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whether in their own homes or out of them, are a source of social infection as real and

serious as are carriers of diphtheria and typhoid" (Bowlby,

p.

Based on the

Kleinian view of the baby as controlled by innate psychic forces and capable of feeling

strongly opposing feelings for the mother, in

Bowlby went on to argue that during

separations from the mother these ambivalent feelings became unbearable, and led to

despair and anger which destroyed the ability to regulate feelings of love and hate

l� _{As evidence of its popularity I have a copy on my shelves, bought at a second-hand booksale, which}

(Bowlby, 1979). On the basis of his research on children in institutions and foster families, and work by Spitz in hospitals and orphanages, he advocated continuous maternal care, tolerance of ambivalent feelings, and the disavowal of punishment (Singer, 1 992). Once again, a truly abnormal situation was the bedrock for a model that was prescribed for normal family life.

Hardyment (1995) argued that from 1 953 onwards most important child-rearing manuals made reference to Bowlby's findings, and his influence continued well into the 'seventies. Riley (1983) suggested that any critique of his work needed to take account of the context in which he wrote. Bowlby himself did not argue that babies would become neurotic if their mothers went out for a while, but the ideological post-war climate popularised his work in a way that was instrumental for a set of assumptions about women's involvement in the labour market. Nonetheless, his work had very contradictory effects. On the one hand, out of humane concern he stressed the mental health of children, in which few others were interested. This reinforced a tolerance and understanding of children's emotional lives, which had been beginning to emerge in the previous years. He gave value to the feelings that many women had felt for their children but which had been negated. He also reasserted the importance of mothers who had been officially undermined by the previous regime of child-rearing advice. However, his work in general, and the concept of maternal deprivation in particular, tied women to their children, buttressed a construction of the normal mother from which any variation was seen to be pathological and abnormal, engendered a sense of guilt where the norm was not followed and occluded any examination of the position and experience of fathers. In so doing, the lives of women, children and men were effectively limited, albeit in different ways.

Another important authority, working in parallel to Bowlby, was Winnicott. He was also influenced by the work of Klein. During the war years, Winnicott gave

broadcasts in the United Kingdom in which, like Churchill, he spoke directly to the mothers of the nation (Unwin & Sharland, 1 997). During these he used metaphors from management, animal taming and war to encourage mothers to accept the furious feelings inside their babies and to help the child manage these by being tranquil, empathic, tolerant and continuously available. If the mother was not present, it would appear that the child's fantasies of destroying his or her mother would have come true, which in turn

would cause guilt, which in turn would make the child harder to control and behave in anti-social ways.

The child, by virtue of his or her right to de·velop physically, mentally and emotionally, was the dominant figure in the discourse of permissive education. The child was variously presented in much of the American and English psychological literature as emotionally fragile (Beekman, 1982), unstable, capable of feelings of intense love and hate, and potentially a tyrant or follower of a dictator (Reily, 1 983) and affectionate, dependent and scintillatingly intelligent (Hardyrnent, 1 995). Hardyrnent also referred to a less dominant construction of children as savages needing to be turned into civilised beings.

At the beginning of this period, mothers were construed as contributing to nation building through their part in re-establishing the security of the home. However,

Ehrenreich and English ( 1 978) and Mathews ( 1987) argued that towards the end of this period American "Moms" were blamed for emasculating their sons and their husbands by secretly accreting more and more power and psychologically castrating the male in general. Working mothers were also blamed for juvenile delinquency. Singer ( 1 992) argued that with a greater tolerance of the emotional life of the child there was greater intolerance of the wishes of women, apart from motherhood. For both Winnicott and Bowlby, mothers, through their permanent love and care, were to be the child' s "psychic organiser" and to regulate and control their emotions. Rose ( 1 990) argued one of the effects of the dominance of psychological norms, language and practices was the creation of a "therapeutic culture of the self', which demanded self-examination and self-inspection by mothers. The strong emphasis on psychological norms, language and practices in this period can thus be understood as part of the techniques of government of the self.

