Chapter 27 Chapter Seventeen Mother-2

No, whenever she embarked on that dreadful journey, it was like a cold wind that blew through her; and she had no warmth left for them. As for the boy—oh, thank God, Mother had him at last; he belonged to Mother, or to Beryl, or whoever wanted him.She almost never hugged him.She was very cold to him and left him lying there untouched... Linda looked down... It was so surreal, so unexpected, that even Linda laughed herself.But she controlled herself and said coldly to the child, "I don't like children." "You don't like children?" The boy couldn't believe her. "Don't like me?" He foolishly waved his arms at his mother.

Linda got out of the chair and sat down on the grass. "Why are you always laughing?" she said sharply. "If you knew what I'm thinking, you wouldn't be laughing." ... Linda was amazed at the little guy's confidence ... Ah, no, It's better to be sincere.It wasn't how she felt; it was something quite different, something very new, very... Tears rolled in her eyes; She said softly to the boy, "Hey, my little cunning!" These examples all prove that there is no maternal "instinct": anyway, the word "instinct" does not apply to humans anyway.A mother's attitude depends on her overall situation and her reactions to it.As we just saw, this has infinite variations.

The fact remains, however, that unless circumstances are very unfavorable, a mother enriches her life through children.Colette Audry, speaking of a young mother, says that her child is like evidence of her own existential reality, through whom she controls things in general and, above all, herself.The author said through a woman: He was heavy in my arms, as if he was the heaviest thing in the world, reaching the limit of my strength.He buried me in loneliness and darkness.He suddenly put the weight of the whole world on my shoulders.That's really why I want him.I am too light myself. If some mothers want more children than mothers, lose interest in the child after weaning or birth, and hope only to conceive again, many of them will feel that it is separation that gives birth to the child. They bring their children; the children are no longer a part of their own inseparable nature, but part of the outside world; the children are no longer vaguely entangled with their bodies, but can be seen and touched.After the pains of childbirth, Cécile Sauvage expressed in a poem the joy of her mother's possession, calling the baby her "little lover", her double, who could be very happy and excited hug him, kiss him, say hello to him; he is her "little statue made of blood and joy and naked flesh."

It has been repeatedly insisted that women are perfectly happy to obtain the equivalent of a penis through children, but this is absolutely inaccurate. In fact, the adult man does not regard his penis as a wonderful plaything, as he did in childhood. For an adult, its value lies in its ability to enable him to possess the object he wants to get his hands on.Likewise, what a grown woman envies is the prey a man possesses, not the tools he uses to possess it.The child satisfies that aggressive eroticism that cannot be fully satisfied in the male embrace: for the woman, the child is the role of mistress that she can send her husband to, but that she cannot replace herself.Of course, this correspondence is not exact; every relationship is suigeneris [unique], unique; but just as the lover receives from the mistress, the mother receives physical fulfillment from the child, and this Fulfillment is not obtained in submission, but in domination; through the child, she obtains what a man wants from a woman: an Other who combines nature and reason, prey and substitute.Babies are the embodiment of all nature.Colette Audry's heroine tells us that she has discovered in her child "a skin prepared for the touch of my fingers, which fulfills all my desires for every kitten, every flower."The soft and warm elasticity of the child's body is what a woman desperately desires from her mother when she was a child, and later in all things.The baby is plants and animals, his eyes are rain and rivers, the blue sea and sky; his nails are coral, his hair grows like silk; he is a living doll, a bird, A kitten; "my flower, my chicken, my lamb".The mother murmured almost exclusively in the language of a lover, eager to take advantage of this possession like a lover; she used the same possessive gestures: touching and kissing; Warm in your own arms, in your own bed.Sometimes the relationship has an overtly sexual nature.

