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Mother and Baby

This chapter considers that, in sense, a woman's relationship with her baby begins not only before birth but before conception; it has roots in her own babyhood, in the way she herself was ‘mothered’. Also important are the messages sent and received throughout childhood and adolescence that, decoded, read: women need babies, and babies need mothers. The chapter shows how myth, fantasy, and the economics of reproduction under capitalism are all jumbled up in this relationship, and which impacts it greatly. Most women by the time they achieve motherhood have, from these various sources, some idea about how mothers do (or should) feel about their babies.