Anna Freud pointed out to school teachers
that often the rivalry they witnessed in the classroom was a displacement from
sibling rivalry at home. Children were assigning the crucial parental role to a
substitute, the teacher. Depending on the emotional strength and experience of
the teacher, some classrooms seethe under the weight of such complex tasks
whilst others are contained. A good-enough teacher can divert powerful rivalry
into useful channels. However, sometimes the sibling rivalry is exacerbated or
even instigated by the adult. As we need to remind ourselves - there is not
only an Oedipus complex. Jocasta and Laius also existed.
Many parliamentary debates and work
discussions carry these complex components from past family life. However, they
may not get adequately recognised because they are hidden under plausible adult
settings and language. Under unpromising terms like “audit” or “purchaser and
provider” there is a wealth of psychological data. “When I land a bigger
commission than my colleagues by selling more”, said one business executive, “I
remember the thrill I felt when I first got pocket money and my little brother
was too young to get any. I feel it all over again!” Being praised by the Boss,
like being praised by a favourite teacher, can also revive the pleasure of
earning paternal or maternal praise.
However, as Peter Hildebrand points out in
his succinct book “Beyond Mid-Life Crisis”, whilst mother-son relationships are
well documented in literature and, at a displaced level, in politics, the
relationships between women and their daughters has not received the same
treatment. These can include rarely examined and taboo issues. For whilst
younger male sibling can say to older sibling or parent “OK, I am younger but
that means you are going to die first”, there is a female version in which
daughter can say to mother “You are now infertile whilst I can conceive”.
Mrs A writes in that she sadly came to
motherhood late. Her only daughter B was born when she herself was 42. Now B is
12 and her periods have begun just as Mrs A’s have stopped. “I was so busy
telling her how wonderful it was that she was now a proper woman I failed to
realise that I was telling myself that I no longer was. B somehow picked this
up and has been taunting me about this mercilessly. In front of her two closest
girlfriends last week she loudly said she would have to keep extra stocks of
sanitary towels since I no longer needed to buy any. I ran out of the room to
have a cry”.
Having a baby past the mid-life point can
delay or conceal some of the psychological aspects of ageing. For those who
have beaten the biological clock with late pregnancies it can be a shocking
surprise to deal with the menopause at the same time as a girl child’s puberty.
Was Mrs A exaggerating how wonderful it was that B was now a woman because she
was trying to conceal her own sense of loss? If B is Mrs A’s only child,
conceived at a late age, perhaps after many attempts, does the casual fecundity
of her young daughter hurt her? It is not possible to tell from such a brief
letter whether B has been offered this subject on a plate by her mother,
whether it comes from her own script or involves both elements or indeed
others.
However, a woman who has processed the
meaning of her biological status would not need to run from the room in tears
on hearing her daughter’s comment. She would be able to say “ That’s quite
right and I am glad you are thinking ahead to next month” or “You are being
impolite discussing my body functions with your friends-stick to your own”. In
the meantime, B is being allowed space for a triumph that is damaging to both
her and her mother. Mrs A needs to think very carefully about a possible level
of hostility towards her daughter that might be hidden under the eulogistic
words. Is her daughter’s aggressive behaviour a reflection of her own?
C, aged 13, was very aware of her menopausal
mother’s strong feelings about her new menstrual position. “She kept telling me
I smelled like a fish-shop and how pleased she was that hers were all over -
that she could go swimming or on holiday with no worry - whereas I should take
great care. Before every holiday she would get out the calendar so I would not
be “embarrassed” at the seaside. But she always picked my period time for us to
go away”. Unlike B, C did not taunt her mother. She took inside herself her
mother’s negative comments and developed painful periods preceded by
premenstrual tension. By having stomach aches she neutralised her mother’s
jealousy and gained sympathy for the “curse” she was suffering from. C’s mother
could then adopt a free pre-pubertal child-like position, revelling in daily
swims, whilst C had to be the ill mother. Work with the mother revealed,
perhaps unsurprisingly, the lack of worth her mother passed on to her when she
menstruated. There can indeed be an inter-generational “curse”.
The poets Peter Redgrove and Penelope
Shuttle, who have conducted major research on menstruation and dreaming, point
out that menstrual blood and its smell are associated with the first occasion
on which we smelled blood - our birth. They show how the primitive power of
menstruation is societally hidden but can be recovered through dream-work. Fear
of the smell, converted to dislike, could be a way of concealing a primitive
response. The menstrual imagery of blood finds its expression in art,
literature and cinema but is curiously under-represented in discussion.
However, one mother, Ms D wrote in that she
cannot stand her daughter’s complaints about her period. “Mine have all stopped
- and there she is - pouring with the red stuff - and complaining she does not
like it”. The emotional power of menstruation and ovulation is strongly
communicated in the lavish expression “pouring with blood” but is nonetheless
minimised in our society.
Whilst men have produced various
blood-letting rituals in different cultures in order to become blood brothers
the possible rivalry with women has rarely been mentioned. Women bleed
naturally and not through injury. There is a primitive magical quality to that.
Women sharing the same house often develop a shared menstrual timing. However,
whilst we have the term “blood brothers” we do not have “blood sisters”.
Perhaps if we understood these issues more fully there would be less male blood
shed and a greater ease between women.
Useful Books
“Alchemy for Women: Personal transformation
through dreams and the female cycle” Penelope Shuttle & Peter Redgrove,
Rider
“Beyond Mid-Life Crisis: A psychodynamic
approach to ageing” Peter Hildebrand, Sheldon Press