What Makes a Good Mother?

"Donald Winnicott, a British pediatrician and child psychoanalyst who wrote extensively and compassionately about the relationships between mothers and their infants, is best known among a general readership for coining the expression "the good-enough mother." Winnicott started using the term to distinguish his observations from the theories of Melanie Klein, whose work held great sway among analysts in the mid-century."

"Within Winnicott's framework, the good-enough mother is one who, initially acceding entirely to a newborn's demands, intuits how, over time, she might incrementally hold back from offering immediate gratification, thereby facilitating the necessary development of her child's sense of self as a separate individual. In his writing for nonspecialists, and for new mothers in particular, Winnicott emphasized that, in most instances, a mother's attunement to what her baby needs arises naturally, without the intervention or instruction of experts."

The term 'good-enough mother' describes a caregiver who initially responds fully to a newborn's demands and gradually withholds immediate gratification to promote the child's emerging sense of separateness. The contrast to theories that locate 'good' and 'bad' objects inside the infant's psyche emphasizes real-world caregiving over intrapsychic constructs. Most maternal attunement arises naturally in ordinary caregiving actions rather than from expert instruction. Small, incremental failures and delays in gratification provide necessary developmental friction that helps a child become an individual. Practical reassurance to mothers emphasizes that being 'good enough' does not require cleverness or constant conscious effort.

Read at The New Yorker