Motherless Daughters (53 page)

xxvii “Some events are so big . . . ”: Ibid., xvii.

xxvii As Maxine Harris points out . . . : Ibid., 10-11.

1 “The loss of the daughter to the mother . . . ”: Adrienne Rich,
Of Woman Born
(New York: Norton, 1986), 237.

7 “Some individuals become . . . ”: Tamar Granot,
Without You
(London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2005), 11.

7 Vacillation over a career . . . : Ibid.

7 (One grief counseling Web site . . . ): TLC Group, Dallas, Texas, “Beware the Five Stages of Grief,”
www.counselingforloss.com/article8.htm
.

8 I prefer J. William Worden’s Four Tasks of Mourning . . . : Worden,
Children and Grief,
12.

8 Unlike adults . . . : Erna Furman,
A Child’s Parent Dies
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974), 12.

9 They do it in the midst . . . : Mary Ann Emswiler and James P. Emswiler,
Guiding Your Child Through Grief
(New York: Bantam Books, 2000), 18.

10 ”They know how much pain . . . ”: Ibid., 19.

11 It’s difficult for children . . . : Harry Hardin and Daniel Hardin, “On the Vicissitudes of Early Primary Surrogate Mothering II: Loss of the Surrogate Mother and Arrest of Mourning,”
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
48 (2000), 1246.

11 Researchers have found . . . : National Public Radio, “Morning Edition,” August 30, 1988; Furman, A Child’s Parent Dies, 16-17, 22-23, 112-113; Nan Birnbaum, personal communication, October 25, 1991; Russell Hurd, “Adults View Their Childhood Bereavement Experiences,”
Death Studies
23 (1999), 17.

11 Some therapists have viewed adolescence . . . : Martha Wolfenstein, “How Is Mourning Possible?”
Psychoanalytic Study of the Child
21 (1966): 93-123; Anna Freud, “Adolescence,”
Psychoanalytic Study of the Child
13 (1958): 255-278; Moses Laufer, “Object Loss and Mourning during Adolescence,”
Psychoanalytic Study of the Child
21 (1966): 269-293; Max Sugar, “Normal Adolescent Mourning,”
American Journal of Psychotherapy
22 (1968): 258-269.

12 In response to a major loss . . . : Wolfenstein, “How Is Mourning Possible?” 111.

12 Because she equates crying . . . : Ibid., 110-111.

13 Fathers may feel grief . . . : Therese Rando,
How to Go on Living When Someone You Love Has Died
(New York: Lexington, 1988), 65-67.

16 Rage, rather than grief . . . : Judith Mishne, “Parental Abandonment: A Unique Form of Loss and Narcissistic Injury,”
Clinical Social Work Journal
7 (Fall 1979): 17.

19 As Virginia Woolf . . . : Virginia Woolf, “A Sketch of the Past,”
Moments of Being
(New York: Harvest/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), 89.

20 But negative emotion . . . : Therese Rando,
Treatment of Complicated Mourning
(Champaign, Ill.: Research Press, 1993), 476.

22 A mother who inflicted . . . : Ibid., 473-474.

22 It doesn’t invalidate . . . : Ibid., 476.

24 Certain days or times . . . : Ibid., 64-77; Rando,
How to Go on Living,
77.

24 Holidays, crises, and sensory reminders . . . : Ibid.

24 Therese Rando calls these . . . : Rando,
Treatment of Complicated Mourning,
64.

27 Full resolution of mourning . . . : Camille B. Wortman and Roxane Cohen Silver, “The Myths of Coping with Loss,”
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
57 (1989): 353.

28 Sigmund Freud believed . . . : Sigmund Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia,”
Sigmund Freud: Collected Papers
, vol. 4, ed. Ernest Jones, M.D. (New York: Basic Books, 1959), 152-170.

28 But more recent scholars . . . : Phyllis Silverman, “The Impact of Parental Death on College-Age Women,”
Psychiatric Clinics of North America
10 (1987): 387-403; Furman,
A Child’s Parent Dies,
52.

28 When Phyllis Silverman . . . : Silverman, “The Impact of Parental Death on College-Age Women,” 402.

28 Many of the 125 children . . . difficulty over time: “Phyllis R. Silverman: An Omega Interview,” 259; Worden,
Children and Grief
, 5.

28 It seems that a child’s memory . . . : Granot,
Without You,
46-47.

28 We’re finally moving . . . : Silverman,
Never Too Young to Know,
21.

36 This usually occurs between . . . : Furman,
A Child’s Parent Dies,
41-42; John Bowlby,
Attachment and Loss,
vol. 3,
Loss: Sadness and Depression
(New York: Basic Books, 1980), 429.

