Online Resources

This page contains some information available to visitors to this site, and a login protected section only for participants of the Being a Mother workshop. Often information can be misinterpreted when it is taken out of the correct context. The login section ensures that psychological techniques are only available once they have been properly explained and can be used appropriately. If you would like to know more about this section but cannot come to a workshop please contact me by email or phone 0407 819 519 or 03 9882 7958 and I will happily discuss this further. 

Resources for all visitors to this site!

 

Resources for Being a Mother Workshop Participants

  • Disputing Tips

  • Useful Techniques

  • Change Model

  • Rational Parenting Beliefs

  • Relaxation


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Links Go to this section to view useful links.

Books

Quotes Go to this section to view insightful quotes.

Links

These links point to organizations and programs based on Rational Emotive Behavioural Theory: the philosophical model used in the Being A Mother workshop.

The following sites are also recommended:

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Rational Emotive Behavioural Theory: Local Library References

The following books are based on Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy and can be found in your local library

 

Rational-Emotive Therapy ISBN: 0205144349

Overcoming Procrastination

ISBN: 0451159314

Guide To Rational Living

ISBN: 0879800429

Guide To Successful Marriage

ISBN: 0879800445

How To Raise An Emotionally Healthy, Happy Child

ISBN: 0879802081

How to stubbornly refuse to…. [upset yourself],

Albert Ellis

Anger

Albert Ellis

A comprehensive introduction to REBT Theory and Application

Albert Ellis and W. Dryden

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Australian Institute of Rational Emotive Therapy:Resources

These resources are listed on the website of the Australian Institute of Rational Emotive Therapy. For more details on ordering these materials, go to http://www.go.to/airet.

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Books: The experience of being a mother

Twins: A practical and emotional guide to parenting twins

Katrina Bowman and Lousie Ryan, 2002

The Mother Dance.

Harriet Lerner

Life After Birth

Kaye Figes

Missing Voices, The Experience of Motherhood

Stephanie Brown, Judith Lumley, Rhonda Small, Jill Astbury (out of print, in the Balwyn Library)

The Mother Manual

Jenny Phillips

Motherhood: Making it work for you

Jo Lamble and Sue Morris

Babyproofing your marriage

Stacie Cockrell, Cathy O'Neill, and Julia Stone

The Wonder of Boys

Michael Gurian

Going home without going crazy: how to get along with your parents and family (even when they push your buttons)

Andra Media

The Mask of Motherhood

Susan Maushart

Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers

Ariel Gore (Editor), et al

Mother of My Mother : The Intricate Bond Between Generations [ABRIDGED]

Hope Edelman (Reader

Staying Home: From Full-Time Professional to Full-Time Parent

Darcie Sanders, Martha M. Bullen

Professionalizing Motherhood : Encouraging, Educating, and Equipping Mothers at Home

Jill Savage

The Girlfriends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood : Wise and Witty Advice …

Vicki Iovine

The Price of Motherhood : Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued

Ann Crittenden

Parenting by Heart

Pinky McKay (Editor of First Steps, Australia’s Child Development Magazine, 2001)

Woman, Work, Child

Jodie Benveniste

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Books: Post Natal Depression

Beating the Blues

Susan Tanner, Jillian Ball

Depression after Childbirth

Katrina Dalton with Wendy Holton

Coping with Post Natal Depression

Dr. Bryanne Barnett

Post Natal Depression

Lara Bishop

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Quotes

(Source: The Mother Dance , Harriet Lerner)

Guilt is at the heart of Motherhood. Family therapist Rachel Hare-Mustin says “Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilt and I’ll show you a man.”  P 57

I was shaken to find that the old gender roles could so powerfully shape what [we] each felt entitled to and responsible for. P 57

I also wish I had allowed myself to experience a deeper emotional involvement with [my children] when I was at home with them during those early years. Keeping a part of myself removed felt like my only defense against the prescribed role of motherhood, a role too false and costly for me to accommodate. But I struggled so fiercely against the pressures to lose myself in motherhood – and felt so alone in the fight – that I probably swung a little too far in the opposite direction. P57.

It’s absurd to assume that all mothers will be happy in the same way. The “real choice” may elude us, as we automatically react to invisible pressures from our past history and present context. P 58.

“How wonderful…Gloria may be leaving us to do the most important job of all. She’s going to be a mother”. As an aside, I must confess that comments like these have always made me want to gag. Sure, raising children is an important and sacred task, far more appealing than say sitting on the board of General Motors, but the more motherhood is surrounded by flowery praise, the less it is truly valued. When nurturing children is truly valued, mothers who work at home will be economically protected and men will want to join us as equal partners in parenting. P59.

“..to aim for a shared parenting arrangement…Both Mary and Greg took significant risks. In clarifying the values they wanted to live by, they decided to compromise on what society recognizes most: status, power, money, promotions, and all the other trappings of success.  P64

As sociologist Arlie Russell Hochchild notes, many people say they want more time with their families when in truth they’d rather be in the office, where they tend to feel more secure, competent, and relaxed. Her research suggests that women are discovering men’s secret: that “there’s no place like work” to escape the pressures of home and that often both parents prefer to “flee a world of unresolved quarrels and unwashed laundry for the orderliness, harmony and managed cheer of work.” BY carving out more family time than our work-driven culture encourages, Mary and Greg were true pioneers. P64

At the start of therapy, Mary was so allergic to being like her mother – and she pushed so hard to be different – that she did not have the emotional space to consider what sort of mother she wanted to be. It was as if things had to be precisely equal in their marriage or Mary would feel in danger of repeating her mother’s history. Many hadn’t wanted to stop nursing Thomas after three months. Even at that time, she recognized her decision as an anxiety-driven response rather than a clear and heartfelt choice. P65