In the statement of the mother quoted above by Stekel, she said that she felt ashamed because she nursed her child in a sexual way, and that her touch made her tremble with pleasure; He touched her like a lover, almost irresistible, and she had to fight desperately to get rid of the temptation to play with his cock. As the child grows up, motherhood takes on new manifestations; at first, he is just a baby, like any other baby, he exists only in general, a specimen of children of this age; express individuality. Very domineering or very sensual women will grow indifferent to their children at this time; on the contrary, some other women (such as Colette) will begin to take a real interest in their children at this time.The relationship between mother and child has become more and more complex: the child is a stand-in, an alterego [second self], on whom the mother is sometimes tempted to project herself completely, yet he is an independent subject and therefore difficult to control; he now strongly expresses Authenticity, but in imagination he is future teenagers and adults.He is wealth and treasure, but also her burden and tyrant.It is a kind of generosity for the mother to take pleasure from him; she must serve, give, and make him happy in order to obtain her own pleasure, as Colette Awdry writes about her mother:

So he had a happy childhood, as one reads about in books; but the reason it resembled the childhood described in the books is that the real roses are very much like the roses on the postcards.And this happiness comes from me, just as the milk that feeds him also comes from me. Like the woman in love, the mother is happy to feel indispensable; her existence is justified by the needs she satisfies; but what makes maternal love difficult and sublime is that it is not actually does not imply reciprocity; It is not men, heroes, or demigods that mothers have to deal with, but babblers who sink into fragility, clinging to their bodies.The child has no value, he has nothing to give, and with him the woman still feels alone; she cannot expect her giving to be rewarded, she has to justify it herself.This generosity is laudable, and men will go out of their way to sing her praises; but when the religion of motherhood declares that all mothers are divine, the distortions begin.A mother's devotion can sometimes be completely sincere, but this is rare.Motherhood is often an odd mix of narcissism, altruism, lazy daydreaming, sincerity, fraud, devotion, and cynicism.

The grave danger to children in our culture is that the mother entrusted with the care of a totally incapacitated child is in fact almost always a disaffected woman: she is either sexually cold or unfulfilled; , she felt inferior to men; she never held the world or the future in her own hands.She wants to make up for all these setbacks through her own children.If one knows how difficult a woman's present situation makes her self-actualization, and how much desire, rebellion, and legitimate demands are pregnant in her, one will know how serious it is to think of her in the care of a defenseless child. horrible.

When she alternates between doting and tormenting her doll, her behavior is symbolic; but in front of her children, that symbolism becomes harsh reality.A mother who beats her child does not just beat her child; in a sense, she does not beat him at all: she is taking revenge on men, on the world, or on herself.Such a mother often regrets, and the child may not have resentment, but he is indeed hit. The cruel side of motherhood has always been known, but it has always been hypocritically attributed to the figure of the cruel stepmother who punishes her children after the death of a "good" mother.Recent literature often depicts "bad" mothers, and if this type is an exception, it is because the morality and modesty of most women restrain their natural impulses; and punishment and the like suddenly erupted.Along with the blatantly abusive mothers, there are many particularly wayward and domineering mothers; who treat their children now as rag dolls, now as submissive little slaves; who if vain, show them off; will hide him.They often expect too much that their care will be appreciated.When Cornellie boasted of her child, saying, "This is my baby," she set a bad example for future generations; countless mothers wished to repeat this gesture of pride, and did not hesitate to give ordinary children who could not fulfill their wishes People are sacrificed.They wanted him to be like or not like their husbands, or to be like other relatives they venerated; they wanted him to be some imaginary hero.Such despotism is harmful to the child, and always disappoints the mother.This aforementioned educational obstinacy is often combined with capricious abuse; the mother excuses her outbursts on the pretext of "training" the child; her hostility.

Another common attitude toward children that is equally destructive is masochistic devotion, in which the mother willingly makes her child's slave to fill her own inner emptiness and punish herself for unspeakable hostility.Such a mother is unnaturally anxious and does not allow the child to be out of her sight; she abstains from all entertainment, from all personal life, and thus assumes the role of victim; by virtue of these sacrifices she considers herself entitled not to give the child any independent status.Such self-sacrifice on the part of the mother is liable to give rise to a tyrannical dominating will; [the mournful mother] has forged weapons out of her misery, with which she abuses wildly; A lifelong sense of guilt: This was even more damaging than her display of aggression.Throwing the child around, feeling overwhelmed and defenseless: sometimes punched and kicked, sometimes burst into tears, making him look like a criminal.

