THE GOOD ENOUGH MOTHER PODCAST
Who is the 'bad mother'?
Unpacking The Lost Daughter
June 26, 2022
MOTHERHOOD, THE LOST DAUGHTER, THE BAD MOTHER, MATERNAL TRANSGRESSION, CULTURAL TABOOS, PARENT & INFANTS, PERINATAL, REALITY OF MOTHERHOOD, PARENT TO BE, PODCAST EPISODE
with Consultant Perinatal Psychologist Julianne Boutaleb
This podcast episode is unpacking and discussing the recent Netflix production The Lost Daughter, based on the novel of the same name by the pseudonymous Italian novelist Elena Ferrante and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The film explores the textured, complex, nuanced, and challenging parts of the mothering experience and the positioning of motherhood culturally. The themes explored shine a light on the shadow side of being a mother, the boundaries of maternal ‘transgressions’, and the experience of maternal ambivalence.
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To reflect on the film, I’m joined in conversation by Julianne Boutaleb, a passionate and highly experienced perinatal psychologist who has worked for over 15 years in the NHS and private practice with parents and parents-to-be and their babies. Julianne and I discuss the importance of this film in exploring the complex and raw portrayal of motherhood on our screens, something we so rarely see examined in such a demanding and articulate way.
We look at mothering and the experience of maternal violence, peacemaking and repair, and explore the gap between the idealised version of motherhood versus what is real. We ask and explore questions such as - what do we do with the loss of the imagined future we had before having our children? What are ‘maternal transgressions’ of the ‘bad mother’ and who defines these? Who decides which are acceptable and which ones aren't? What stories and rules have we internalised as mothers, and where have these come from? What standards are we holding ourselves to as mothers?
We look at the possibility of self-erasure and self-surveillance, and explore why it could be helpful to start with the basic premise that we are never going to always meet our child's emotional needs, and why perhaps that's not our job.
This is a powerful episode full of interesting discussion on the cultural, social and deeply personal experience of mothering and the sacrifice, tension and fierce love involved. Acknowledging that this film can raise challenging, fraught, and sometimes painful responses in viewers, if you find aspects of this podcast conversation raise difficult feelings for you, please reach out for support.
support lines
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USA - www.postpartum.net/ - Text “Help” to 800-944-4773 (EN)
podcast notes
Cultured magazine: ‘In the lost daughter mums are people too’ - Mariah Kreutter.
The Guardian: ‘How The Lost Daughter confronts one of our most enduring cultural taboos’ - Adrian Horton
Winnicott’s theory of A Good Enough Mother
Sara Ruddick; Feminist philosopher and the author of Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace
Foucault and Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon
Melanie Klein; Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis.
MEeT Julianne Boutaleb
Julianne is a passionate and highly experienced perinatal psychologist who has worked for over 15 years in the NHS and private practice with parents and parents-to-be and their babies. She is a member of the Birth Trauma Association and Association for Infant Mental Health and specialises in working therapeutically with birth trauma, PTSD and tokophobia (fear of giving birth) as these issues impact the mother, couple relationship and parent-infant attachment. In addition, she is also affiliated with BICA (British Infertility Counselling Association) and offers therapy to individuals and couples who are pregnant or are parenting following ART (IVF, ICSI, donor conception, surrogacy) or adoption. She draws on attachment, object relations theory and the watch, Wait and Wonder model in her clinical practice.
From 2003 to 2009, she was part of a multidisciplinary strategic health team that successfully established Sure Start services in East London. As part of that initiative, she set up and ran a community-based perinatal psychology service in Newham. From 2009 to 2015, she held clinical lead roles as Clinical Lead for Perinatal Mental Health in primary care and latterly in IAPT services in Newham. She has over 15 years of experience teaching and training clinical and counselling psychologists, psychotherapists and other health professionals on issues of parental mental health, attachment, early years and positive mental health for babies and young children.
Between 2003 to 2015, she was one of the few psychologists in the UK to offer a specialist perinatal psychology placement as part of the North Thames Clinical Psychology training programme. She has taught in these specialist areas in clinical and counselling psychology training courses at the University of Essex and UEL. She is a BPC-accredited DIT therapist and supervisor.
Click here to visit Parenthood in Mind to learn more about Julianne.
Follow her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parenthoodinmind/