Motherless Daughters

by Hope Edelman

  127 In 2002, approximately 840,000 American girls . . . : U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Report, P20-547, Children’s Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2002, Table C3: Living Arrangements of Children Under 18 Years and Marital Status of Parents, by Age, Gender, Race, and Hispanic Origin of the Child for All Children: March 2002, www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2002/tabC3-all.pdf.

  127 Fn: According to U.S. Census data, about 63,000 . . . : Ibid.

  127 According to Richard A. Warshak . . . : Richard A. Warshak, The Custody Revolution (New York: Poseidon/Simon & Schuster, 1992), 142.

  127 This is partly . . . : Ibid., 157-160, 168.

  129 In a 1993 University of Detroit-Mercy study . . . : Bette Diane Glickfield, “Adult Attachment and Utilization of Social Provisions as a Function of Perceived Mourning Behavior and Perceived Parental Bonding after Early Parent Loss” Ph.D. diss., University of Detroit Mercy, 1993, 49.

  129 “Being able to talk . . . ”: Ibid., 50.

  130 Though it may sound . . . : Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr., “Identification with the Father and Sex-Role Development of the Daughter,” Family Coordinator 25 (October 1976): 411-416.

  130 Fathers also tend to reinforce . . . : Miriam Johnson, “Fathers and ‘Femininity’ in Daughters: A Review of the Research,” Sociology and Social Research 67 (October 1982-July 1983): 1-17.

  130 Husbands don’t expect . . . : Scott Campbell and Phyllis Silverman, Widower. (Amityville, N.Y.: Baywood Publishing Company, 1996), 18.

  131 Right when children . . . : Ibid., 64.

  132 He rarely speaks about . . . : Lenhardt and McCourt, “Adolescent Unresolved Grief in Response to the Death of a Mother,” 192.

  132 (Fifty-two percent of all widowers . . . ): Ibid., 20.

  132 Because children often mimic . . . : George Krupp, “Maladaptive Reactions to the Death of a Family Member,” Social Casework (July 1972): 431.

  134 When Oedipus discovered . . . : Sophocles, The Complete Plays of Sophocles, ed. Moses Hadas (New York: Bantam, 1982).

  137 Whereas mothers tend to think . . . : Boerner and Silverman, “Gender Specific Coping Patterns in Widowed Parents With Dependent Children,” 203.

  137 Adolescence is such a tricky time . . . : Helen A. Mendes, “Single Fathers,” Family Coordinator 25 (October 1976): 443; Nan Birnbaum, personal communication, October 25, 1991.

  139 A 1983 study of seventy-two . . . : John M. Musser and J. Roland Fleck, “The Relationship of Paternal Acceptance and Control to College Females’ Personality Adjustment,” Adolescence 18 (Winter 1983): 907-916.

  144 Seventy-six percent of the women . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, questions 9 and 14 (see Appendix A).

  147 Although some degree of . . . : Secunda, Women and Their Fathers, 16-17.

  147 These sexual feelings . . . : Ibid.

  148 “surrogate goddess . . . ”: Signe Hammer, By Her Own Hand (New York: Vintage, 1992), 175.

  149 Ginny Smith, the narrator . . . : Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1992).

  150 As Therese Rando explains . . . : Therese Rando, How to Go on Living, 65-69.

  150 “As the only parent . . . ”: Harris, The Loss that Is Forever, 49.

  Chapter Six: Sister and Brother, Sister and Sister

  155 Eighty-five percent of the . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 7 (see Appendix).

  155 But those of us who have siblings . . . : Esme Fuller-Thompson, “Loss of the Kin-Keeper?: Sibling Conflict Following Parental Death,” Omega 40 (1999-2000): 548.

  155 Instead, as in my family . . . : Margaret M. Hoopes and James M. Harper, Birth Order Roles and Sibling Patterns in Individual and Family Therapy (Rockville, Md.: Aspen, 1987), 144; Esme Fuller-Thomson, “Loss of the Kin-Keeper?” 549.

  156 Children as young as three . . . : Robert B. Stewart and Robert S. Marvin, “Sibling Relations: The Role of Conceptual Perspective-Taking in the Ontogeny of Sibling Caregiving,” Child Development 55 (1984): 1322-1332; Robert B. Stewart, “Sibling Attachment Relationships: Child-Infant Interactions in the Strange Situation,” Developmental Psychology 19 (1983): 192-199.