The mother's main excuse is that it is impossible for the child to provide the happy self-fulfillment she had hoped from childhood; she blames him for being deceived and for the child's naivety to expose the deception.She used to act like she was having fun with a rag doll; she wasn't responsible for helping her sister or a friend with their babies.But now, society, her husband, her mother, and her own self-esteem insisted that she take responsibility for that strange little life, as if it was entirely her business.Her husband, in particular, lost his temper at the fault of the child just as he did at the wife's poor cooking, or her misbehavior; negative effect.An independent woman, because of her solitary position, because she is unconcerned, or because she has authority at home, will be much calmer of mind; she will not yield, as some women do, to arbitrary demands, regardless of Whether he wants to obey or not, he also forces his children to obey.

It is extremely difficult to bring an existence as mysterious as animal existence, as chaotic as natural forces, and yet human, into preconceived patterns.Thus a child can neither be trained without talking, as a dog can be trained, nor can he be made to understand in the language of an adult; and the child takes advantage of the situation, either with animal sobs or with anger. to answer, or to defy restraint with haughty words. Questions posed in this way are undoubtedly challenging, and a mother who has time to tackle them will enjoy her educational function: while sitting quietly in the park, she will find that the baby is still an excellent excuse for a snooze, just as it was during pregnancy. She is somewhat childlike, and she is often more than happy to show her innocence when she is with children, revisiting her early games and languages, interests and joys.But when the mother is busy washing and cooking.Babysitting another baby, going to the market, receiving guests, especially when she was so busy with her husband's business, the child was nothing but a nuisance and a liability.She didn't bother to "train" him; mainly to keep him from getting into trouble; he was always breaking, tearing, or soiling things, often endangering things and himself; Well, it's annoyingly noisy.He has his own life according to his needs, and his life disrupts the lives of his parents.The interests of the parents and his do not mesh closely, and this causes all kinds of trouble. He is always a burden.So often his parents forced him to make sacrifices he did not understand: he would make sacrifices for their peace and tranquility, as well as for his own future.It was natural for him to resist.He couldn't understand the explanations his mother was trying to explain to him, because she couldn't penetrate his consciousness; his dreams, his fears, his obsessions and his desires formed a world she couldn't see through: A mother can only blindly control a person from the outside, and this person feels that the rules she established have nothing to do with him, an absurd burden. This incomprehension persists when the child grows older: he enters into an interesting and worthwhile world, but excludes the mother.Boys especially, proud of his masculine privilege, disdain women's orders: she insists that he do what he has to do, but she doesn't know how to do his exercises, or how to translate Latin—she fell behind him.In order to complete this thankless task, sometimes the mother is exhausted and weeps.Husbands seldom realize the difficulty: it is trying to control a person with whom you cannot communicate and yet he is alone, trying to forcefully interfere with an independent stranger who can only Get sure and affirmed when it rebels against you. The situation differs according to the sex of the child; although the situation is more difficult when boys are involved, the mother is usually better able to adapt.Because of the supposed