During this period the distant figure of the father was replaced by a more playful, companionable figure (Phillips, 1 987) who was to provide a home, food and a link to the outside world (May, 1 992) but not actually have any responsibility for the care of children. The father was also not open to the same censure as the mother if he did meet the ideal. In America, fear of the feminising influence the home might have on young boys led to calls for fathers to interact with their sons and "teach them to be real men" (Coltrane, 1 996, p. 43). The new points of reference in the dominant discourse of the way parents were to raise their children are most clearly delineated in the work of Spock: he advocated that "emotional depth" and "keen intelligence" be fostered through "daily stimulation from loving parents". The spirit of these remains dominant in the literature today, although different terms are used.

Child-rearing manuals 1 960-1 970s

Commentating on the 1960s in the United States, Walter Cronkite ( 1 998) stated:

The 1 960s undoubtedly were the most turbulent decade of this century. There were the assassinations, the race riots, the Vietnam War. It was an incredible decade . . . . The generation gap was clearly apparent in the 60s as the youth revolution took place and the entire moral upheaval that some of us didn't understand and didn't participate in . . . During the period I made the declarative statement I don't care for their hair, I don't care for their looks, I don't care for their clothes, I don't care for their behaviour, I don't care for anything about them! I don't think there was ever a more difficult parental period in our history as there was for us who had teenage children in the 1960s . . . The times were changing fast. Young people wanted change, women and minorities wanted change. Sonja Davies, writing from New Zealand of the 1 960s, said

The sixties brought with them a change in the air. After that decade nothing would ever be the same again, or so it seemed. The young stopped accepting and started questioning parental authority and the system. Even the music change; songs of protest were heard throughout the world. 16

Both these cultural commentators captured what have been identified as two defining features of the 1 960s that were experienced widely within the western world, albeit in slightly different years and with national variations. They were years which have been characterised as dominated by social turmoil and radical critique as the hegemonic cultural order was challenged by the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the green movement, teenage culture and those seeking sexual revolution, psychedelic experiences and things generally described as counter-cultural. They were also portrayed as a moment of rupture in the emotional configuration of the home as the relationship between parents and teenage children in general became extremely problematic: the authority of parents and the acquiescence of children were open to negotiation.

In amongst all this, the role of women and the status of motherhood again came to the fore. Mathews (1987, p. 2 1 8) argued that in the United States the complex of

social, cultural and historical factors from post war through into the ' 50s was the seed bed for the catalysation of a "problem" that had been generations in the making. By the

1960s, many of the women who were supposed to be emotionally supporting their families and seeing to the psychological well-being of the Nation were demoralised and knew exactly what Betty Friedan ( 1 963) meant when she wrote about "the strange, dissatisfied voice stirring within her" that wanted to talk about "the problem with no name". This period has been described as one in which it became increasingly untenable, both psychologically and economically, for middle-class families to afford the domestic ideal of a mother at home. Middle-class mothers began to enter the paid work force along with the poor, black, widowed, divorced, and determined women who had always needed to work.

New Zealand in the 1 960s was rapidly changing into an urban society with ill thought-out suburban development that took no account of the needs of women and children and that accentuated the loneliness and isolation of child-rearing in the home. The economy was prosperous and families spent money on household appliances and consumer goods. However, Ausubel, an anthropologist who did research in New Zealand at this time, observed that the time that American women had gleaned as free time through labour saving devices was reinvested by New Zealand women into do-it­ yourself projects connected with the home. New Zealand mothers, he felt, were very serious about raising their children, not expecting enjoyment or emotional satisfaction (Ausubel, 1960). Kedgely ( 1996) argued that many mothers were young,

inexperienced, had very little support and felt they had lost an identity of their own. The emergence of talk of suburban neurosis in 1 968 and research on the situation of women began to challenge the hegemonic stereotype of the happy domestic housewife and mother in New Zealand. In a study of New Zealand mothers in 1 963, Jane and James Ritchie ( 1970) concluded, �'The reality is that motherhood in New Zealand too rarely brought women the experience of joy." In a follow-up study in 1 977 they concluded that in the 1 970s child-rearing was more pleasurable than it had been in the 1 960s (Ritchie and Ritchie, 1978).

By the mid- 1 970s, political parties had co-opted some of the rhetoric of the protest movements, particularly in relation to civil rights, gender and ethnic equality, and the environment. Fashion co-opted the counter-culture style of the 1 960s. Relen

16

It is interesting to note here that the focus in these quotes represents a broadening of interest from infants and young children to the recently invented teenager.

May, writing generally of the situation in New Zealand, argued ''Thus what began by