Early Aspects of Mothering: What Makes it so Hard to Be There to Be Left

In my earlier article ‘Mothers have to be there to be left’ (1982), I described how important it is for the child's healthy growth that a mother remain fully available to him while supporting and appreciating his develop mentally self-initiated steps towards becoming a person in his own right. I stressed that this mutually crucial process in the mother—child relationship entails great emotional hardship for the mother. Taking weaning-to-self-feeding as a prototypical developmental step, I illustrated some common ways in which mothers unconsciously avoid or mitigate their distress at ‘being left’ at the cost of jeopardizing the child's mastery. I also listed several other developmental milestones, such as the child's entry into pre-school and latency, to show that this oft-repeated lifelong process remains difficult for mothers throughout and always tends to mobilize their defensive responses. Toddlers and Their Mothers (E. Furman, 1992a) provided much more extensive and detailed clinical data as well as a much deeper understanding of these developmental changes in the mother—child relationship, with special focus on the toddler's acquiring ownership of his body through self-care. The child's wish to ‘do for