Motherless Daughters

by Hope Edelman

  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.

  Chapter Two: Times of Change

  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.

&nb
sp; 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.

  Chapter Three: Cause and Effect

  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.

  86 When a daughter’s assumptions . . . : Rando, Treatment of Complicated Mourning, 542.

  88 Losing a parent to . . . : Ibid., 523.

  88 A mother’s suicide leaves . . . : Ibid., 524.

  88 Therapists have observed . . . : Karen Dunne-Maxim, Edward J. Dunne, and Marilyn J. Hauser, “When Children Are Suicide Survivors,” in Suicide and Its Aftermath, ed. Edward J. Dunne, John L. McIntosh, and Karen Dunne-Maxim (New York: Norton, 1987), 243.

  88 Child survivors also may . . . : Ibid., 234-240.

  89 When the psychologists Albert Cain and Irene Fast . . . : Albert C. Cain and Irene Fast, “Children’s Disturbed Reactions to Parent Suicide: Distortions of Guilt, Communication, and Identification,” in Survivors of Suicide, ed. Albert C. Cain (Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1972), 93-111.

  89 Other daughters develop . . . : Ibid., 106-107.

  89 The violence or mutilation often involved . . . : Rando, Treatment of Complicated Mourning, 512.

  90 Lenore Terr, M.D., a specialist . . . : Lenore Terr, Too Scared to Cry (New York: Basic Books, 1990), 44-45.

  90 The psychologist Lula Redmond . . . : Lula Redmond, Surviving: When Someone You Love Was Murdered (Clearwater, Fla.: Psychological Consultation and Education Services, 1989), cited in Rando, Treatment of Complicated Mourning, 536-537.

  91 In 43 percent of all homicides . . . : Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States 2003: Uniform Crime Reports, Table 2.11, Murder Circumstances, by Relationship, 2003, http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/cius_03/xl/03tbl2-11.xls.

  91 One need look no farther . . . : Marilyn Johnson, “A Place to Heal,” Life, June 1995, 44.

  91 Because homicides are sometimes . . . : Rando, Treatment of Complicated Mourning, 541.

  92 Counselors at the Dougy Center . . . : After a Murder (Portland, Ore.: The Dougy Center for Grieving Children, 2002), 17.

  92 Perhaps nowhere has this been . . . : Elliot, “Growing Up Grieving, With Constant Reminders of 9/11, B6.

  92 For the “9/11 kids” . . . : Ibid., B6.

  92 Children who lost parents in Oklahoma City and on September 11 have the difficult task . . . sum of its parts . . . : Rando, Clinical Dimensions of Anticipatory Mourning, 171-173.

  93 ”Why hadn’t I heard her . . . ”: Leslie Pietrzyk, A Year and a Day (New York: William Morrow, 2004), 166.

  95 Death has a finality to it . . . : Mishne, ”Parental Abandonment,” 15.

  96 Judith Mishne, in her article . . . : Ibid., 15-32.

  99 Victoria Secunda, the author . . . : Victoria Secunda, When You and Your Mother Can’t Be Friends (New York: Delta, 1991), 145.

  99- “Because acknowledging that one . . . ”: Bassoff, Mothers and 100 Daughters, 240.

  101 “Feeling and talking through . . . ”: Ibid., 241-242.

  Chapter Four: Later Loss

  105 Nobody knows for sure . . . : Rutter, “Resilience,” 600; Therese Rando, personal communication, January 29, 1993.

  105 Most therapists agree . . . : Sidney Moss and Miriam Moss, “Separation as a Death Experience,” Child Psychiatry and Human Development 3 (1972-1973); Furman, A Child’s Parent Dies, 182; Therese Rando, personal communication, January 29, 1993.

  105 In her audiotape . . . : Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Warming the Stone Child: Myths and Stories About Abandonment and the Unmothered Child, Sounds True Catalog, A104, 1990.

  105 The British psychiatrist . . . : John Bowlby, A Secure Base (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 172-173.