prestige that should belong to men, and the advantages that men actually have, many women prefer to have sons. "How wonderful it would be to have a boy!" they said; we have seen that they dreamed of a "hero," who should obviously belong to the male.The son may be the leader of men, the soldier and the creator; he will make the world obey his will, and the mother share in his immortal fame; he will bring her the house she never built, the land she never plowed Land, unread books.Through him she would possess the world—only if she possessed her son.This leads to the ambivalence of her attitude. Freud believed that the mother-child relationship was the least ambivalent; but in fact, a woman adopts an ambiguous attitude towards male transcendence in motherhood as in marriage and love.If her marriage or love history has made her hostile to men, she will be content to be domineering to a male child as a child; she will treat the insolent sex with sarcasm and disrespect.For example, she sometimes scares the child by saying that if he is disobedient, his masculinity will be cut off.Even if she were more humble and gentle, and respected her son as a future hero, she would be compelled to reduce him to his present inner reality, to make him hers by name: just as she treats her husband as a child, She also treats her children like babies.It was too reasonable, too simple, to think that she wanted to castrate her son; her dreams were contradictory: she wanted him to have unlimited power, but at the same time she wanted him to be in her grasp; She wanted him to rule the world, but she also wanted him to kneel before her.She encourages him to be gentle and greedy.Generous, timid, quiet, she forbids him sports, company, she makes him lack self-confidence, because she makes him exist for herself; but if he is not at the same time an adventurer, a winner, a genius of which she is proud , she will be disappointed again.Her influence was undoubtedly often pernicious—as described by Monttrand and other writers.Fortunately, the boy can escape this snare to a considerable extent: tradition and social group encourage him to do so.Mother herself resigned herself to this, for she knew full well that the struggle with men was an unequal struggle.It consoles her that she plays the role of [sorrowful mother], or she is very proud that she has undoubtedly begot someone who conquers her. The little girl gives herself almost entirely to her mother, who therefore demands more of her.The relationship between them is more dramatic.The mother does not cheer her daughter on because she is not a member of that superior class; she looks for a substitute in her. She projects onto her daughter all the ambiguity of her relationship with herself; when the otherness, the otherness of this alterego [second self] is gradually confirmed, the mother feels herself betrayed.The conflicts I mentioned earlier are exacerbated between mother and daughter. Some women who are perfectly content with life will long for their daughters to be themselves, or at least to accept them without regret; Happy Girls' Generation.Colette gives us a picture of a mother who falls into this normal, generous type, Sido.Sido loves her daughter very much, but does not violate her freedom; she fills her life with joy, but does not make any demands, because her happiness comes from her heart.It is also possible sometimes to meet a mother who, in devoting herself to this double by which she recognizes and transcends herself, ends up projecting herself completely onto her daughter; Her only concern; her attitude towards the rest of the world, maybe even selfish and heartless.The risk she runs is that she may be distasteful to those she adores, as Madame Sévigné was to her daughter, Madame Grignan; ;she will seldom succeed in this endeavor, and she will spend her whole life in the status of a minor, afraid to face up to her responsibilities, because