37 Daughters whose mothers died . . . a parent they never knew: Harris,
The Loss That Is Forever,
17-19.

37 Although young children’s capacity . . . : Bowlby,
Attachment and Loss,
424.

37 He observed that children . . . : Ibid., 435.

38 Although toddlers don’t yet fully . . . : Sandra E. Candy-Gibbs, Kay Colby Sharp, and Craig J. Petrun, “The Effects of Age, Object, and Cultural/Religious Background on Children’s Concepts of Death,”
Omega
15 (1984-1985): 329-345; Richard A. Jenkins and John C. Cavanaugh, “Examining the Relationship between the Development of the Concept of Death and Overall Cognitive Development,”
Omega
16 (1985-1986): 193-194.

 

38- A child’s first and most profound . . . : Nancy Chodorow, The

39
Reproduction of Mothering
(Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1978), 86.

39 As Bowlby and other attachment theorists have observed . . . : Bowlby,
Loss,
428, as well as the comprehensive research and writings of Mary Salter Ainsworth and Mary Main, especially Russel L. Tracy and Mary D. Salter Ainsworth, “Maternal Affectionate Behavior and Infant-Mother Attachment Patterns,”
Child Development
52 (1981), 1341-1343; Mary Main and Donna Weston, “The Quality of the Toddler’s Relationship to Mother and to Father: Related to Conflict Behavior and the Readiness to Establish New Relationships,”
Child Development
52 (1981), 932-940; Mary Main and Jude Cassidy, “Categories of Response to Reunion with the Parent at Age 6: Predictable From Infant Attachment Classifications and Stable Over a 1-Month Period,”
Developmental Psychology
24 (1988), 415-416; and Robert Karen,
Becoming Attached: Unfolding the Mystery of the Infant-Mother Bond and Its Impact on Later Life
(New York: Warner Books: 1994), 131-226.

39 Among children of all ages . . . : Michael Rutter, “Resilience in the Face of Adversity,”
British Journal of Psychiatry
147 (1985): 603; Elliot M. Kranzler, David Shaffer, Gail Wasserman, and Mark Davies, “Early Childhood Bereavement,”
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
29 (July 1990): 513-520.

39 Although she often makes it clear . . . : Bowlby,
Attachment and Loss,
419.

 

39 Elizabeth Fleming’s case study . . . : Furman,
A Child’s Parent Dies
, 219-232.

40 “She had never been . . . ”: Ibid., 223.

41 Some therapists believe that children . . . : Sol Altschul and Helen Beiser, “The Effect of Early Parent Loss on Future Parenthood,” in
Parenthood: A Psychodynamic Perspective,
ed. Rebecca S. Cohen (New York: Guilford Press, 1984), 175.

42 “[They] will skirt the mention”: Mishne, “Parental Abandonment,” 17.

42 SigmundFreud called this phenomenon . . . : Sigmund Freud, “Splitting of the Ego in the Defensive Process,”
Sigmund Freud: Collected Papers,
vol. 5, ed. Ernest Jones, M.D. (New York: Basic Books, 1959), 372-375.

45 While an adult brings . . . : David M. Moriarty, ed.,
The Loss of Loved Ones: The Effects of Death in the Family on Personality Development
(Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1967), 96.

45 When Anna Freud observed . . . : In Mishne, “Parental Abandonment,” 22.

45-

46 “I have to telephone . . . ”: Ibid.

46 She’d be left in what Anna Freud called . . . : Anna Freud,
Infants without Families
(Madison, Conn.: International Universities Press, 1973), cited in Christina Sekaer, “Toward a Definition of Childhood Mourning,”
American Journal of Psychotherapy
16 (April 1987): 209.

46 The loss of a mother creates . . . : Mishne, “Parental Abandonment,” 77. See also Joan Fleming, Sol Altschul, Victor Zielinski, and Max Forman, “The Influence of Parent Loss in Childhood on Personality Development and Ego Structure” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, San Francisco, Calif., May 1958); and George Krupp, “Maladaptive Reactions to the Death of a Family Member,”
Social Casework
(July 1972): 430.

47 When researchers at . . . have exited the scene: J. William Worden and Phyllis Silverman, “Parental Death and the Adjustement of School-Age Children,”
Omega
33 (1996), 91-101.

47 Adolescence, a period of intense . . . : Anna Freud, “Adolescence,” 255-278.

48 In addition, sleep disturbances . . . : Heather Servaty and Bert Hayslip, “Adjustment to Loss Among Adolescents,”
Omega
43 (2001), 313-314.

