WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?: Exploding the Myth of Dependency by Luise Eichenbaum & Susie Orbach

Author:Luise Eichenbaum & Susie Orbach [Eichenbaum, Luise]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2014-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

The Effect of Pregnancy and Birth on the Dependency Dynamic

The decision to have a child is a milestone in the life of a couple. When two people want to have a child together, they are making a statement about their commitment and their feelings for each other. A child represents connection and intimacy in the couple relationship. Just as the two people have created a relationship and nourished loving feelings between them, they create a new life. Their love and commitment has a sense of forward movement, a working toward and creating a future together. The birth of a child represents both the connection of two people as well as the transforming quality of love—that is, just as an intimate relationship allows and demands that a person change and grow, so too does a baby represent transformation, growth, newness, development.

Pregnancy sparks off specific issues around the theme of dependency for the expectant couple. For there is the anticipated dependency of the baby and the realization that infants are vulnerable and need care, attention, and love. Mothers and fathers relate to this challenge in gender-linked ways. Despite conscious changes and intentions, a woman may still worry about whether she can give sufficiently, while a man may be preoccupied with thoughts about whether he can be a good provider. Although the biological imperatives for creating a baby require mutual and equal participation of the two partners, child-rearing arrangements in our society are such that the equality may become unbalanced upon the birth of the child. Women raising children, by and large, continue to have a different relationship to their children than men do. There is an imbalance in the contact, the understanding, the intimacy between mother and child and father and child. The couple who view the nurturing of a child as a mutual experience, a shared experience, are knocked off course, unbeknownst to them, because of the child-rearing arrangements that have women as the primary caretakers and men somewhere in the background or off to the side. Most women spend more time with the infant, and feel responsible for learning to understand the meanings of various cries. If they are breast-feeding they are the ones upon whom the infant depends for her or his very survival. The dependency of an infant is so great that it often creates a shift in the dependency dynamic that existed for the couple before the birth of the child.

For many women, the fact of being pregnant brings with it feelings of self-esteem, accomplishment, confidence, and self-respect.19 A woman may change so that she no longer seeks validation from her partner. Her self-image shifts. She may feel competent in a new way. Yet, interestingly, many women report feeling more dependent on their partners during pregnancy.

They feel a bit more vulnerable and begin to feel the burden, of responsibility for this new life inside them. With this major new responsibility they become more aware of their own need for someone to rely on and trust. Some

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