Refrigerator Mothers?

I've been thinking about mother-guilt a lot lately and it's had a lot of coverage in the media. With organic baby food ranges claiming to give children a better start to life and constant scientific studies pointing out exactly what we're doing wrong with our children, it's easy to see why these days, us mums (and sometimes dads) struggle to have confidence in our child rearing abilities.


I have a theory about mother-guilt - I don't think we're alone. Throughout the centuries, I think it's always ridden on the backs of mothers, with every maternal generation having some area where they feel they're just not doing enough.



I'd never heard the term 'Refrigerator mother' until today, but apparently it was used in the 50's, 60's and 70's to describe mothers who's children had been diagnosed with autism or schizophrenia. The occurance of these illnesses in children was blamed on their mothers who were assumed to be emotionally cold and hard, thus coining the slogan, 'Refrigerator mother'. The amount of guilt and shame heaped on these mothers would have been unsurmountable.



Having said this, is mother-guilt heaped on us by society or do we heap it on ourselves? Are we tough on ourselves as mothers because we have low opinions of ourselves or is it entrenched in every mother, no matter what her level of confidence?



I love reading profiles and interviews of successful people. People who have achieved their dreams and then some. These people are often highly motivated and always busy. One common thread that has me intrigued though, are the personal battles these people often endure, their entire life. They often admit to having low self esteem and or anxiety problems and many of these people attribute their success to the driving powers of their weaknesses.



Perhaps mother-guilt isn't something we should try and eradicate from our lives, rather something we can harness the power of and use to our advantage. I'm not saying that being eaten up by guilt is helpful and I certainly don't want to live my life that way but what if, instead of fighting our need to perfect the art of motherhood, we used it for our own advantage by harnessing its power and going with the flow?