Психология и Психотерапия Семьи (Sep 2018)
The phenomenon of single motherhood: the view from inside
Abstract
The paper deals with the problem of single motherhood from the point of view of subjective perception of this status, its connection with psychological well-being in other spheres of mother’s life, resources and the strategies of coping with this difficult life situation. The results of an analysis of semi-structured interviews with 5 women, who class themselves as single mothers, are presented. It is shown that the feeling of being a single mother is not so much related to the actual separation from the father of the child, and to the help from the environment, but mostly ⎯ to the inability to share responsibility for the life of the child with someone. The state of loneliness in motherhood is experienced mainly as a heavy one, feelings of excessive tension, overload, confusion, guilt prevail. This condition is experienced heavier by those women whose partners (their child’s fathers) made the decision to part with them. The current relationships with the child’s fathers, according to the women, have little effect on their sense of lonely motherhood, more important is the father’s participation in the life of the child. Recognizing the importance of psychological well-being in various spheres of life, the impact of mother’s satisfaction with mother’s life on child-parent relations, due to limited resources, women often sacrifice well-being in other areas for the sake of child-parent relations. Many women seek to find new resources to harmonize their lives and child-parent interaction, recourse to the specialists. The most common strategies for coping with the difficult life situation are flexibility, acceptance of restrictions, sensitivity to the individual characteristics of their children and their own. Single mothers attach great importance to the joint time with children, rituals, the balance of emotional intimacy and distance with an adolescent.
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