A pregnancy gives birth to both a mother and a child.
For a mother the birth of a child is an act of publication of a work long cherished within, now at last open not only to the inspection of others but to her own inspection.
Our mothers have relationships with us before even we have relationships with ourselves. So it is that, from a mother’s point of view, a child’s relationship with himself or herself can seem an unwanted intrusion on and disruption of the mother’s preexisting relationship with her child.
A good enough mother is the first wonder of the specifically human world.
The mother the child holds in mind, the mother the child sustains and renews in mind, is the child’s first work of art. This work of art establishes the space and pattern, the inner light and rhythm of the child’s mind, so plays a crucial role in determining the habitability of the child’s mind.
Our experience as we know it has a peculiar dual quality, that it is at once a finished product and a raw material, a destination we have reached and a point of departure. As long as we go on, there is no need for us to exhaust this internal mother lode.
No one ever makes us feel as insignificant as our mothers do.