  156 About half of all preschool age . . . : Elizabeth M. O’Laughlin, Elizabeth C. Meeker, and Lisa G. Bischoff, “Predictors of Children’s Emotional Distress in a Mother-Absent Situation: Implications for Caregiving Research,” Journal of Genetic Psychology 161 (2000): 235.

  156 In a 2002 study . . . later in life: Russell C. Hurd, “Sibling Support Systems in Childhood After a Parent Dies,” Omega 45 (2002): 299-320.

  158 ”Just go away . . . : Jennifer Lauck, Blackbird (New York: Pocket Books, 2000), 165-166.

  161 After a death in the family . . . : Froma Walsh and Monica McGoldrick, eds., Living beyond Loss (New York: Norton, 1991), 34.

  161 Sons are usually expected . . . : Ibid.

  161 Daughters typically are . . . : Ibid.

  162 Although taking on the role . . . : Rutter, “Resilience in the Face of Adversity,” 605; James H. S. Bossard, The Large Family System (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1956), 155.

  162 When the psychologist Mary Ainsworth . . . : Ainsworth and Eichberg, “Effects on Infant-Mother Attachment of Mother’s Unresolved Loss of an Attachment Figure, or Other Traumatic Experience,” 165.

  163 Approximately 140,000 children . . . : Heather von Tesoriero, “Siblings Raising Siblings,” Time, May 14, 2001.

  164 As Russell Hurd has pointed out . . . : Hurd, “Sibling Support Systems,” 301.

  164 Of all the women who said . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 15 (see Appendix A).

  165 “a bond that’s often gratefully acknowledged . . . ”: Hurd, “Sibling Support Systems,” 307.

  165 A 1983 study of seven . . . : Benjamin Garber, “Some Thoughts on Normal Adolescents Who Lost a Parent by Death,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 12 (1983): 175-183.

  169 We’re not usually aware . . . : Betty Carter and Monica McGoldrick, eds., The Changing Family Life Cycle (Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon, 1989), 229.

  169 According to the psychologists . . . : Hoopes and Harper, Birth Order Roles, 31.

  169 When sibling positions duplicate . . . : Ibid., 129.

  170 In a 1989 Amherst College study of . . . : Rose R. Olver, Elizabeth Aries, and Joanna Batgos, “Self-Other Differentiation and the Mother-Child Relationship: The Effects of Sex and Birth Order,” Journal of Genetic Psychology 150 (1989): 311-321.

  170 Only one out of ten oldest . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, questions 7 and 14 (see Appendix A).

  170 May feel overlooked or excluded . . . : Walter Toman, Family Constellation, 3rd ed. (New York: Springer, 1976), 22.

  170 Is least likely to find . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, questions 7 and 15 (see Appendix A).

  171 Of all the women surveyed who said they feared . . . : Ibid., questions 7 and 13e.

  171 Forty-eight percent of the youngest . . . : Ibid., questions 7 and 10.

  171 In addition, half of the adult . . . : Ibid., questions 7 and 18.

  171 Is typically more adept . . . : Toman, Family Constellation, 27.

  172 May have been cared for by . . . : Bossard, The Large Family System, 156.

  172 May see a natural leader/teacher emerge . . . : Hurd, “Sibling Support Systems,” 307.

  172 May depend on a sibling cluster . . . : Toman, Family Constellation, 24.

  172 Because a sibling usually has . . . : Ibid., 20.

  173 Can draw her sense of emotional . . . : Bossard, The Large Family System, 223-228.

  173 On the other hand, large families . . . : Ibid., 230-231.

  Chapter Seven: Looking for Love

  178 “Surely whoever speaks . . . ”: Walt Whitman, “Vocalism,” Complete Poetry and Selected Prose (Boston: Riverside/Houghton Mifflin, 1959), 271.

  179 As Clarissa Pinkola Estés points out . . . : Estés, Warming the Stone Child.

  180 As John Bowlby observed . . . : John
Bowlby, A Secure Base (New York: Basic-Books, 1988), 177.

  181 Attachment theorists generally divide . . . : Phillip R. Shaver and Cindy Hazan, “A Biased Overview of the Study of Love,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 5 (1988): 473-501.

