Presentation is based on doctoral thesis (Non-Residential mothers. Spatial Identity Construction, 2004)
Research on 18 mothers, who in divorce left voluntarily or involuntarily their children to live with the fathers
Focus of the research is the identity construction as mothers in women’s life course
Data is interviewed narratives of life
Women chose themselves what they wanted to tell and considered as significant in their lives
Holistic view to identity:
Holistic view to identity:
- significant is that identity is constructed in interaction with other people (Mead 1967) and her/his enviroment (e.g. Burkitt 1991; 1999)
- the spaciality of the identity construction consists of physical, mental, social and symbolic dimensions
- in women’s life stories different spaces for identity construction : myths of motherhood, relationships to significant others (women’s own mothers and fathers, children’s fathers, children, other mothers), home, reflexsivity (understanding the meaning of life events to one’s own identity and coping with traumatic events) and moral feelings (guilt and shame)
In this presentation I shall focus on the home as a dialocical space in the mothers’ (11/18) stories who have experienced domestic violence
In this presentation I shall focus on the home as a dialocical space in the mothers’ (11/18) stories who have experienced domestic violence
Domestic violence either in childhood home or/and adult relationship/home
Home as a socially produced space consists of people’s relations to the concrete physical space, the relations to each other and an individual experience. Home can also be defined as ”lived space”, which refers specifically to the experienced dimension of home (Granfelt 1998)
Feelings are an essential part of one’s sense of home
Feelings are an essential part of one’s sense of home
Essential is also that home is a private – not public – space, though perceptions of private and public differs in different cultures but also in the individual level of experience according to one’s social status or living conditions (Tedre 1999)
- Young considers safety, individualization, privacy and preservation as the most important values concerning home
All of these values have been crushed of the women and children, who live under domestic violence
What did the interwieved women tell me about domestic violence and home space their lived in?
What did the interwieved women tell me about domestic violence and home space their lived in?
”From the early childhood I have memories, that I sat on my father’s lap and played with fingers. When I think of my early childhood I recognize this absence, being somewhere else, that there was no contact at all. Because in that vision my father’s eyes are not visible.” (Marja)
” Best I remember the drinking of my mother and father. And when they had rows. […] They usually fought in the hall. We did not actually see them, but there was terrible shouting and noise to be heard from there. They hit each other every weekend […] I could not sleep during the nights and in several occasion I woke up when I heared somebody shouting for help. I begun to have nightmares. And it begun to have an effect on my school: I was very tired.” (Raija)
” Best I remember the drinking of my mother and father. And when they had rows. […] They usually fought in the hall. We did not actually see them, but there was terrible shouting and noise to be heard from there. They hit each other every weekend […] I could not sleep during the nights and in several occasion I woke up when I heared somebody shouting for help. I begun to have nightmares. And it begun to have an effect on my school: I was very tired.” (Raija)
”I was about 5 or 6 years old and us children slept in the same room, and mum and dad slept in the next room. Many times I was thinking, when there was a terrible noise to be heard from there. It caused fear and anxiety to me. Then gradually I began to understand, that it was my dad hitting my mum. Then I began to be afraid of my father. Well, then he begun to hit us as well all the time.” (Heini)
”I was about 5 or 6 years old and us children slept in the same room, and mum and dad slept in the next room. Many times I was thinking, when there was a terrible noise to be heard from there. It caused fear and anxiety to me. Then gradually I began to understand, that it was my dad hitting my mum. Then I began to be afraid of my father. Well, then he begun to hit us as well all the time.” (Heini)
In women’s stories of the violence in their childhood homes takes place mostly during nights and their homes transform from spaces of rest and safety to spaces of fear, darkness and restlessness. Fear settles in the lived space of home space: its voices, social relations, items. Parents fail to secure the emotional well being of their children which may cause emotional ill being in adulthood also.
In women’s stories of their adult homes and as in the first example also in childhood homes one can feel herself as an outsider.
In women’s stories of their adult homes and as in the first example also in childhood homes one can feel herself as an outsider.
”Thinking of it afterwards now and also considering it a lot, I have had a very strong feeling that I ceased existing when my sister died and my brother was born soon after that.” (Hillevi)
”I had a feeling of being outside, outside of my own life. And it has been nourished … as though I have nothing to say to anything. […] And yes, I still and again have a feeling that I am somehow complitely outside and people act beyond me.” (Hillevi)
Hillevi’s experiences of her childhood of being an outsider in her family and home has remained as a main feeling also in her adult relationships.
Carolyn Steedman (1986) writes about a ”psychoanalytic drama”, which describes a middle class woman’s life. She points out that instead of interpreting the early childhood experiences of being an outsider according to theories of early attachment between the mother and the child, we can also consider social, cultural and societal aspects causing this experience.
