ABSTRACT
The extracts above demonstrate two contrasting perspectives on the plight of the isolated mother. The focus on the demands a depressed mother makes on healthcare services, families, children and partners tells a different tale from that from the woman’s perspective in the second extract. Which of them is most important? How and why do societies, families and individuals appear to collude in the blatant lack of support that both of these pictures depict? Part of the answer lies in the strength of the myth of motherhood as natural, desirable and unequivocally fulfilling for all women. Almost everyone, male and female, subscribes to this to some extent and yet almost everyone fails to achieve fulfilment and success. It seems that, despite the fact that the human race only survives because it reproduces itself, western industrial societies do not have the knowledge or the will to make motherhood a positive experience. This is due to the way
knowledge is collected and disseminated. Paradoxically, while scientists portray their knowledge as unbiased and impartial, what they are interested in asking derives from a very clear standpoint. That perspective is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the concerns of mothers.
