother's absence.....
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  compound complex

  Chapters 3-4 Summary and Analysis

  Human children naturally withdraw from the bliss of oneness through an evolving perception of distinctness, or "differentiation." As babies grow and become upright they can "grow drunk on omnipotence and grandeur," being narcissistic, megalomaniacal and imperialistic, but we still view mother as an appendage, and she is always our safety net.

  Eventually, we lose our self-perceived status as "king of the world," and begin to develop fears about separation and seek parental assurance, just in case we cannot make it out there in the big world. The stepping out and pulling back goes on at every stage of development - we want to be free, and we want to be protected. When mothers who reject our dependency push us from the nest too early, we "adapt, or crumple, or compromise...we give.....
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  compound complex

  Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis

  Even an average mother is perceived by a child as perfect. Infants perceive their needs to be the same as their mother's. Only when separation occurs does it become clear that the two have a different set of needs, and that mother is a separate person with her own needs. Viorst thinks that our wish to "undo" that separation remains in some of us into adulthood, and that we are always seeking the unconditional love of mother's arms. She differentiates infantile, mature, immature and mature love, and feels there is always a grain of hatred in our love relationships. She quotes Winnicott, who argues that denying hate prevents "the developing child from facing and learning to tolerate his own hatred." Viorst thinks perhaps hatred is "nothing more than our expression of.....
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  compound complex

  Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis

  Brooke Hayward's interesting account of a childhood experience describes an "anguished hate" toward her younger sister. Our desire to own our parents' love entirely is obvious with many children's attitudes toward a new sibling. Viorst describes the mechanisms of defense against rivalry as repression, reaction formation, isolation and denial. Some solutions for a child with the socially unacceptable hostile feelings toward a new sibling are regression, or escaping to an earlier stage of development; projection, or seeing our own feelings as those of the baby's; identification, such as trying to mother the baby, and turning the hostility against the self. Children also "undo" the damage, such as hitting the baby, then kissing him. Sublimation is when the child decides to replace the hostility with some other activity. De-identification allows siblings.....
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  milligal

  In your first post about children needing their mothers I think it is important to view this issue scientifically. Yes, children need their mothers, but separation from a mother is not the sole cause of distress in these people. If this were the case, then every single person separated from their mother would display the same signs of distress, but all do not display the same symtpoms. You also have to account for personality and biological disposition towards anxiety, depression and other abnotrmalities.

  I'm not trying to shoot down a good thing that you are saying, but there are situations out there that exist contrary to the natural theory of a mother/child bond. When this happens people need to be aware that it is not the end of the world, many people go on to live happy productive lives....Moms are important-yes (I am one : ). But people have a wonderful way of healing and adapting that can make any life situation turn out beautiful.
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  Satanus

  Necessary traumas for every child to go through. Where the problem that has lasting effects comes from is when the mother is not really there for the child even when she is there physically available. She may be unable or unwilling to show affection, play w, protect and do all the other things an emotionally healthy and mature mother would do. To the child, the result is that it is basically motherless, abandoned emotionally. It might as well be adopted out to a better woman.
  
  S
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  compound complex

  Dear Milligal and Satanus:

  Thank you for your intelligent and well-thought-out replies. Your comments are certainly valid, yet ...

  What I copied/pasted is a reviewer's summary of each chapter. I've already read NECESSARY LOSSES, and, while I'm no expert in the field of human behavior, one's reading each chapter in whole allows one a clearer picture of Ms. Viorst's overall point. Reading the book in its entirety, however, does not necessarily lead to one's unequivocal acceptance of her observations.

  I appreciate your taking the time to participate.

  CoCo
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  PrimateDave

  It looks like an interesting book to read. Personally, I have enjoyed reading about child care from an anthropological perspective. In examining different cultures, I suppose I have been curious as to whether there is actually an "ideal" way to grow as a human. It strikes me that so many "methods" of raising children are more often geared to the needs of modern society of which parents who read such books are obviously a part of. Humans evolved for hundreds of thousands of years in the tribal family unit. That kind of security no longer exists for most humans in the modern nation-state. The separation trauma is now regarded as "normal" because it is so common. Still, we do manage to survive and adapt and often lead productive, if not entirely satisfactory, lives.
  
  Dave
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  compound complex

  Thank you, Primate Dave, for your interesting analysis.

  I, for one, know about survival, adaptation and productivity. And who here doesn't, freed as we now are from mind-control?

  Gratefully,

  CoCo
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  compound complex

  Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

  Viorst believes in the Oedipus complex, that we all are in love with a parent when we are small and that we experience sexual tension. The contacts between infant and mother produce a "deep libindal pleasure," in the opinions of Freud and Erik Erikson. A child falls in love with the opposite sex parent, the other parent standing in the way, whom the child loves and hates. Viorst feels that in adulthood, we may seek out the wanted parent simply to symbolically win the battle with the other parent. Viorst feels that our adult sexuality is in response to oedipal conflicts. Moreover, it is possible that some people's fear of success is attached to their fear of winning the battle against the parent whom he perceives as competitor and being punished.....