  106 A daughter who perceives herself . . . : Rutter, “Resilience,” 606-608.

  106 When she believes she has acted . . . : Ibid.

  107 Erna Furman, who studied . . . : Furman, A Child’s Parent Dies, 178-183.

  107 Later loss reactivates . . . : Ibid.

  108 Six percent of . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 8 (see Appendix A).

  109 It’s part of what . . . : Harris, The Loss That Is Forever, 6.

  109 “For these individuals . . . ”: Ibid., 260.

  109 People don’t usually . . . : Gina Mireault and Lynne Bond, “Parental Death in Childhood: Perceived Vulnerability and Adult Depression and Anxiety,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 62 (October 1992), 522.

  109 A sense of inner fragility . . . : Granot, Without You, 103.

  110 “Often, adults do not understand . . . ”: Ibid., 133

  110 As the child matures . . . : Jennie Long Dilworth, and Gladys J. Hildreth, “Long-term Unresolved Grief: Applying Bowlby’s Variants to Adult Survivors of Early Parental Death,” Omega 36 (1997-1998), 153.

  113 “They’re highly intuitive . . . ”: Estés, Warming the Stone Child.

  114 Although orphan is defined as . . . : UNAIDS 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, July 2004, www.unaids.org/bangkok2004/GAR2004_html/GAR2004_05_en.htm#P599_122278.

  114 In 2003, 29,140 U.S. children . . . : personal communication, Felicitie Bell, actuary, U.S. Social Security Administration, Baltimore, Md., August 2, 2005.

  114 “double orphans . . . ”: UNAIDS 2004 Report.

  114 And about another 32,000 were between the ages of nineteen and thirty-six . . . : U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1990, chart 613 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1990), 370.

  114 For such a child . . . : Granot, Without You, 135.

  115 Outsiders intrude on . . . : Ibid.

  115 Multiple losses within . . . : Kenneth Kaufman and Nathaniel Kaufman, “Childhood Mourning: Prospective Case Analysis of Multiple Losses,” Death Studies 29 (2005): 238.

  115 Instead of mourning for . . . to process it: Granot, Without You, 136.

  116 The alchemists originally . . . : Rothenberg, “The Orphan Archetype,” 182.

&n
bsp; 116 They compared the orphan . . . : Ibid.

  117 In her essay . . . : Lila J. Kalinich, “The Normal Losses of Being Female,” in Women and Loss, ed. William F. Finn (New York: Praeger, 1985), 3-7.

  118 “After the first death . . . ”: Dylan Thomas, “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London,” The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas 1934-1952 (New York: New Directions, 1971), 112.

  Part II: Change

  119 “Sophie stared at the pans . . . ”: Susan Minot, Monkeys (New York: Washington Square Press, 1987), 130-131.

  Chapter Five: Daddy’s Little Girl

  124 When the author Victoria Secunda . . . : Victoria Secunda, Women and Their Fathers (New York: Delacorte, 1992), 4.

  124 “One man, two fathers . . . ”: Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Deborah, Golda, and Me (New York: Crown, 1991), 38.

  125 I’ve heard that . . . : Bassoff, Mothers and Daughters, 148.

  126 Only 13 percent . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 14 (see Appendix A).

  126 A good deal of research . . . after the loss: Granot, Without You, 12; Worden, Children and Grief, 78; Dilworth and Hildreth, “Long-Term Unresolved Grief,” 149; Linda Leucken, “Parental Caring and Loss During Childhood and Adult Cortisol Reponses to Stress,” Psychology and Health 15 (2000), 841-851.

  126 ”Without a doubt . . . ”: Granot, Without You, 12.

  127 When they compared . . . : Kathrin Boerner and Phyllis Silverman, “Gender Specific Coping Patterns in Widowed Parents With Dependent Children,” Omega 43 (2001), 201-202; J. William Worden and Phyllis Silverman, “Grief and Depression in Newly Widowed Parents With School-Age Children,” Omega 27 (1993), 252-258.