she has been supervised in every possible way.But above all there is a kind of masochistic motherhood that threatens to overwhelm the girl regardless.Some women consider their femininity to be the absolute bane; such women take pleasure in a self-appreciative suffering, wishing their daughter would be a victim too, or accepting it as such, while feeling it a sin to have her born .The remorse and pity she feels for herself manifests through her daughter in endless anxiety; To be destroyed in an insatiable lust. Most women both need and loathe their feminine condition; they go through it with resentment all the time. Their aversion to their own sex may well have led them to send their daughters to a male education, but they are seldom as broad-minded as that.A mother troubled by the birth of a woman greets her birth with this vague incantation: "You will be a woman." She hopes to make up for her inferiority by using someone she sees as a substitute to create to make a superior creature; and she would have liked to have suffered her own loss as well.Sometimes, she imposes her own destiny on her children: "What works for me will also work for you; that's how I grew up, and you should share my destiny." On the other hand, She sometimes doesn't allow her children to resemble her at all; she hopes that her experience will be of some use, a way for her to get a second chance.The prostitute sends her daughter to a convent, the ignorant woman sends her daughter to education.In S. de Tevati's Choking, the mother sees in her daughter the heinous consequences of youthful misbehavior, and she angrily warns: You must understand that if this kind of thing happens to you, I will make a clean break with you.As for me, I was naive back then.sin!Confused, what a sin!If a man greets you, ignore him.Keep going your way and don't look back.do you understand?You were forewarned; that kind of thing shouldn't happen to you, and if it did, I'd have no mercy on you, I'd throw you in the gutter. As the girl grows older, a real conflict arises; as we have seen, she wishes to form her own independent status away from her mother.From the mother's point of view, this is a typical expression of ingratitude; she deliberately frustrates her daughter's will to escape; she cannot tolerate her double becoming a local person.A woman can only enjoy the absolute superiority a man feels over a woman when it comes to children, especially daughters; she will be frustrated if she has to give up her privilege and authority.Whether the mother is loving or hostile, her hopes are shattered by the child's independent status.She harbored a double envy: jealousy of the world, because it had taken her daughter, and jealousy of her daughter, because in conquering a part of the world, she also took her share. This jealousy first concerns the little girl's relationship with her father.Sometimes the mother uses her children to keep her husband bound in the house; if it does not succeed, she is of course vexed, but if her scheme succeeds, she immediately restores her childhood complexes in the opposite form: that is, she treats him as before. Angry at her daughter the way a mother is angry; she is furious, feeling abandoned and misunderstood.A French woman married a foreigner who loved her daughter so much that she exclaimed one day in a rage: "I've had enough of living with gringos all day! " The eldest daughter, who is very much loved by her father, often becomes a special target of her mother's persecution.She makes her obnoxious chores, requires her to be dignified and poised beyond the limits of her age: she is a competitor and will be treated like an adult; You can't do whatever you want, you can't live in this world just to have fun", and so on.Mother often beat her for no reason: "That's to teach you a lesson." First of all, she wanted to show that she still had the upper hand—because the mother's biggest