Compulsive motherhood
An ABC news story by Susan Donaldson James this week accuses Angelina Jolie, the 32-year-old actress who's in a relationship with Brad Pitt, of being a "compulsive mother." If the rumors are right, Jolie is expecting her fifth child (she has three adopted children from three different countries and one biological daughter). The article's subtitle says it all: "Need for babies can signal depression, or even manipulation, experts say."
The article posits that Jolie's humanitarian work and large family may stem from her own psychological emptiness, mentioning how Mother Teresa suffered from depression most of her life, and how other actresses, including Mia Farrow and Elizabeth Taylor, used motherhood as a way to define themselves apart from the dog-eat-dog business world of Hollywood.
Tabloid sensationalism? Yes. But the article left me wondering why so many sectors of the American population are so critical of mothers and motherhood — including many Ashland readers of this column who express their dislike of domesticity (or of my particular style of parenting) in the Web Comments section.
Ms Jolie's offense has been to provide a safe, loving and economically prosperous home to three orphans, and to add some biological children to the mix. Speculation into your sex life and psychological life may be part of the price you pay when you become a successful Hollywood actress (or Mother Teresa for that matter), but it seems unfair at best to "diagnose" Jolie, because she's outside of the two-child norm in America, as suffering from compulsive motherhood.
To get some context, I interviewed a friend, Meagan Francis, founder of www.largerfamilies.com, mother of four boys and author of the book, "Table for Eight: Raising a Large Family in a Small Family World."
JM: What do you make of Angelina Jolie being criticized for being pregnant?
MF: I think it's pretty silly, really. I don't know Angelina Jolie, so I can't claim to know her motivations for having children — but neither can anyone else who hasn't met her. The articles claiming that she's some kind of baby collector trying to self-medicate and "fill the void within" are speculative and sensational, and you'll notice that the "experts" weighing in haven't actually treated Ms. Jolie, nor do they know her. It's just more celebrity gossip dressed up as news.
JM: Is there such a thing as "compulsive motherhood"? Do you think having a large family fills a maternal/psychological void?
MF: I've seen that claim, and it sounds like psychobabble to me. Let's face it, a life that's too self-focused or self-absorbed is pretty empty. Where's the substance? As human beings, we spend our lives looking for ways to fill a psychological void of one sort or another. But with what? Common wisdom tells us that money, "stuff," power, status and that sort of thing don't really fill us up or give our life meaning. So what does? For some, it's having a rich spiritual life, for others, it's meaningful work, making a difference in the world, and so on. But one thing we have in common is that we all seek out relationships with other people from the moment we're born — it's a normal part of being human. At its essence, having children is just another form of creating a relationship (or several relationships). For some mothers, having children and caring for a family can also be their passion, their meaningful work and their way of making a difference in the world. Some people love to be surrounded by peers; some love to be surrounded by children. I don't really understand why the media and some people feel a need to judge the motives of people who enjoy having children around more than they judge the motives of people who create other types of relationships. It feels like a symptom of a really anti-child, anti-family culture, and I find that disturbing.
I think Meagan is right. If loving and providing for children who would otherwise be neglected and having a large, diverse, and happy family is compulsive motherhood, I hope we can all be more compulsively maternal.
