The Emotionally Absent Mother

A mother conveys “I see you” primarily through accurate mirroring (see Mother as Mirror, p. 31) and attuned responsiveness. She knows, for instance, what we like and what we don’t. She knows what our interests are and how we feel about things. Being seen is being known.

“I’m glad that you’re here” is an important first message for a child to hear. This message is communicated through behaviors that tell the child she is valued and wanted.

Here are ten basic Good Mother messages:
I’m glad that you’re here.
I see you.
You are special to me.
I respect you.
I love you.
Your needs are important to me. You can turn to me for help.
I am here for you. I’ll make time for you.
I’ll keep you safe.
You can rest in me.
I enjoy you. You brighten my heart.

When the mother is checked out and not attuned enough to respond to the child’s needs, the child ends up adapting to the mother instead of the other way around. Losing touch with his core experience, the child then develops what Winnicott calls a false self.

Recent research reinforces this notion that the mother doesn’t have to be 100 percent attuned and available to her child to offer good-enough parenting. It suggests that what is needed is to be in sync (defined as in a harmonious state together, with the mother attuned to the child) 30 percent of the time.3

Studies in Sweden found that even when a mother works outside the home and the father is the primary caretaker, babies still strongly prefer being with the mother.

It is not what Mother does that is so critical, but rather her energetic presence and her love that are so important. Is she spaced out or angry while feeding her baby? When Mother is really there in a loving way, then Mommy’s milk and Mommy’s heart don’t feel separate. When she’s not there, her milk is not as sustaining. The baby may feel not quite right taking it, perhaps because it is not so freely given or because there’s something unwanted in the interaction that comes along with the milk.

Virtually all children, even abused children, love their parents. It’s built into the nature of being a child. They may be hurt, disappointed, caught in destructive modes of being that ward off any possibility of getting the love they yearn for, but to be attached, even anxiously attached, is to be in love. Each year the love may become a little more difficult to access; each year the child may disavow his wish for connection more firmly; he may even swear off his parents and deny that he has any love for them at all; but the love is there, as is the longing to actively express it and to have it returned, hidden like a burning sun.

it is too close to the unbearable pain of feeling rejected as an infant when one was so utterly dependent.

course you can’t fully turn off wanting; you just disconnect from your awareness of it. Your wanting gets relegated to the unconscious, where it remains in very primitive form and has a sense of great urgency attached to it.