A mother cannot also be a father, but she, for the benefit of the child, can sculpt a stable image of the father.
I am always deeply impressed by the degree of understanding of the problem that women express when they talk about raising a child without a father. This is true not only for divorcees, but also for widows, so that these difficulties are not based on guilt that the father was left out of the house. These women often use the words, «It’s a terrible responsibility to be both mother and father at the same time.»
It is indeed true that a single mother has to take on a serious responsibility that is usually assigned to or shared with a father. She has to make all the most important decisions on her own and, as a rule, earn a living. The role of the breadwinner of the family takes up most of her time, which should ideally be devoted to the joys and worries of motherhood. But I believe that part of this exaggerated anxiety is based on a misunderstanding — on the assumption that a woman must somehow try to be not only a mother to a child, but also a father. But this is impossible both psychologically and physically.
We know that a child needs both — father and mother. A small child who does not have one or the other persistently demands from the remaining parent to find what is missing for him. But the most remarkable thing is that a child can create a parent that meets many of his needs. If the child continues to see the departed parent or simply remembers him well, then he can communicate with this parent in his imagination in between visits. If the child does not remember the departed parent, he can reconstruct his image from what he has heard about him, from what he admires in familiar adults of the same sex, and from what he would like to see in this missing parent. When fathers return home after the war, many of the offspring, who had completely forgotten them in childhood, angrily reject the claims of these men to be called their fathers. Instead, children point their fingers at their father’s photograph, with which they associate a certain ideal image and all the stories and stories they have heard. Even a child who has never known his parents at all, either because of their death or his illegitimate birth, creates in his imagination vivid images of both, made up of elements of people he knows or of whom he has read. And he can describe these parents created by his imagination in many details and with many details.
Illegitimate children, adopted from birth into other families, even if these families are ideal, may daydream for hours about their real parents, whom they never knew and about whom they usually cannot find out anything. At times in adolescence or adulthood, they try to find their real parents, even if they realize that they can never be reunited with them.
Thus, man is a being who must have a father and a mother, at least in his soul, and who, of necessity, creates them on his own. Of course, a good real father in many respects is much more preferable than an ideal image. But if there is no real the task of the mother is not to try to replace him, and not even necessarily to find a new spouse, but to create an atmosphere in which the child could create for himself the image of the father in his own imagination.
Here we should give a very brief overview of the progressive development of the relationship of the average boy and the average girl with father and mother — on the conscious and unconscious levels — and how this shapes their characters. And then we can discuss how this information can be useful for a mother raising a child alone.
Around the age of six months, the baby begins to distinguish from each other the people who care for him, and to develop a feeling towards them as people. The mother (or the one who replaces her) is of the greatest importance for the child in the next two years, mainly from the mother the girl or boy receives a sense of security, security. At this stage of development, the child does not develop as strong a sense of dependence on the father, unless, of course, he fumbles with the child as much as the mother. But the child at this time learns to distinguish between men and women, catches the difference in manners, voices, severity, willingness to play. The child learns how to accommodate and enjoy these differences.
Somewhere between the ages of two and three, a boy begins to realize more consciously that his destiny is to become a man. From this age until the age of six, he begins the work of shaping himself in the image and likeness of his father — especially older brothers, if any, and other friendly men. He observes and shakes his head about what activities and affairs they are interested in, how they approach them, what behavior they consider correct and what is not, how they treat each other and women, how they talk, what gestures they use, what they express feelings openly, and which ones they hide, what they are afraid of. The boy plays men’s games all day long: he rides a horse, shoots a pistol, rolls toy cars, assembles buildings and mechanisms from parts of a children’s designer, drives a car or an airplane, and when playing house he takes on the role of a father. By the age of three, the boy becomes aware of the feelings associated with the genitals and may be drawn into sexual play with other children of his age.
Between three and four, the boy’s love for his mother, which was previously expressed mainly in his dependence on her, acquires increasing romantic properties. At the age of four, he can declare that he intends to marry her. But the intense and possessive nature of this love (the boy is a man, and nothing human is alien to him) awakens in him feelings of rivalry and antagonism towards his beloved father. Since the boy believes that his father has the same feelings towards him, and because the father is much bigger, stronger and smarter than him, the boy feels very depressed in connection with such an unequal rivalry and drives all thoughts and feelings related to this into the subconscious. This is a deep-seated anxiety, and the fact that by the age of five or six he already begins to understand more about the life around him, ultimately leads to the fact that the boy gives up the desire that his mother belonged only to him.
