ABSTRACT
When women become mothers and men become fathers they are catapulted into new pleasures and stresses. The intensity of the feelings aroused provides a unique opportunity for parents to gain insight. Varied family constellations are illustrated, mother-father differences discussed, and biomedical advances are outlined. Wishes to be a good parent, feeling like a bad mother, and integrating good, bad, idealized, and maligned mother and father images are described. The theme of feeling like a bad mother is illustrated through several vignettes including a mother haunted by painful feelings of guilt that impede her ability to teach her 3-year-old daughter to use the potty; a mother’s struggle to balance work and family life; and a mother’s depression and rejection of her 9-month-old daughter that was triggered by the discovery of her husband’s affair. Also included is a vignette about a mother and her 2-month-old daughter whose conception and birth details reactivated her chronic feelings of inadequacy that were interfering with the care and attachment to her baby.