48 Two years after the loss . . . : Ibid., 314.

49 This is not a time of . . . : Sumru Ekrut, “Daughters Talking about Their Mothers: A View from the Campus,” working paper no. 127, Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, 1984, 1.

49 As a study of a hundred autobiographical . . . : Ibid., 4.

54 A 1950s study of orphaned children . . . : Anna Freud, “Adolescence,” 266.

54 “It was marked by feeling . . . ”: Furman,
A Child’s Parent Dies,
194.

56 In fact, a teen is more likely . . . : Ross Gray, “Adolescents’ Perceptions of Social Support After the Death of a Parent,”
Journal of Psychosocial Oncology
7 (1989), 127.

57 Adolescents, as they undergo symbolic . . . : Rose-Emily Rothenberg, “The Orphan Archetype,”
Psychological Perspectives
14 (Fall 1983): 181-194.

57 The teenaged girl who thinks . . . : Benjamin Garber, “Mourning in Adolescents: Normal and Pathological,”
Adolescent Psychiatry
12 (1985): 378.

57 This is in part to conform . . . : Ann Marie Lenhardt and Bernadette McCourt, “Adolescent Unresolved Grief in Response to the Death of a Mother,”
Professional School Counseling
3 (February 2000), 190.

57 The more composed a teen . . . : Ibid., 189-190.

57 At the same time the teenager . . . : Ibid.

60 And some research suggests . . . : Rutter, “Resilience,” 605; Mary D. Salter Ainsworth and Carolyn Eichberg, “Effects on Infant-Mother Attachment of Mother’s Unresolved Loss of an Attachment Figure, or Other Traumatic Experience,” in
Attachment Across the Life Cycle,
ed. Colin Murray Parkes, Joan Stevenson-Hinde, and Peter Marris (London: Tavistock/Routledge, 1991), 165.

60 It also forces her into maturity . . . : Garber, “Mourning in Adolescents,” 379.

62 Many of us have had access . . . : Rosalind C. Barnett, “Adult Daughters and Their Mothers: Harmony or Hostility?” working paper no. 209, Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, 1990, 1.

67 Elizabeth Nager and Brian De Vries . . . : Elizabeth Nager and Brian De Vries, “Memorializing on the World Wide Web: Patterns of Grief
and Attachment in Adult Daughters of Deceased Mothers,”
Omega
49 (2004), 45.

67 Between the ages of forty and sixty . . . : Andrew Scharlach and Karen Fredriksen, “Reactions to the Death of a Parent During Midlife,”
Omega
27 (1993), 307.

67 Still, Nager, and De Vries say . . . : Nager and De Vries, “Memorializing on the World Wide Web,” 45.

67 Three months after the loss . . . : Miriam Moss, et. al. “Impact of Elderly Mother’s Death on Middle-Age Daughters,” International Journal of
Aging and Human Development
37 (1993), 1.

67 74 percent said . . . : Ibid., 8.

67 67 percent continued . . . : Scharlach and Fredriksen, “Reactions to the Death of a Parent During Midlife,” 309—310.

67 86 percent reported . . . : Ibid., 312.

67 40 percent reported . . . : Ibid., 313.

68 36 percent developed . . . : Ibid.

68 75 percent saw it . . . : Moss, et. al., 8.

68 72 percent did not feel . . . : Ibid.

68 80 percent believe . . . : Ibid.

68 Women who were younger . . . : Ibid., 10.

68 Because an adult daughter . . . : Moss, et al., 10.

68 Research from the Wellesley College Center . . . : Barnett, “Adult Daughters and Their Mothers,” 10.

69 In the healthiest scenario . . . : Evelyn Bassoff,
Mothers and Daughters: Loving and Letting Go
(New York: Plume-NAL, 1988), 224.

69 “Although the primal bond . . . ”: Martha A. Robbins,
Midlife Women and Death of Mother
(New York: Lang, 1990), 246.

76 Of 149 motherless women . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 5 (see Appendix A).

79 “When a child witnesses . . . ”: Harris,
The Loss That Is Forever,
26.

79 A mother is a daughter’s natural . . . : Jacqueline May Parris Lamb, “Adolescent Girls’ Responses to Mothers’ Breast Cancer” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1984), 61.

86 Mothers who are institutionalized . . . usually unpredictable: Therese A. Rando,
Clinical Dimensions of Anticipatory Mourning
(Champaign, Ill.: Research Press, 2000), 481.

86 Death always feels sudden . . . : Silverman,
Never Too Young to Know,
84.

86 “It is one of the mysteries . . . ”: From the
Autobiography of Mark Twain,
quoted in Moffat,
In the Midst of Winter,
6.