Carolyn Steedman (1986) writes about a ”psychoanalytic drama”, which describes a middle class woman’s life. She points out that instead of interpreting the early childhood experiences of being an outsider according to theories of early attachment between the mother and the child, we can also consider social, cultural and societal aspects causing this experience.
Anyway the sense of being an outsider in a relationship is often caused by lack of dialog and can be considered as abandonment . In the worst case it may also cause disability to construct a good emotional bond with either another adult or the child.
Gillian Rose(1993) says that women often experience space paradoxically; simultaneously they may experience themselves as captured and as outsiders.
”It was like slight pushing which does not cause bruises. Pushing me off the bed. I have slept at the neighbours’ and in the car. Slept on the couch.” (Inka)
”It was like slight pushing which does not cause bruises. Pushing me off the bed. I have slept at the neighbours’ and in the car. Slept on the couch.” (Inka)
”I was told that I was beaten just because I am such a bad wife. So I started to believe, that I really am bad.” (Ilona)
”I remember that often I read at night. And I remember when the newspaper came. I got totally scared when I hear the sound of it outside our downstair window. […] I have some kind of trauma even today, that I’m scared to go to sleep.” (Katri)
The violence some of the women experienced was very brutal. Domestic violence constucts the home space in a twisted space because the violence often occurs at night time and it also brakes the border between private home space and public space. Sometimes the violent man comes to the womans working place or drives the woman outside of home. In these occasions women may not have a safe place at all and she is vulnerable both in private and public space. Because of this it is possible to consider these women homeless in some sense.
”And when I worked late in the evenig […] It took maybe five, ten minutes to come home. He was waiting for me at the bedroom window whether I come or not. And if I was not home by half past nine, I was (according to him) betraying him.” (Johanna)
”And when I worked late in the evenig […] It took maybe five, ten minutes to come home. He was waiting for me at the bedroom window whether I come or not. And if I was not home by half past nine, I was (according to him) betraying him.” (Johanna)
Violent men often rule the home space with mental or physical violence and the most ruled place can be the couples joint bedroom. The bedroom is a symbol of the sexual game between man and a woman and by ruling it the man may show his power of the woman’s sexuality.
Home space may become a space that the violent man has the power of and the woman’s space will diminish. The lack of own space may be at the same time both physical and mental (like in the example).
Most of the 18 women wanted to continue to live with the children after the cohabitation or marriage ended. For many reasons (which I have no time here to go through) it was not possible.
Most of the 18 women wanted to continue to live with the children after the cohabitation or marriage ended. For many reasons (which I have no time here to go through) it was not possible.
Anyway many of the women lived in such a living conditions that they finally had to leave with or without children.
In western societies there is still a cultural vital vision of a good mother, which is the heart of home and men are those who leave. These women – though some of them have wanted the life to turn in another way what comes to their motherhood – can be considered as some kind of pioneers clearing the path to all women to question and break narrow cultural borders of motherhood.
I have shown in my presentation how women are vulnerable because of the domestic violence in their homes. Home is a space for parenting and if you are an outsider, you are not able to rest, feel safe and experience belonging, it affects you and your parenting. The women I interviewed and who lived apart from their children told in many ways how they valued quite traditional and ordinary motherhood and tried to act accoording to that, but thought that other people considered them as losers.
I have shown in my presentation how women are vulnerable because of the domestic violence in their homes. Home is a space for parenting and if you are an outsider, you are not able to rest, feel safe and experience belonging, it affects you and your parenting. The women I interviewed and who lived apart from their children told in many ways how they valued quite traditional and ordinary motherhood and tried to act accoording to that, but thought that other people considered them as losers.
They felt them selves guilty because they couldn’t live with the children and take care of them full time. In many cases the guilt could be considered as a feeling of shame because of this situation. Anyhow, mostly they considered themselves as good mothers. They met their children as often as possible and lived an ordinary every day life with them during those meeting periods.
Many of those women whose children’s father had been violent, had a constant fear that he could harm the children or that the father’s child care was not sufficient.
When meeting as a social worker or as a researcer , a woman, whose motherhood is fragile or broken it is important to develope a dialogical space where she and the worker together in intercourse focus on finding a mutual understanding and new interpretations. A dialogical space consists on listening to each other, interest to one another’s opinions and mutual trust.
When meeting as a social worker or as a researcer , a woman, whose motherhood is fragile or broken it is important to develope a dialogical space where she and the worker together in intercourse focus on finding a mutual understanding and new interpretations. A dialogical space consists on listening to each other, interest to one another’s opinions and mutual trust.
The women I interviewed told me how important it was to them to have a possibility to talk about their motherhood. I my self tried to be in those interviewing sessions a researcher, but also just another woman and mother with my own experiences and also a social worker.
The use of life narratives is a good mean of letting the client to tell about her/his life and the use of it also gives a good way of interpreting, understanding and reinterventing one’s experiences and life events.
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