On Mothering – Part 3

And now to the questions posed:

1.     We all know the importance of “bonding” with our children. How should a healthy mother-child relationship change over the years?

To answer this, I will continue to use the circles I spoke of in On Mothering – Part 2 as a way of talking about this evolving relationship between mother and child.

When the child is young, the circles of the child and of the parent are importantly very overlapping. We are protecting them, nourishing them, and helping them to grow. They require our involvement in order to become healthy individuals. As they become older and move toward becoming their own person, the circle of the child and that of the parent will naturally go through a process of less and less overlapping, encouraging more independence and a healthy self for the child and a healthy, individuated self for the parent.

And of course remember, even as these circles separate, the separation is not a permanent breaking away. It is a cultivation of an individuated self for both the mother and child which then allows that healthy flow of coming together and moving away to occur over the rest of our lifetimes.