  181 Secure adults typically divide . . . : Ibid., 487.

  181 Anxious-ambivalent adults usually . . . : Ibid.

  181 Avoidant adults rely almost . . . : Ibid.

  181 Most psychologists now agree . . . : Jane L. Pearson, et al., “Earnedand Continuous-Security in Adult Attachment: Relation to Depressive Symptomatology and Parenting Style,” Development and Psychopathology 6 (1994), 359; Gina Mireault, Kimberly Bearor, and Toni Thomas, “Adult Romantic Attachment Among Women Who Experienced Childhood Maternal Loss,” Omega 44 (2001-2001), 98.

  181 Even when an infant . . . on a child: Leila Beckwith, Sarale E. Cohen, and Claire E. Hamilton, “Maternal Sensitivity During Infancy and Subsequent Life Events Relate to Attachment Representation at Early Adulthood,” Developmental Psychology 35 (1999), 693-700.

  181 In a population of nonbereaved . . . : Phillip R. Shaver and Cindy Hazan, “Adult Romantic Attachment: Theory and Evidence,” in Advances in Personal Relationships, ed. D. Perlman and W. Jones, cited in Bette Diane Glickfield, “Adult Attachment and Utilization of Social Provisions as a Function of Perceived Mourning Behavior and Perceived Parental Bonding after Early Parent Loss” (Ph.D. diss., University of Detroit Mercy, 1993), 52.

  182 When the psychologist Bette Glickfield . . . : Glickfield, “Adult Attachment,” 53.

  182 The significantly higher percentage . . . : Ibid.

  182 A 2001 study at . . . : Gina Mireault, Kimberly Bearor, and Toni Thomas, “Adult Romantic Attachment Among Women Who Experienced Childhood Maternal Loss,” 97-104.

  182 Taken together, these findings . . . : Ibid., 102.

  183 A 1990 study of 118 undergraduates . . . : Nancy L. Collins and Stephen J. Read, “Adult Attachment Working Models and Relationship Quality in Dating Couples,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990): 651-655.

  184 As Maxine Harris found . . . : Harris, The Loss That Is Forever, 152-155.

  184 As the psychologist Martha Wolfenstein pointed out . . . : Martha Wolfenstein, “Loss, Rage, and Repetition,” Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 24 (1969): 434-435.

  185 A daughter who can’t evoke . . . : Phil Mollon, “Narcissistic Vulnerability and the Fragile Self: A Failure of Mirroring,” British Journal of Medical Psychology 59 (1986): 317-324.

  186 But this kind of loyalty can go . . . : Emswiler and Emswiler, Guiding Your Child Through Grief, 194.

  188 “Self reliance is perhaps . . . ”: Harris, The Loss That Is Forever, 159.

  190 Forty-six percent of the adults . . . : Glickfield, “Adult Attachment,” 53.

  190 Of the 154 motherless women surveyed . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 2 (see Appendix A).

  190 Bette Glickfield found the presence . . . : Glickfield, “Adult Attachment,” 49-50.

  190 Other research indicates that . . . : Michael Rutter, “Resilience in the Face of Adversity,” British Journal of Psychiatry 147 (1985): 604.

  191 Carolyn Pape Cowan, Ph.D. . . . : Carolyn Pape Cowan and Philip A. Cowan, When Partners Become Parents (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 140-144.

  192 As they prepared to . . . : Gary Jacobson and Robert G. Ryder, “Parental Loss and Some Characteristics of the Early Marriage Relationship,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 39 (October 1969): 780.

  192 Instead, they found that . . . : Ibid.

  192 These couples exhibited a . . . : Ibid.

  194 “If women are the earliest sources . . . : Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” in Powers of Desire, eds. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983), 177-205.

  195 “The unmothered child often wants to . . . : Estés, Warming the Stone Child.

  195 But without a mother-figure or caretaker . . . : Joyce McDougall, “Parent Loss,” in The Reconstruction of Trauma, ed. Arnold Rothstein (Madison, Conn.: International Universities Press, 1986), 151.

  196 “Compulsion is despair . . . : Geneen Roth, When Food Is Love (New York: Plume/Penguin, 1992), 15.

  199 There are two common relationship strategies . . . : Harris, The Loss That Is Forever, 144.

  Chapter Eight: When a Woman Needs a Woman

  202 The French author Simone de Beauvoir asked . . . : Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949) (Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1972), 13.

  205 The “deep feminine” . . . : Naomi Lowinsky, personal communication, November 21, 1992.

  205 Adrienne Rich has described . . . : Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born (New York: Norton, 1986), 220.

  205 The sociologist Miriam Johnson, in a review . . . : Miriam M. Johnson, “Fathers and ‘Femininity’ in Daughters: A Review of the Research,” Sociology and Social Research 67 (October 1982-July 1983): 2.