worry was that she had no advantage against an eleven or twelve-year-old boy. A child; a girl of this age is already able to do housework well and is a "very little lady"; she is even cheerful, even curious and perceptive, which make her in many respects superior to grown women.The mother liked to navigate her feminine world alone; she wanted to be the only, irreplaceable figure; and now she found herself degraded by this little helper, one of those who could only do so .If she was away for two days and came back to find the house in a mess, she would scold her daughter severely; but if she found that everything in the house was still in order without herself, she would be very angry and very frightened.She couldn't bear that her daughter really became her substitute, replacing her. However, if her daughter bravely shows that she is an outsider and an independent person, she will not tolerate it even more.She has always disliked friends who help her daughter against family oppression and "influence her feelings"; They are all bad, but she has a special hatred for people of her own age—teachers, mothers of children, because little girls are attached to them; she says this affection is absurd, or sick.At times, the child's gaiety, audacity, play, and laughter were enough to make her angry.These were easily forgiven by boys, who were born with masculine privilege; and she had long since given up the hopeless struggle.But why should her daughter, this other woman, have advantages that she simply does not have?She herself is so entangled in "serious" affairs that she envies all occupations and pleasures which save girls from domestic troubles; this flight exposes the falseness of all the values ​​she has sacrificed to them. The older the child is, the deeper the grievances in the mother's heart; she grows old every year, but her young body is developing and thriving every year; in the mother's view, the future that unfolds in front of her daughter comes from her. snatched away.That's why some women get mad at their daughters' menarche: they're jealous that their daughters will be real women in the future.Compared with the cyclical and routine fate of the older woman, the novice has infinite opportunities: it is these opportunities that arouse the mother's envy and hatred; since they are not available to her herself, she often tries to reduce and cancel them.She keeps the girl at home all the time, spies on her, treats her bossily; she dresses her like a fugitive on purpose and doesn't give her any leisure time.If a girl uses make-up, if she "goes out," she's instantly pissed off; all her old grudges against life are now directed at this young life leaping toward a new future.She humiliates the girl, she laughs at her adventures, she keeps finding trouble.There was often open war between them.Usually the younger one wins because time is in her favour; but her victory tinged with abuse.The mother's attitude makes her rebellious and remorseful; the mere presence of the mother makes her a criminal. We have seen how much this guilt will weigh on her future.The mother eventually admits defeat, whether she likes it or not; and when her daughters grow up, a somewhat uncomfortable friendship develops between them.But one is forever disappointed and frustrated, and the other often finds her damned. We shall turn later to discuss the relation of the elderly mother to her older children.But it is clear that the child occupies an extremely important place in the mother's life during the first 20 years.From what has been said of this early relationship, the danger and hypocrisy of the two prevailing prejudices are quite evident. The first prejudice is that motherhood pays off in a woman's life under any circumstances.Not really.Many mothers are unhappy, resentful, disaffected.Tolstoy's wife is an intriguing example; she was sent to the bed more than a dozen times, yet she wrote