After that, he no longer wants her to kiss and caress him, at least in public. Gradually, intolerance and contempt for girls and all sorts of love stories grows. A blessed change for him is the opportunity to give himself completely to all sorts of impersonal interests, such as the study of literacy and arithmetic, nature, science; collecting collections that require the skill of the game. From that time on, he no longer needs to imitate his father intensely, because he believes that he already has the whole character of his father. Instead of the need to please parents, there is a desire to argue, object, contradict, annoy. Now he wants to imitate the older boys — in appearance, demeanor, in their activities.
We believe that the attraction of a boy between the ages of three and six to his mother lays the foundation for his romantic, idealistic feelings, which will manifest in the future when the boy matures. Thus, his sexuality will be strongly associated with a deep love for a beautiful woman, who will also be the tender mother of his children (unlike most animals, in which sexual attraction is indiscriminate and fleeting). But we also consider it very important that the little boy, with all his strong attraction to his mother, should not really attach himself to her so strongly that he will not be able to move away from her later. In a normal family, the boy’s desire for his mother to be entirely his own is prevented from developing by three interrelated factors: his reverence for his father, his understanding that the mother’s romantic love belongs to her husband, and his tactful suppression by the mother of the boy’s desire to become too physically attached to her. sense.
At times we see a situation in which a mother carelessly encourages her son to be too close to her. This may be due to the complete cooling of feelings between her and her husband, so that she instead turns all sensuality to her son. Or maybe she is a big flirtatious who subconsciously seeks to seduce any man of any age. (Well, you know the type of woman I’m talking about.) Or perhaps she’s a woman who doesn’t like men with a strong masculinity. She prefers those who can be persuaded to share her feminine interests. There are many ways in which all these different types of mothers can become too attached to their sons.
If the husband is constantly on the road, then the mother may allow her son to sleep in his father’s bed during the latter’s absences; thus she unwittingly encourages her son’s hidden dreams to take his father’s place. Another may thoughtlessly expose too much in front of her son, flirt with him, dance, or jokingly imagine that he is her husband. She can hug her son too passionately and for a long time and not tactfully stop his inclinations to the same. Another can demonstrate that conversations with her son and his company are much more pleasant to her than her husband’s company and conversations with him. Or the mother, unknowingly but very subtly, may distract her son from spending time with other boys and from his boyish interests; instead, she constantly tries to interest him in interior design, cutting and sewing, or the arts. She can make her son her confidant, telling him about her friends and problems as if he were another woman.
I want to make a reservation that I do not at all want to intimidate normal mothers by demanding that they immediately become harsh and uncommunicative with their sons. It is simply equally undesirable for a mother to be too cold and unfriendly to her son, or, on the contrary, too enveloping. I just want to emphasize the natural difference in the relationship between mother and son, mother and husband, mother and girlfriend.
Obviously, it is much more difficult for a single mother to maintain normal relations with her son, the same as in complete families. She is alone. No matter how normal her psyche may be, she will have a tendency to make her son a very close companion, especially if she has no other children, and squander all her warmth exclusively on him. But the situation is not as hopeless as it seems. There are some natural limits. First, the boy has an instinctive pull to play the role of a normal guy. And if the pressure on him is not too strong, then he will choose the right course of action and actually impose on her mother. The boy will strive to keep the image of his father in his memory, and fill in the gaps with his own imagination.
Further, psychoanalytic research shows that the boy will have enough reverence for the memory of his father that he will not have the desire to invade his father’s territory if the mother behaves correctly. Right behavior is understood as the fact that the mother shows that she also keeps the memory of the boy’s father and respects him precisely as the father of her child. And for the sake of her son, she will never defame or humiliate her father (it doesn’t matter if he died or left the family), regardless of what she really thinks about him. The mother will also help the boy to respect the figure of the father that the boy creates in his imagination from the features of the various men he encounters in life — relatives, teachers, doctors, merchants, neighbors, mother’s admirers. The mother can do this by demonstrating that her man-woman relationship with each of them, whether related, businesslike, or romantic, is all different in quality from the mother-child relationship. In other words, each of these men helps to show the boy his place — the place of the child, just as a father would do. But this is on condition that the mother plays along with them, treating them like men, and her son like a child.
I do not mean to say that a single mother should be careful not to address her schoolboy son as a mature person so as not to dedicate him to her financial situation, not to allow herself to freely chat with him about trifles, not to go on tours with him, to be afraid to even pat him on the shoulder, or not let him feel responsible for saving money or making it. Rather, she must ensure that, no matter what responsibility is placed on him, he continues to remember that he is her son, and not her husband (and certainly not her friend). The mother should in every possible way support her friendly and business ties. When she goes on a field trip with her boy, she may invite another boy and possibly his parents to join. The mother should encourage her son to have his own friends and interests and be able to go to visit without her (without playing terrible anguish about the fact that he is forced to leave her for a while). As the son enters adolescence, the mother may have to remind herself that she shouldn’t be jealous of his girlfriends.