When we become mothers ourselves, we have a new opportunity to revisit the past and find creative ways to elicit more authentic stories from our own mothers about what it was really like for them. Knowing our mothers as real people helps us to know ourselves better. It also makes it less likely that we will mindlessly follow or rebel against family patterns. P66

She [family therapist Betty Carter] explains how couples backslide into traditional roles (he’s the primary breadwinner, she’s the primary nurturer) when children come along, and she emphasizes that today’s world calls for both men and women to earn and for both men and women to scale back at work and make career sacrifices to rear children. I couldn’t agree more. P 66

The accumulated tensions and resentments produced by inequality make divorce more likely, and in the years following divorce, the costs of the old gender roles become all too clear: Mothers are likely to become poor, fathers lose their connections to their children, and children suffer deeply as a consequence. P 67.

The politics of housework, an age-old feminist issue, rushes to the surface in previously egalitarian marriages after a baby arrives. Inequality affects others the most, but intimacy in the couple relationship ultimately suffers. As family therapist Marianne Ault-Riche points out, there’s going to be trouble in bed when men don’t notice or execute the countless jobs and menial tasks that need to be done after the first child arrives. Not only will the woman be too tired for sex, but she’ll also resent the unfairness of the situation, even if she denies to herself her resentment, because, after all, women are supposed to keep the home running smoothly. P 67

Don’t let anybody tell you what to do. That’s the key. The challenge is to follow your own heart and mind when everyone around you will have opinions and advice. It’s useful to be open to what others think, together perspectives from others, but then you have to figure out what makes sense to you and what fits your particular situation. Following your heart is no simple matter. It’s not easy to distinguish between truly following your heart and being on automatic pilot. When you’re on automatic pilot, you take the path of least resistance. You make reactive choices that come out of the pain and pattern of your history, You reflexively fall back on old roles when you come to the fork in the road, meaning the father automatically sees parenthood as a signal to step up his role as wage-earner and you automatically roll up your sleeves to do the hands-on-nitty-gritty work that babies and running a home require. P70-71

To get off automatic pilot, you have to see clearly the forces in your family and culture that are driving you. This allows you to think about them and to begin to define yourself as a mother and a human being who can operate from an authentic centre….In the short run, it may be very difficult to talk to your boss about more flexible hours or to your husband about picking up after the baby or noticing what needs to be done. But in the long run, it’s worth it to go the hard route. P71

It’s especially difficult for mothers to go against the prevailing tide. What constitutes the prevailing tide depends on what group or tribe you happen to belong to at a particular time and place in history. It’s difficult to breastfeed when everyone is bottle-feeding. It’s difficult to value nurturing if society values production. It’s difficult to put your energy into producing if society says, “Mother, stay home!”. P71

Babies don’t come with operating instructions, as writer Anne Lamott reminds us. Even if they did, the instructions would be outdated quickly. Motherhood doesn’t come with instructions either. You learn on the job, and you’ll find there are but a few resting places on this journey. P72

One thing you will learn on the job in guilt. You may feel guilty about leaving your children for your work and guilty about leaving your work for your children. You will no doubt also feel guilty. But try to remember that our society encourages mothers to cultivate guilt like a little flower garden, because nothing blocks the awareness and expression of legitimate anger as effectively as this all-consuming emotion. P75

Guilt keeps mothers narrowly focused on the question “What’s wrong with me?” and prevents us from becoming effective agents of personal and social change. P75

But some mothers feel a continual tug of guilt as exhaustion, irritation or competing demands make it impossible for them to be consistently available, attentive, attuned, and at their best at all times. And we mothers may actually expect this impossible standard of ourselves. P76

Mothers are especially vulnerable to ignoring our own strong inner voice when it conflicts with the voice of authority. And we make take the voice of authority all too seriously to begin with….Even today, most mothers feel guilty enough, and they should not pay money to any expert to be made to feel more guilty. P77

We mothers are judged mot only by our behaviour, but also by our children’s behaviour, which we can influence but not control. P80

Mothers know when their mothering is being judged and it is understandable that we can get paranoid about it. When the child becomes the focus of negative attention, the mother may experience a complex mix of feelings that are difficult to unravel: guilt for one’s actual parental shortcomings (we all have them), shame and embarrassment about how one’s mothering is being perceived, anger at the child for “causing” the mother to look bad, resentment at others who are being judgmental, and worry about the child’s problems. This confusing tangle of emotions blocks the mother from gathering her resources and approaching the problem in a calm, solution-oriented way. P81

We may feel guilt about “causing” the very problem we a re worrying about. Or we may worry about feeling guilty because we know that guilt isn’t good for children. Or we may feel guilty about worrying for the same reason. P87

…you cannot predict your children’s future. No matter how terrible or how ell they appear to be doing now, you don’t have a clue as to how they will turn out over the long haul. P88

..there is an inverse relationship between the intensity or worrying and the capacity for creative problem solving. P96.

In sum, we won’t talk productively to kids about anything we haven’t processed ourselves with the relevant adults in our lives. If we don’t have a grip on our own emotionality, we will confuse our angry or anxiety-driven responses with “honesty”, and “open communication”. Often it’s better to keep quiet, at least in the short run. Only after we’ve calmed down can we make thoughtful decision about how and when to tell what to whom. P149

 It’s our job to calm down as best we can, which brings us back to our central theme. Our kids are the major benefactors of the work we do on our own selves. P149.

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Copyright 2004 Betty Chetcuti