in her diary the emptiness and futility of everything in the world, including herself.She mentioned moments of tranquility and happiness, but only when she felt pleasantly that the children were indispensable to her, and she also said that they were her only weapon against her husband's superiority; but all this was not enough to make her bored. survival with meaning.She felt constantly that she was capable of anything, but there was nothing for her to do but feed, drink, and sleep the child; and things that would have brought happiness made her sad.She sincerely hoped that the children would be brought up well, but the endless struggle with them made her feel irritable and angry. The relationship between mother and child is part of her whole life, it depends on her relationship with her husband, on her past, her career, and herself; it is both absurd and harmful to think of children as a universal panacea .This is also the conclusion reached by Helen Deutsch in the book I have cited many times earlier.In this work, she examines the phenomenon of motherhood in the light of her own experience as a psychiatrist.She attaches great importance to this function, and believes that women can achieve complete self-realization through it-but only if it is freely assumed and sincerely needed; the psychological, moral and material situation of young women must be Make it possible for her to withstand the effort required; otherwise the consequences will be disastrous.In particular, it is criminal to recommend pregnancy as a cure for depression or neurosis; it means misfortune for both mother and child.Only a woman who is perfectly normal, healthy, and aware of her responsibilities can be a "good" mother. As we have seen, marriages are unhappy because two people combine their weaknesses instead of their strengths—each takes pleasure in asking from the other instead of taking pleasure in giving.To dream of fulfillment, warmth, and value through children is all the more deceitful, because one cannot create them for oneself; children can only bring joy to a woman who can be disinterested, who desires the happiness of others, who does not focus on Ego, seeking to transcend her own existence.Children, it is true, are a cause to which one can justifiably die; but, like any other, it is not a ready justification of existence; one must desire it for its own sake , and not for false gain. Stekel put it well: Children cannot replace people's frustrated love, they cannot replace people's shattered ideals in life, they are not just materials to fill the empty existence.Children represent a responsibility, an opportunity.Children are the noblest flower that ever grows on the tree of free love... They are not playthings, nor are they the means by which the parents satisfy their needs or realize their great ambitions.Children represent duty; they should be brought up to be happy beings. This obligation is not natural: nature cannot dictate a moral choice at all; it implies a covenant, a promise to be kept.Pregnancy is the fulfillment of a solemn duty; and if the mother later evades this duty, she is committing an existence.An independent person sins; but no one imposes this convention on her.Like the relationship between husband and wife, the relationship between parents and children should also be voluntary.It is also not true to say that pregnancy is a special achievement for a woman above all others; it is often said of a woman that she is flirtatious, or lewd, or homosexual "because she has no children"; In this light, her sex life, her goals, and her values ​​are all substitutes for children.In fact, the question is inherently vague and indeterminate: one could just as well say that a woman wants children because she lacks love, lacks a career, lacks opportunities to satisfy her homosexual inclinations.Beneath this pseudo-naturalism lies a social and artificial morality. The phrase "Children are a woman's highest goal" has only advertising value. The second false bias is directly implicit in the first, and it holds that a child must be happy in the arms of its mother.It is true that since nothing about mothering is natural, there is no such thing as an "unnatural mother"; but that is why there are bad mothers.It is a fact proclaimed by psychoanalysis that the danger to the child may lie in the fact that he belongs to "normal" parents.The emotions, obsessions, and neuroses of adults have their roots in their early home life; parents who are themselves in conflict with constant quarrels and tragic scenes are bad friends for children.Deeply traumatized by early family life, their approach to their children takes the form of complexes and frustrations; and the chain of unhappiness goes on indefinitely.In particular, the mother's sadomasochistic psychology creates a sense of guilt in the daughter, and this sense of guilt will be manifested in the daughter's sadistic-masochistic behavior towards her own child. This situation will be repeated and passed on from generation to generation. The easy reconciliation of the general attitude of contempt for women with respect for mothers is highly deceptive.不许女人参加任何公务活动，把她排除在男性职业之外，断言她在所有需要付出努力的领域都是无能的，然后又把最精密、最重大的任务——塑造人，托付给她，这实在是荒谬绝伦。有许多女人，习俗和传统不允许她们受教育，不允许她们有文化，不允许她们有责任，不允许她们从事属于男人特权的活动，尽管如此，却又毫不迟疑地把婴儿放在她们怀中，就和在生活伊始，为了补偿她们较之小男孩的劣等性，把布娃娃送给她们一样。她们如今可以和有血有肉的玩具一起玩了。 为了抵御滥用特权的诱惑，女人非得要么幸福之极，要么做个圣人。孟德斯鸠的说法也许是对的，他说，最好把国务而不是家务交给女人；因为只要有机会，女人就会和男人一样有理性。有效率；通过抽象思维，通过计划行动，她最容易超越自己的性别。就目前而言，要她逃脱她身为女人的过去，取得对她的处境毫无用途的感情平衡，这是非常困难的。男人也是如此，他在工作中比在家中表现得更平衡，更有理性；他以数学的精确性认真筹划自己的业务，但是当他在家和妻子呆在一起时，当他“放松”时，他就会变得没有逻辑性、说谎和任性。她和孩子在一起时同样是“放松”的。而她的放松更加危险，因为她可以保护自己不受丈夫的侵害，孩子却不可以这样保护自己不受她的侵害。从孩子角度来看，假如母亲是一个完美无缺的人，是一个通过自己的工作，通过自己与社会的关系，而不是专横地通过子女去实现自我的女人，那么这将是十分理想的；让孩子呆在父母身边的机会比现在少得多，让孩子在别的孩子中间，在同他有着非个人的单纯关系的那些成年人的指导下，完成自己的学习和娱乐，这同样是十分理想的。 即使孩子在幸福的或至少是平衡的生活中被当成宝贝，他也不可能代表母亲的视野极限。 他不可能使她摆脱她的内在性；她塑造了他的肉体，她哺育了他，她照顾了他。但是她只可能创造出一种只有身为独立者的孩子本人才可以超越的处境；即使她把赌注押在他的未来上，她在空间和时间的超越也仍要依靠代理人，这就是说，她仍注定是依附的。不但她的儿子会忘思负义，而且他的失败将证明她的所有希望都是不真实的：这就如同在婚姻或爱情当中，当唯一靠得住的做法是自由地承担她本人的义务时，她却要让别人去证明她生存的正当性。 我们已经看到，女人的劣等性源于她从一开始就受重复性生活的局限，而男人为了过一种他认为比非本意地沿袭纯粹生存更为重要的生活，则炮制出种种理由；让女人受母性的束缚，将会使这种处境永远地维持下去。她今天要求参与很时兴的活动，而在这种活动中，人类想不断地通过超越，通过向新的目标、新的成就的运动，找到对自身生存正当性的证明； 除非生命有意义，否则她不可能同意生出生命；如果没有在当代经济、政治和社会生活中努力发挥作用，她就不会成为母亲。生产炮灰、奴隶、牺牲品，还是相反，生出自由人，这完全是两回事。在一个组织得当的社会，孩子将基本上由社会机构来管理，母亲将得到照顾和帮助，母性对女人将不完全是与职业不相容的。相反，有工作的女人——农民，化学家，或作家，将会轻而易举地度过孕期，因为她对自己并不十分在意；个人生活最丰富的女人，给予孩子的将最多，向孩子索取的将最少；她若在努力和斗争中掌握了人的真正价值的意义，将最能恰如其分地把孩子抚养成人。如果说今天女人基本上无法把让她离开家几小时并让她精疲力竭的职业，同孩子的最佳利益协调起来，那么这一方面是因为，女性的职业至今仍基本上是奴隶性的，另一方面则是因为，没有人作出努力为在家外的孩子提供照料、保护和教育。就社会方面来说，这是失职问题；但是，借口某种自然法则、上帝或者人类需要母子相互独占来为此辩护，则是虚伪的；这种束缚，实际上只会造成双重的毁灭性的压迫。 那种认为女人通过母性可以具体实现和男人平等的看法纯属欺骗。精神分析学家们曾煞费苦心地证明，孩子会给女人提供阴茎的对等物；但是，这个男子汉的标志虽然值得嫉妒，却没有人会自欺说，仅仅占有阴茎就可以证明自己生存的正当性，或者达到生存的顶点。关于母亲神圣权利的谈论也不乏存在；但并非是由于做了母亲，女人才赢得了选举权，未婚母亲至今仍是声名狼藉的；只有结婚，母亲才能获得荣耀——这就是说，只有从属于丈夫，她才能获得荣耀。只要丈夫仍是家庭的经济首脑，孩子十分依赖的就是他而不是她，尽管她花在他们身上的时间比他要多得多。如我们所见，这就是母子关系完全受她与夫文关系的影响的原因。 因此，夫妻关系、家务劳动和母性形成了一个各种因素相互影响的整体。若妻子能和丈夫亲密地结合在一起，她就可以愉快地承受家务负担；若能对有孩子感到幸福，她就可以容忍她的丈夫。但这种和谐不是轻易就能够达到的，因为分派给女人的各种职能彼此不协调。 妇女杂志充满了给主妇的忠告，它们教给主妇洗碗时如何保持性魅力的艺术，怀孕时仍穿着入时的艺术，以及把撒娇、母性和经济协调起来的艺术。但是，甚至连一丝不苟地照这类忠告办事的妻子，不久以后也会被她的操劳弄得头昏脑胀，未老先衰；有一双因洗碗而变粗的手和一个因怀孕而变形的身体，而又依然想吸引人，这真是比登天还难。因此色情型女人开始怨恨起孩子，因为他们毁了她勾引人的能力，使她失去了丈夫对她的注意。另一方面，若她属于十分有母性的类型，她就会对丈夫宣称孩子及其他一切都归他个人所有感到嫉妒。 如我们所见，结果又是“好”主妇在反对生命活动：孩子成了打蜡地板的敌人。在伴随对干净整齐的家甚是留意而出现的气愤的责骂声中，母爱常常消失了。毫不奇怪，在这些矛盾中挣扎的女人，往往在一种神经质和刻毒的状态下度日；她总是在遭受这样那样的损失，而她所得到的又靠不住，从不在肯定会得到之列。她不可能通过工作本身得到解救，因为她对自己生存正当性的证明，要取决于和她自己的人格相异的自由人格。女人被关在家里不可能形成她自己的生存；她缺乏把自我肯定为个人所需要的手段；因而她的个性不会得到承认。 在阿拉伯人、印度人以及许多农民当中，女人只不过是个雌性家畜，她受尊重的程度依她所干的活儿而定，如果她消失了，会被毫不遗憾地替换。在现代文明中，她丈夫认为她或多或少被个性化了；但除非她彻底放弃自我，如中的娜塔莎那样，在对家庭的热情而专制的奉献中淹没自我，否则她将因被贬为纯粹的一般存在而痛苦。她是那（the）主妇，那（the）妻子，那（the）母亲，她是唯一的而又无法辨认的；娜塔莎以这种最高的自我贬低为乐，并且拒绝做任何比较，以此来否定其他人的存在。但与此相应，现代西方女人却希望感到，人们能辨认出她是这个（this)主妇，这个（this）妻子，这个（this）母亲，这个（this）女人。这是她在社交生活中所要寻求的满足。