All this is much easier if a single mother has several children. In this case, everyone understands that there is an adult world and there is a world of children, no matter how closely these worlds come into contact in the family.
There are still natural fears of a mother who raises her son without a father, that she, as a woman, will not be able to understand the needs of her son or find out if he is developing and adapting socially and how to help him with his problems. (This is somewhat reminiscent of a hen incubating duck eggs.) First of all, I take it as a good sign when a mother admits that boys are more of a mystery to her than girls, at least in some respects; this means that she herself is fully female and respects the male sex as something else. A woman who believes that she knows perfectly well how to lead the opposite sex can go too far in applying this knowledge, which will cause either rebellion or weak-willed obedience.
When a mother admits that she is only a woman, it promotes the development of chivalry in her son, whether he is four years old or sixteen years old. His desire to please his mother and help her more than compensates for her lack of knowledge of masculine nature on her part. If everything goes right, then the son will instinctively find his male destiny without constant guidance from her. Her anxieties will be alleviated when he succeeds at home, at school and among friends.
Maternal doubts tend to intensify when her son reaches puberty. Perhaps he will become more secretive about his friends, girls, his thoughts and actions. (“Where are you going?” — “So, take a walk.”) Violent emotions awaken in him, at least for moments. He becomes rebellious against some teachers and other authorities. He can make the mother understand that since she belongs to a different sex and a different generation, then, therefore, she is hopelessly behind the times and the current situation. By this time, the son already exceeds her height and size, which excludes the possibility of controlling his behavior with the help of physical influence. Discipline can henceforth be maintained only through moral exhortation, which is like riding a bicycle without holding on to the handlebars.
The romantic attachment to the mother, which was so strong before the age of six, is now most often felt negatively — as a rejection of any tenderness that the teenager immediately bristles at. For only a «sissy» at this age feels quite comfortable in the parent company. In general, a mother raising a son without a husband, in her attempts to keep a teenager under control, faces the same difficulties and problems as a complete family, only experiences them more acutely. It is difficult to formulate the correct line of conduct in positive terms — it will sound like banal stuff. It is easier to start with some negative positions.
We know that a teenager cannot be controlled by constant lectures and threats of punishment. It only irritates them and provokes them to revolt. Surveillance, suspicion and mistrust are even worse; a teenager behaves according to the principle: “She doesn’t believe me, she thinks I’m bad, so why don’t I have fun and become really bad?” On the other hand, in our time, many parents, out of fear of seriously conflicting with their children, pretend, with the best of intentions, that they do not care what they do. And teenagers, in fact, in the depths of their souls, are aware of their ignorance of life and need the advice and guidance of their parents. Although they usually never admit it. But they often complain to their friends or trusted adults that they want their parents to give them advice and guidance, just like the parents of their friends do. Teenagers feel that this is one aspect of parental love.
So the single mother definitely needs to show that she cares about the impression her son makes on society (both his environment and hers), and that she takes it for granted that at times they discuss his behavior together. These can be casual conversations, not necessarily boring and long showdowns. A teenager loves that such conversations take place at the proper level, as between two adults. It must be recognized that since he is left to himself for most of the day, he must not only be ordered what to do, but must be convinced of the need for just such behavior. A teenager is not offended if at the same time the parent expresses herself clearly and firmly. It irritates him if his mouth is shut. And the fact that in words he may not agree with maternal advice does not mean at all that he rejects them.
If a mother cannot convince her teenage son that she is right—because she cannot understand her son’s position—and if she still feels that she is right, then she must stick to her point of view. Even if he does not listen to his mother this time, in the future, knowing her opinion will help him. In the meantime, she can offer her son to consult with another man — an uncle, a teacher, a priest, a lawyer.
If a teenager meets with his father or corresponds with him, then he can be involved in solving some problems. But even if the father also opposes the mother, she still should not change her point of view. She might say, «Well, you can follow your father’s advice, but I still think it’s unwise.» In general, I want to say that although the mother can no longer exercise complete control over the teenage son, as she did in relation to the little boy, and although she cannot be such an authority for the son that the father would be, if he lived together with her family, but still she can influence her son if she is a loving and conscientious mother. In the long term, this is much more important than transitory disagreements and disobedience.
As for the relationship of a single mother with her daughter, then in some ways these problems will be similar to those that arise with sons, but in some ways they will be different. The mother feels less doubt about her ability to raise her daughter without a father, because she has already learned everything there is to know about how girls grow up, because she herself was one. This is an advantage in itself, because a self-confident parent conducts the educational process more easily than a doubting, suspicious and anxious one. And a girl throughout her childhood will have before her eyes a role model, in accordance with which she will form herself.
