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Mothering Beyond Image is the title that came to me for this book several years ago. I have gotten mixed reviews about the title. Some say “image” is not a good word to use and some say it is a perfect word…..Nonetheless…the book is important for women and I want to get it out there. I am going to start blogging about some of the chapters in the hopes that the information will spark some discussion, and I am open to ideas for other titles….send them to my way!

Here is a segment from the Introduction: Excavating Your True Self:

“It is only when a woman can experience her tears in the moment that she can also experience her true, deep feeling values in the moment.”

Judith Deurk, Circles of Stones

After thirty years of working in public schools, pediatric offices, mental health agencies and hospitals, I have witnessed hundreds of women suffer in silence with feelings of inadequacy, shame, doubt, frustration, depression, fatigue and guilt. Currently, as a psychotherapist, parent mentor, and educator, I frequently meet with mothers that feel they fall short of the perfect mother ideal they set for themselves. I am convinced that in order for change to happen women must tell their stories.

About fifteen years ago, in a book study group in Virginia, I was introduced to Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes’. I was especially drawn to Dr. Estes’ description of the too good mother archetype in chapter three. This archetype seemed to capture the experience of the over-achieving perfectionism I had been noticing in so many of the mothers I had seen.

An archetype provides a symbolic way to describe familiar experiences that we have in our collective unconscious. It represents something that is universally understood. The mother archetype appears in many different ways. A few examples of mother archetypes might include the personal mother, the mother-in-law, the step-mother, the mother goddesses-such as the Virgin Mary, Isis, and Demeter, and even mother earth. The personal mother archetype can be broken down even further to include types of mothers such as the good or bad mother, the unavailable mother, and so forth.

Clarissa Pinkola-Estes’ describes the too-good mother archetype as one that is necessary when children are young and completely dependant upon a mother, or when a child might be in trauma or suffering. However, there is a time when a woman needs to let go of the over-protective, over-bearing too good mother. Dr. Estes’ explains why the too good mother must die in order for a new, more authentic woman to be born.

A woman sometimes holds on to the too-good mother archetype because she fears letting go of the overprotective nature of the archetype. She most likely has not fully individuated from her own childhood experiences. I have often seen women overcompensate for their own childhood losses, by over-giving to their children that which they may have lacked as a child. This can result in an unhealthy sense of entitlement, as the child then grows into adulthood believing that over-indulgence is normal.