ITS NOT ALWAYS MUMS FAULT PB [Paperback]

This book is or counsellors or anyone concerned about the question of parental responsibility. Much teaching given out by psychologists in the first half of the 20th century could be summed up in the words "Your problem is someone else's fault". The person most linked to the child's early development is the mother so she was the one who got most of the blame . . . .The subject is one that is still causing many women to feel guilty or a failure. This book gives some good clear guidelines of how to escape from this trap.

How often do you hear or read of mothers being blamed when their children go off the rails? Some even blame themselves. The point here is not to find someone else to blame (absent fathers, say, or school or even the children themselves) but to hear out the 'blame', to work through how justified it may be and the to deal with any remaining guilt according to Christian grace.

The author is a mother of three, former schoolteacher and now a counsellor. She lives in Switzerland and is married to a psychiatrist.

Idealistic imaginings reduce our level of self-esteem . . . We should therefore analyse our own ideals and if necessary replace them with realistic models.

- Are all mothers natural prodigies? No! Some take to these tasks more, others less. Mothers are apprentices for life, and obtain advice when they no longer know what to do.

- Can one satisfy all the needs of children? No! We do not live in paradise, and children can grow through difficulties.

- Should we only live for the children? No! Mothers and children need some free space for personal development.

- Is success achievable? No! Each child can only develop those gifts that God gave to him or her.

- Do children have a right to happiness? No! Happiness can indeed be promoted by a private philosophy of life, but in the final analysis is a gift from God . . .

In the Bible we do not find supermothers who combine all these ideals. There we meet Rebecca. She loved Jacob more than his brother Esau and helped him to obtain his birthright by devious means. How could she be so biased? Or let us think of Hannah, who brought little Samuel, after weaning, into the tabernacle and handed him into the custody of the Priest Eli. The poor child! How could Hannah simply hand over her child to be looked after by strangers? The writers of the Proverbs praised a mother who, like most women of that time, was working. How did it come about, that she did not solely look after the children? Even Mary was not the ideal mother. In the Bible we find hints that she never really understood her special son Jesus.