Everything suggests that a girl needs a father in the same way as a boy. In her earliest childhood, she needs him to learn how much men are different from women — but, nevertheless, are not something completely alien and hostile — so that later they will not be complete strangers to her. Between the ages of three and six, a girl needs a father in the flesh or an imaginary father to whom her romantic aspirations would be directed. If there is too little building material left in her memory, she, just like a boy, will create an image of her father from what she heard about him, from the features of other men and from her own fantasies. The image of this person and the imaginary attitude of the mother towards this person will probably greatly influence the ideals of the girl, under which she will adjust her possible marriage in adulthood. That’s why it’s important that a mother helps a girl think about her father in the best possible way.
Just as important is how the mother behaves towards other men in contact with the family, whether at work or in an informal setting. If a mother, by her behavior and her speeches, makes it clear that she considers all men to be selfish animals, not worthy of any trust — just because she burned herself on one of them — then her daughter can also become infected with such an attitude and, when she grows up, will expect no better. , but the worst. No doubt, it would be very wise for a mother to maintain any contact with families in which there are fathers — with families of acquaintances, relatives and neighbors — so that her daughter can get to know them better by chance meetings. Otherwise, the image of a man in the girl’s head may become unrealistic, too idealized, or, conversely, frightening. Since divorced or widowed mothers often move back in with their parents, or at least visit them much more often, a girl or boy can very effectively use a loving grandfather to create an image of a kind father and establish a child-father relationship with him.
There is also the question of how the situation affects the child when a widowed or divorced mother begins to meet with another man and considers a new marriage. In the old days, some widows automatically dismissed any possibility of another romance from their minds, believing that this defiled their first love, to which they should be faithful. There are relatively few of these these days. Psychiatrists, like most people in general, believe that what makes a woman an excellent wife for one man may just as well make her so for another, when grief subsides and a worthy candidate appears on the horizon.
The problem here is that very often a divorced woman feels humiliated and seeks — consciously or unconsciously — to prove to herself, to the whole world and, most importantly, to her ex-husband, that she is still extremely attractive and desirable. If she is aware of her motives, then she is less likely to get into trouble again than when she acts on unconscious impulses. For in the latter case, it may seem to her that she is simply being molested by a few attractive men and that each one can make an excellent husband. But her critical friend can say that she herself simply hangs herself around the neck of everyone she meets, and indiscriminately. Anyone who has gone through a divorce needs some time and professional help to heal and, more importantly, try to figure out how much of the blame falls on each participant in a failed marriage. Otherwise, there is a high probability of repeating the same tragedy in a new marriage.
The child also needs a certain period of adaptation to the new situation after the father left home in order to understand that the mother is still with him as before, and the father is not completely lost to him. If the mother immediately starts dating a new man or several, the child will come to the conclusion (and he still feels that his father and mother are one) that her love is shallow, unreliable and promiscuous. So the mother should be prudent and careful, especially at first.
It often happens that little children themselves sooner or later help their mother in this matter, asking why she does not get a new dad. (For a child, the idea itself may be more attractive than its actual embodiment.) The mother may then answer that perhaps she will eventually do so, when a person appears on the horizon, whom both she and the child can love, or declare that she has a very nice employee at work whom she would like to invite to lunch. Well, then — according to the situation. There is no painted score here, the melody must be selected by ear, being vigilant in relation to every false note. In one case, a mother with a child and a new man begin to feel that they love each other, despite the fact that at first there may be misunderstandings and outbursts of jealousy from one side or another. In another case, if the boyfriend dislikes the child or the child’s jealousy of him excites a chain reaction of grievances and quarrels between the mother and the candidate for husband, that is, there are all reasons not to rush and seek advice in a family consultation. It may turn out that the proposed new marriage has good prospects, but the child simply needs the help of a child psychologist, mainly in order to overcome his possessive instinct towards his mother. In any case, the antagonism, which was not resolved before marriage, will only increase after marriage.
Most single mothers find that they can raise their sons or daughters on their own, just like parents in two-parent families. In some cases, the additional responsibility that the children feel on the mother (and this, by the way, is very good, unless, of course, it goes to such an extreme that the children begin to feel pity for the mother) forms an unusually mature and strong character in children. .
Video from Yana Shchastya: interview with professor of psychology N.I. Kozlov
Topics of conversation: What kind of woman do you need to be in order to successfully marry? How many times do men get married? Why are there so few normal men? Childfree. Parenting. What is love? A story that couldn’t be better. Paying for the opportunity to be close to a beautiful woman.