This article* presents the viewpoint of one Erica Komisar, a psychoanalyst living in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, who published a book earlier this year titled “Being there: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters.” She had also talked about her work on multiple Christian radio stations and Fox news but mentions that “I couldn’t get on NPR.” After reading the article and skimming through sections of her book, I’m not surprised.
I agree with several of Ms. Komisar’s claims. In one instance, she calls for a more “child-centric society” and promotes paid maternity leave, although her explanation of how to attain a child-centric society is more heavily geared towards maternal responsibility than mine. She also states that mothers are extremely important to their infants and toddlers and that mothers should prioritize their family in the early years and try to be as present as possible during the first 3 years of their child’s life. All these things I agree with; however, that is where Ms. Komisar’s viewpoints and mine heavily diverge.
First of all, she claims that her book is informed by her years of research, which is misleading. Her research is not evidence-based research but rather a book of opinions and “years of experience as a psychoanalyst,” meaning it is purely anecdotal. Her calling her own experience “research” in and of itself decreases her credibility. That being said, the studies that she does reference in her work are valid, such as research involving attachment theory and differing levels of oxytocin and vasopressin in women and men. The problem is, neither the research that she references nor her anecdotal experiences conclude what she concludes:
1) mothers are to blame for rise in mental illness in children and
2) mothers alone should primarily and preferentially shoulder the responsibility of providing nurturing, loving care to their children.
Although she adds that society as a whole should be more child-centric, it is clear that mothers, particularly mothers’ parental transgressions, are at the center of her argument.
Ms. Komisar’s most striking and controversial claim is that of a direct correlation between a myriad of illnesses (including ADHD, depression, anxiety, violence, and bullying) to mothers’ disinterest in their children’s lives. More specifically, she blames the rise in mental illness in young children and teens on their mothers for “placing their own self interest over their child’s well-being.” It is an incredibly judgmental stance, one that I am not surprised Fox news is sympathetic to. Firstly, let us address the phenomenon of the rise in mental illness. This alone is controversial, whether there is truly a significant increase in mental illness. Studies have shown that there has been increased utilization of mental health care services, increased number of diagnoses of mental disorders and increased prescriptions of psychotropic medications. However, this increase could be due to a historic underutilization of mental health care services, poor metrics for mental health data collection prior to the 1960’s, an increased physician and community awareness of mental disorders, or reduced stigma of seeking treatment. In fact, an article by Olfson et al 2015 in the New England Journal of Medicine did find that youths with less severe or no impairment accounted for most of the absolute increases in service use, supporting the claim that perhaps, the prevalence of mental illness has not changed but the number of patients seeking services and appropriately being diagnosed has. Ms. Komisar does not mention any of these reasons but rather jumps to conclusions. The research simply does not conclude what Ms. Komisar concludes: that mothers going back to work before the age of three correlates with increased mental disorders in children.
Furthermore, I would like to remind the reader of the striking similarity of this argument to a long-debunked refrigerator mother theory, in which a lack of motherly love was thought to induce autism or autism-like symptoms. Autism is now known to be primarily due to a combination of genetic factors, but in the 1950s and 1960s much undue blame and guilt were layered upon the mothers. Ms. Komisar is therefore using a reiteration of the refrigerator mother theory to shame and guilt mothers for functioning as anything other than a full-time 100% present mother, including – going to work full time, utilizing their other spousal support.
In her book, Ms. Komisar names a hierarchy of preferential primary caregivers for the baby. In her view, the mother is paramount. Next comes the spouse/husband, then a blood relative like a grandmother or grandfather, and down at the very bottom is daycare. She calls the mother the central nervous system of the baby in the first three years. She references studies on higher levels of vasopressin in men and higher levels of oxytocin in women in order to explain how in her view, men’s love influenced by vasopressin is more “aggressive and protective instinct” and women’s love influenced by oxytocin is more a “loving and nurturing instinct.” She goes on to state that mothers and fathers have equal but different physiological roles as parents. However, there is an internal contradiction when she names the mother as the central nervous system of the baby, because if that is true, there is no possible way that the father can be of equal role in the child’s life. The central nervous system is comprised of the brain and spinal cord and there is nothing more important than the brain and spinal cord. Therefore, by her definition, mothers must be more important than fathers. And this concept is insulting to a myriad of caretakers: fathers, gay parents, adoptive mothers, grandparents, single fathers, or various other non-traditional family arrangements because it assumes that the loving, nurturing care that they provide their child is inferior to that of a biological mother. There is no single source of learning caring love, just as there is no single source of learning protective love from the world, and it is not as black and white (vasopressin versus oxytocin) as Ms. Komisar describes. The stereotyped gender roles that she prescribes to are inflexible and unhelpful: fathers can kiss their sons’ skinned knees and mothers can teach their daughters resilience. Love is not gendered and thus, the “CNS of the baby” can be extended to not just the mother but rather the nuclear family, if not society, for allowing loving nurturing care to take place. If anything, our society should be the centerpiece of this argument and share the burden of guilt, rather than piling it onto our poor mothers. Our society creates an environment that is unsupportive of raising children, of which entire families (including mother, father, and children) are victims. All in all, I felt that Ms. Komisar shoveled undue burden on already overwhelmed mothers, who are trying very, very hard to juggle managing a household, loving and caring for their children and partner, and managing a job or career. I agree with Ms. Komisar’s call for paid maternal leave, although I call for both paid maternal and paternal leave. I also agree with Ms. Komisar that daycare sometimes is not a wonderful option, particularly if those workers are underpaid, undervalued and underqualified. But Ms. Komisar’s emphasis on maternal responsibility is excessive, unnecessary, inflammatory, and unhelpful, particularly since mothers are often not in a position to change their circumstances. Let’s talk about a more child-centric society. But let’s make it more about societal change and less about individuals. Let’s give more support and less blame.
Katherine Mai
DUCOM 2018
*The Politicization of Motherhood
Conservatives cheer and liberals jeer New York psychoanalyst Erica Komisar’s book on the science of early childhood development. James Taranto The Wall Street Journal Oct. 27, 2017
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