Discourses of Motherhood

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A child’s journey through school can also be a challenging time, as the social stigmas and the need to be “normal” are always present in some regard. Even if the parental support is excellent, children can develop ED’s to fit in, or to look like the other kids. Perhaps bullying or some other form of harassment is occurring, which is causing the specific eating habits. There are so many different factors that can add up to creating ED’s that simply looking at the parental styles in a family setting only shows you a small part of the picture.

Perpetuation of Dominant Discourse

I feel that this article almost adds to the myths of motherhood, as it’s saying that parental influences and approaches are single handedly causing ED’s. Although this is not the exact message, it is what would be taken in a brief overview. By saying that bulimia and anorexia are caused by either too much or too little involvement, it would only cause a mother to worry about doing one of the other. Not many other factors are discussed within the article, as the majority of parental influences have to do with involvement or neglect. I feel that if mothers read this it would cause a feeling of responsibility to provide the adequate amount of care, instead of perhaps educating their children about the topic and creating an open environment to communicate. As I am male with no children I’m not very familiar with the concept of motherhood from a mother’s perspective, but I feel that this article would create an animosity for me, that if I did something wrong as a parent then something such as this would result. Its only adding to the already large myth that mothers has to be perfect in all aspects of raising a child.

The world that we live in today can be a incredibly tough and judgmental place, and for a mother to take full responsibly to everything that happens to their child is truly unfair. Nobody is perfect, neither children nor parents, and if we continue to build on this need for perfection from mothers it will only continue to get worse.

References

Berger D., Ono Y., Saito S., et al. (1995) Relationship of parental bonding to child abuse and dissociation in eating disorders in Japan.Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 91, 278–282.

Fukunishi I. (1998) Eating attitudes in female college students with self-reported alexithymic characteristics. Psychololical Reports 82,35–41.

Jauregui Lobera, I., Bolanos Rios, P. and Garrido Casals, O. (2011), Parenting styles and eating disorders. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 18: 728–735. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2850.2011.01723.x

Parker G., Tupling H. & Brown L.B. (1979) A parental bonding instrument. British Journal of Medical Psycho1ogy 52, 1–10.

Rhodes B. & Kroger J. (1992) Parental bonding and separation-individuation difficulties among late adolescent eating disordered women. Child Psychiatry and Human Development 22, 249–263.