Identification with the Agressor is the coping strategy whereby a person claims to say or be something another wants out of fear. A mentally ill woman saying she doesn’t want children may well be identifying with the aggressor, the aggressor being society today. It’s called ‘internalization’.
I’m not invested in women having children or not having children. It’s the reason that counts. Mentally ill women commonly have major self esteem issues. Many have been commonly abused. The consequence of emotional, physical and sexual abuse is a sense of inadequacy. This can well translate to I’m not ‘good enough’ to have a child or « I could never be a mother ».
Récent studies have shown that women’s magazines are one of the principle harms to women’s self esteem.
Having a child I remind women is an athletic event. If you can run, jump, play basketball, soccer, or do a long hike you’re fit. Ironically the larger the ‘hips’ the more likely a woman is to have an ‘easy’ delivery. We have moved a long way from the Twiggy anorexic to the Kardasian butt proud celebrity images.
Yet there’s still many myths perpetrated on women by the women’s magazine industry. The myths and ‘politically correct narratives’ push their various sales pitches, backers and propaganda agendas. Ask your doctor and he/she will tell you if there’s any ‘physical’ reason to not have children?
When I delivered babies, like every midwife and obstetrician, I liked seeing ‘hips’. Traditionally ‘female shape’ equates with easy delivery. That’s it. Obviously if a woman has heart disease or a rare metabolic disorder there is reason for proper prenatal care. Few conditions are a contraindication to pregnancy and mental illness in general is not one of them.
Mood Disorders, Personality Disorders, Thought disorders, and in fact, almost any mental illness is not a reason to avoid having children. Mental illnesses in general are genetically receptive and the risk of transmission is so minor as to not be an issue. Really! Really!
The ‘genetics’ of mental illness is in its infancy and while certain traits ‘run in familie’s’ like alcoholism, the chance of transmission of the traits is incredibly small. Even schizophrenia which has a strong genetic contribution must have environmental factors to lead to the expression of the schizophrenic genes.. A person can have the risk of schizophrenia because of certain genes but only if, for example, they smoke marijuana in adolescence will the schizophrenia be expressed. If one identical twin has alcoholism the other twin has a 50% chance of developing alocholism but only if he or she drinks.
Mental illness is ‘multi factorial’ and commonly ‘recessive’ as opposed to ‘dominant’ which means least likely to be transmitted generation to generation. Mental illness is therefore not part of the standard ‘genetic talk’ given to future parents. If you have huntingdon’s chorea and want boys you might want to talk to a geneticist. The risk of transmission of a ‘dominant’ trait is significantly higher
However alot of women who have mental illness have been told they are bad, different, crazy, all their lives. She come to believes this. She then is likely to translate this to mean that she would not have a good child. A child of hers will be bad like her. The bad ‘seed’ myth. Further, she believes she will not make a good mother. Yet motherhood is on of the principle reasons for women ‘changing their life’ around. So many professional women I know used to drink and party other girls but when they became mothers they put on their big girl panties and did a hell of a good job. So women can change and it does not follow that a woman diagnosed with mental illness young will produce a bad child or be a bad mother.
Dr. Whitaker the famous child psychiatrist also said , If you want to know about how a woman feels about having children ask her how she feels her mother felt about having her. Self fulfilling prophecies in families can be undone in counselling and routinely are.
It’s useful to counteract mis information and disinformation with preventative medicine ‘facts’.
My favourite fact regarding child birth that I love to share, to the chagrin and groans of my female friends, is that having children is beneficial biologically for women increasing their health and longevity and reducing disease. This part is true and sadly not shared as wildly as the abortion industry data with its political baggage. However, here’s what gets the groans, The Amish studies showed that improved health and longevity for women held true up to 12 children. Therefore, I tell women ‘don’t have the 13th child’ . The data showed no value with having more than 12 children.
Further having children under the age of 30 causes women to have reduced risk of future cancer and early death.
Similarly since women have their ‘eggs’ for life, giving birth young, age 20 to 30 is better than age 50. As giving birth is an athletic event it’s not surprising that 20 year olds have easier less complicated deliveries than 30 year old and definitely 40 year olds. However having a baby as a ‘teen ager’ is directly associated with poverty and social problems which translate to future health problems.
