The present exploratory study is based on interviews with nine noncustodial mothers.
Chapters I-III provide an expose' forming the following points:
(1) historically, women had no rights to custody since they were chattel (property);
(2) industrialization brought a severe bifurcation of sex roles and a sentimentalizing
of the female role (keeper of the hearth, creator of perfect children) in middle-class
America and Great Britain;
(3) in this construction, women were assumed to get custody of young children (backed
by psychoanalytic theory) unless proven unfit or immoral;
(4) the women’s movement, arguing for equality, had the unintended consequence of
opening the custody issue and giving fathers equal rights (Lee Salk became a hero for
winning custody as “the parent most suited to raising the children);
(5) the influence of psychoanalysis remains, and the woman who does not win custody is
assumed to be a “lesser woman.” She is assumed to have rejected her womanly
nature to be mother, unable to provide her children ultimate care, and thus morally
tainted. There is a double bind for women: They no longer get presumptive custody, yet
they must continue to justify themselves as mothers and emotionally viable adult women.
Chapter IV briefly focuses on the method,
procedures, and characteristics of the participants in the study. This chapter includes a
discussion of the research design, interview process, text analysis, and procedures, and
gives a detailed description of participants’ characteristics.
Chapter V is an account of five of the nine stories told
by the noncustodial mothers. Specifically, various aspects of the marital and divorce
experience are discussed, including circumstances surrounding the divorce, experiences
with the legal system, interpersonal relationships with ex-husbands and children, and
also, the participant’s reflections on the noncustodial situation. Each story is told
by the participant and reflected/interpreted by the researcher.
Chapter VI extracts and formulates the themes of
care, maternal ambivalence, bereavement, and sense of self into a process model based on
parallels in contemporary feminist literature. This theoretical model is used to explain
what it is like to be a noncustodial mother. I would describe the analysis in this chapter
as emergent, interpretive, and phenomenological. I have tried not to overinterpret, but to
reflect on themes and connections within the texts, rather than attempt to find instances
that would fit a particular psychoanalytic viewpoint.
The emergent analysis is based on existing and
parallel ideas in contemporary feminist literature. In this chapter I attempt to do
justice to the noncustodial mother’s experience by presenting it in her own terms.
The concluding chapter (VII) summarizes the major
findings of the study. Also included in this chapter is a discussion of the theoretical
implications of the findings, followed by suggestions for future research.
An epilogue reflects on my internalized experiences
as both mother and researcher.
