The Mother and the Process of Truth

Abstract

Here we follow Baraitser (Maternal Encounters: The Ethics of Interruption, 2009) as she formulates a maternal subjectivity, situated quite outside the mother-as-object in psychoanalysis—the mother-supposed-to-care. The backdrop is the Levinasian “implacable law of hospitality,” which is the feminine, elaborated by Ettinger (2006) as the “matrixial.” Subjectivity is realised in breaks in the continuity of being. And what emerges in this work is the subject and her fidelity to the Event, the truth and the living of it forever, beyond postmodern simulations of motherhood. In short, having a child changes you; you will never be the same again! Fidelity creates subjection, being thrown down, onto the bedrock of the Real. This is where everything begins!

Notes

¹In academic circles, when asked about her research, Baraitser said that colleagues turned away politely when “maternity” was mentioned. Maternity does not fit with the radical individualism of the postmodern subject-supposed-to-enjoy. However, during the discussion, Baraitser herself seemed to identify with those same academic circles when she spoke of her difficulty with terminology—“maternity,” “mothering,” “motherhood.” She said she was worried about appearing “heteronormative” and “essentialist.”

²The incessant demand, placed on the mother by her own ideal of perfection, is shown in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous in which Miranda Richardson hothouses her baby and says, “Mummy, mummy, mummy—very, very, very tired mummy.”

³Hanaghan (1957, p. 21) long ago suggested that the original form of the self-preservation instinct is the infant cry that arouses the parents and spins them, draws them through love, into action. This vulnerability of the infant—its first call to the other facilitates its entry point into the whole web of the social and this call changes the parents forever.