Probably in western culture and society the ideal time for having a baby is 25 to 30 years of age. It is significant because men have no such ‘biological clock’. Given the power of female pheromes and fertility coupled with sociobiology, reproduction as male defence against fear and denial of death, casual sex is attractive with this age group of women regardless the age of men. That doesn’t mean the man consciously wishes to ‘father’ the child or children. It does mean that men and women are vastly different, in a society which wishes often to deny this. Women benefit from being ‘informed’.
When I was doing a specialty in community medicine and public health I learned that the doctor is a powerful source of health information which people tend to follow. I believe in ‘informed consent’. I believe women who have mental illness need to hear that there is no ‘general’ reason for them not to have children. Of course they can simply not want children but this should be for that reason rather than ‘because I’m mentally ill’.
There are valid reasons for not wanting to have children. A truly valid reason I heard from a brain injured patient for not having children was « I can not manage my own health needs I don’t believe I would be able to give the time and focus to a child. ». The question then follows , would you want a child if that was not an impediment?
Underlying any discussion with a mentally ill person may be the idea of ‘worthiness’. The elite commonly have children. Justin Trudeau and Sophie have children and nannies. Donald Trump has children. Obama has children. In a world where the elite have control they might simply want to reserve resources for their children and deny mentally ill women children not for their benefit but simply to reduce the competition for resources on their own children, whether they’re mentally ill or not. Power corrupts. Absolutes power corrupts. The mother of the prime minister of Canada was mentally ill and no one discouraged her from having children. Yet if she was poor and nobody would that be the case. In general the discussion for having a child should be the same for the mentally ill and the not yet diagnosed mentally ill. This is a factor because mental illness often appears later in life. Further the sophistication of diagnosis in western countries is hundred fold beyond the diagnosis of mental illness in other parts of the world. So many Canadian and American women would simply not have a mental illness diagnosis if they were born elsewhere. By contrast this is not true for heart disease or diabetes.
My friend wanted a PHD rather than have a child. Another friend wanted a house. Children cost money and sometimes only the elite are able to make marriages work in these anti family times. « I don’t like children. ». Now that’s a good reason not have children. Fortunately in Canada we have a social system with a great deal of support for all women having children so that the mentally ill will as likely have social and economic support having children. Certainly in countries where there isn’t a social network mental illness is a greater stigma.
I enjoyed a mentally ill woman who said she wanted to adopt a child using much the same logic as a person uses who chooses a ‘rescue dog or cat’. Suffering anxiety about a lot of physical symptoms she had fear of pregnancy but saw that her somewhat delineated fear would make that a challenge but she understood she would make a good parents. She cared for her dog and her neices and everyone trusted her to baby sit.
I sometimes hear young people in general say they don’t want children because there are too many people on the planet. The reason that upsets me is that that was the halcyon cry of the Morgenthaller abortion industry in my youth. Morgethaller, Jewish, had three children but aborted so many catholic babies. That was when the elite were having 3 babies and the ‘peasants’ were told not to reproduce. Yet thirty years later the government is inviting all and sundry to immigrate to here, saying that there are ‘too few people’ in the west.
Meanwhile, the greatest means overall of reduce third world child birth ,where the women don’t have the education or financial resources, to ensure optimal parenting, is to address infant mortality. Maternal education is central to reducing the size of the family which economically is associated with reducing overall the growth of population. . Women historically have lots of children because children are an old age pension plan. Boys are especially at risk of dying early but are also the ones who contribute most to the family income. If children are likely to live women are more willing to have less children.
Further maternal education regardless of religion, culture, country or race results in reduction of childbirth to the magic ‘three children’. This is the number even the ‘elite’ choose. Replacement plus a spare.
The trouble is the most barbaric repressive regimes deny women education . For God knows what reason feminists don’t address this issue. Women’s liberation did. Women’s Libertation which I marched and fought for considered female education as the means to female emancipation.
I believe the stigma against the mentally ill is so great that women with mental illness are at risk of not having children because they feel unworthy or have low self esteem. They are at risk of being marginalized, demonized and denied what clearly the elite persist in having. The old certainly still see the value of family though Marx and Engles were against family when they planned the communist revolution.
Most mentally ill women have great pregnancies, easy deliveries and make great mothers.
UBC Psychiatry Department has a specific division of enlightened brilliant compassionate female psychiatrists who specialize in Prenatal, Perinatal, and Post Natal consultations for Mentally Ill women. If any one has serious questions or concerns they can get the best answer there. Not on Google. Not from Hollywood. Not from Housewives on the Moon.
I want women with mental illness to have the same ‘true choice’ that other women have in this regard. I believe in education and informed consent.
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