  205 Fathers, she says, influence the . . . : Ibid., 1-17.

  205 Mothers provide the . . . : Ibid.

  206 Nancy Drew in business . . . : “GNotes,” Glamour, August 1993, 185.

  206 One out of three motherless women . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 18 (see Appendix A).

  211 The most important factor . . . : Phyllis Klaus, personal communication, November 25, 1992; Nan Birnbaum, personal communication, July 9, 1992. See also Bryan E. Robinson and Neil H. Fields, “Casework with Invulnerable Children,” Social Work (January-February 1983): 65; Michael Rutter, “Resilience in the Face of Adversity,” British Journal of Psychiatry 147 (1985): 605.

  212 Of the ninety-seven women . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 15 (see Appendix A).

  212 “Such ‘most similar’ persons . . . ”: Toman, Family Constellation, 47-48.

  213 In more than half of the eighty-three stepfamilies surveyed . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 9.

  213 Because the actual mother . . . : Rose-Emily Rothenberg, “The Orphan Archetype,” 190.

  215 The British psychiatrist John Birtchnell . . . : John Birtchnell, “Women Whose Mothers Died in Childhood: An Outcome Study,” Psychological Medicine 10 (1980): 699-713. See also Rutter, “Resilience,” 603.

  218 Although fathers do pass on . . . : Eileen Hepburn, “The Father’s Role in Sexual Socialization of Adolescent Females in an Upper and Upper-Middle Class Population,” Journal of Early Adolescence 1 (1981): 53-59.

  218 A Widener University . . . : Ibid., 55.

  218 In this study, conducted . . . : Ibid., 56.

  218 For two thousand years . . . : Rich, Of Woman Born, 237-240; Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, The Motherline (Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1993), 6-9.

  220 An adult woman dissatisfied . . . : De Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 309, 533.

  220 Menstruation is hardly . . . : Ibid., 536.

  Part III: Growth

  221 “They remember what she gave . . . ”: Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature (New York: Perennial/Harper & Row, 1978), 210-211.

  Chapter Nine: Who She Was, Who I Am

  224 Of the 154 motherless women . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 17 (see Appendix A).

  224 Grandmothers, aunts, sisters . . . : Ibid.

  224 More than half . . . : Ibid., questions 4 and 17.

  224 Likewise, only 13 percent . . . : Ibid.

  224 Daughters who were adolescents . . . : Ibid.

  226 Storytelling serves a vital function . . . : George S. Howard, “Culture Tales: A Narrative Approach to Thinking, Cross-Cultural Psychology, and Psychotherapy,” American Psychologist 46 (March 1991): 187-197.

  226 “When a woman today comes . . . ”: Lowinsky, The Motherline, 13.

  235 Matrophobia, as Adrienne Rich explains . . . : Rich, Of Woman Born, 235.

  235 “I wonder whether . . . ”: Kim Chernin, In My Mother’s House (New Haven, Conn.: Ticknor & Fields, 1983), 306.

  238 As Naomi Lowinsky points out . . . : L
owinsky, The Motherline, 53.

  240 Some psychologists believe . . . : Judith Kegan Gardiner, “On Female Identity and Writing by Women,” Critical Inquiry 8 (1981): 353.

  240 Others see identity as more . . . : Ibid., 352.

  240 Still others propose . . . : Don P. McAdams, Power, Intimacy, and the Life Story (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1985), 57-58, cited in Howard, “Culture Tales,” 193.

  Chapter Ten: Mortal Lessons

  246 More than three-quarters . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 13b (see Appendix A).

  247 Ninety-two percent . . . : Ibid., questions 5 and 13b.

  247 The same was true . . . : Ibid.

  247 . . . according to the medical geneticist . . . : Matthew B. Lubin, M.D., personal interview, August 17, 1993.

  250 Two-thirds of the motherless women . . . : Motherless Daughters survey, question 13d (see Appendix A).

  251 The psychologists Veronika Denes-Raj . . . : Veronika Denes-Raj and Howard Ehrlichman, “Effects of Premature Parental Death on Subjective Life Expectancy, Death Anxiety, and Health Behavior,” Omega 23 (1991): 309-321.

  252 Because the concept . . . : Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: Free Press, 1973), 16-17.

  252 A mother’s death is as close . . . : Denes-Raj and Ehrlichman, “Premature Parental Death,” 317.