Parenthood
The Joys and the Challenges
Angela Evans

A parent’s job description
• Guardian
• Guide
• Enormous
responsibility

Memories triggered
• Continual
unconscious
reminders
• Your childhood
impacts on your
parenting

The mother inside
• Who mothers the
mother?
• Lack of internal
resources 
– Anxiety
– Isolation
– Powerlessness

Repeating patterns
• Anniversaries and
festive occasions
are always worth
watching

Margot Waddell
• Feelings  • Feelings
– Caring, devoted, – Infantile, hostile,
protective, loving
dependent
• Mature & sensitive
responsiveness  • Uncertainty,
• Mature mother ambivalence
 • Powerless infant

The ‘Perfect’ Parent

Weaning and Separation

Weaning and Separation

Biddy Youell
“They are subject
to extreme mood
swings and are
very difficult to
please…”

Biddy Youell
• A period of growth in children shifts
parents into the next phase of their
lives

Flying the nest
• Letting go of the
little being you
have loved and
nurtured

References
• Waddell M (1999) Inside Lives, Chapter
8, Tavistock Clinic Series, Duckworth
• Winnicott D W (1951), Transitional
Objects and Transitional Phenonema
• Youell B (2006) The Learning
Relationship, Adolescence, Tavistock
Clinic Series, Karnac.

Contact
• Website:
– http://familyvillage.wordpress.com
• Email:
– angelaevans@digicord.co.uk
• Thank you. All profits go to Diabetes
UK