Abriged version of the article "Psychological Problems
of Under-age Mathers Abandoning Their Children" from the book "Early
Social Orphanhood (Medical, Social and Psychological Problems)"
Social orphanhood is one of the most serious problems of our society.
For example in the period of the latest 5-6 years the share of social orphans
(i.e. orphans whose parents are alive) in children's homes of Moscow among
the main contingent increased from 23% up to 48%. Simultaniously admission
in this children's institutions decreased to 11% and birth rate in general
decreased as half as less. It is young girls in the age of 15-19 who abandon
their children most frequently.
Early promiscuous start of sexual life among teenagers became typical.
40-60% of under-age persons live sexual life. In recent 30 years in Russia
fertility of women below 20 increased from 28.4% to 47.8% (in Moscow in
1994 six thousands of under-age girls gave birth to a child). The main
reason of this fact is that teenagers in our country know almost nothing
about contraception. Almost half of them live sexual life without preventing
from pregnancy. They don't think about probable consequences.
Physiological and psychological unreadiness of many of girls-teenagers
for bearing a child is accompanied by a high rate of complications of pregnancy
and delivery, prematurely born children, ill and injured childs. Besides
physical burden immature person of young pregnant woman suffers as a rool
severe emotional injuries. For almost a third of young mothers their motherhood
is so undesirable that during pregnancy they make criminal tries to interrupt
their pregnancy.
Pregnancy of under-age woman is usually a reason of serious conflicts
in her family. Family usually is not ready, neither morally, nor financially,
to preserve it. According to V.K.Yuryev positive responce to a birth of
a child of their young daughter was observed only among 60% of parents,
15.6% of them considered it in a extremely negative way and more than 14%
of parents insisted on interrupting of pregnancy even at later periods,
when there was a real danger for health and life of their own child.
But the most serious consequences of under-age woman's pregnancy threaten
a child being born. One of the most dramatic fact is that mojority of under-age
mothers leave their children to the mercy of fate. Up to 15% of new-born
children abandoned in maternity homes are children of under- age mothers.
About the same amount of newborns, born by teenagers, "temporarily"
are kept in children's homes owing to unability of a mother to fulfil her
maternal obligations.
So why young mothers so frequently and with such persistence abandon
their children? From our point of view the most significant is the fact
that young pregnant women and girl-mothers in our country, inspite of seeming
indifference of society towards them, they are under very strong "moral"
pressure. Almost 40% of girls in fear of an adverse responce of their parents
keep in secret their pregnancy and thus preserving it don't go to a gynaecologist.
A traditional tenor of life of many Russian families, a peculiar "totalitarian
mentality" formed not only among elder, but middle generation as well,
are characterized by hostile attitude towards alien morality, morality
of youth. As a result pregnancy of a young woman becomes sometimes a reason
of severe conflicts in families. Very often these conflicts turn out to
be fatal and compel young girls to leave their families, to join asocial
companies, make them tramp, whore, etc.
Those moral standards and behaviour patterns which then transform in
a dramatic experience of a woman, who abandon her child, take shape in
family. Such families are characterized by a low level of socialization
of some of its members, a high level of personal and behaviour disorders,
mental diseases, alcoholism of parents, a low educational and cultural
level, tolerance towards aggressive forms of behaviour, residential and
financial problems for lack of place to live in and enough money to live
on. Women "abandonists" are being brought up in incomplete family
much more frequently in comparison with an average rate among population
as a whole.
A question arises: Are there some specific characterological peculiarities
of a person which might break up a natural process of formation of preparedness
for motherhood? Our investigations have shown that women with distinct
emotional impetuosity, low stress tolerance, egocentrism and dependence,
are much more common (more than 75%) among those abandoning their children.
That is why opinion of parents copmrises a considerable part (42%) among
motives of abandoning a child, sometimes for even adult and independent
women: "I can't come at my parents' place with a child not having
a father." As usual such dependant women feel in complicated situations
an emptiness around themselves, feel their loneliness. They are unable
to control their inclinations and impulses. It makes them too dependent
upon surroundings, provokes an acute need of attachment, "admission",
positive attitude towards herself. Naturally therefore a considerable part
of those polled consistently declares values adopted by society.
Social and psychological surveys of women abandoning their children
show that an abandonment motivation formation process goes differently
due to value orientations of a woman, her personal characteristics, a condition
of her mental health, social situation realities of her shaping as a person
and actual situation of conception and bearing pregnancy. From this point
of view abandonment of a child is a result of the crisis of motives. A
character and content of this crisis are variable. Following crises might
be distiguished: a) by initial absence of such a motivation, b) by initial
of substitution of motives, c) by initial motivatedness for motherhood.
a) In those cases when pregnancy is uninspected and undesirable it
is negative for women from the very beginning, because her system of values
is dominated by quite diffent needs (i.e. education to be continued, career,
business, entertainments etc.). In more favourable cases, with enough social
support available, a liberal family situation, developing pregnancy gives
rise to motherhood instinct and gradually shifts value reference-points
towards preserving pregnancy. In other, unfortunatelly much more numerous
cases situation is fraught with conflicts because undesirable pregnancy
psychologically is experienced as alien and even as hostile up to delivery
of a child. Initial absence of motherhood motives can be observed also
in cases of an unplanned pregnancy of young, under-age girls as well as
in cases of pregnancies caused by rape.
b) Pregnancy might be preserved on the basis of false motivations.
Normally motivation of pregnancy for most women is ambiguous. A motive
in having a child includes simultaniosly psychological, social and even
economic senses.
In the structure of reproductive motivation a psychological motive
of child-bearing defines a desire to get from a child emotional satisfaction,
to understand a purport of life more deeply, to determine development of
a new human being. From the social positions a desire to be a mother is
determined by the urge to prolong one's own stock, a sequence of generations,
to live one's own family, to enhance one's own authority. From the economic
point of view as a result of a child-birth one expects to improve one's
own well-being, to solve some of one's own life problems, to improve living
conditions. This structure has its own hierarchy. It is dynamic and variable,
but at the same time most women show a domination of altruistic motives,
aimed at creation an optimal social and psychological environment for bringing
up a child.
From the moment of birth of a child a woman is swayed by contradictory
feelings. The French psychologist K. Rekanye claims that ambivalence of
feelings of a young mother with love and aggressiveness interlaced together
on the neurotic level is expressed by anxiety conserning viability of her
infant or explicit fears that somebody would take her child and leave her
another one, as well as by other associated phobias. An alternative is
aggressiveness and animocity towards a newborn child.
A profound want of a young mother of gratitude does not find satisfaction
in growth and good behaviour of her child, in appropriate behaviour of
her husband. A child itself becomes a symbol of woman's defeat in private
life and thus is a form of violence towards a woman who is not prepared
for motherhood. All this results in a profound anxiety of her. Women try
to manage with it by means of dogged persistency, rudiness and as an extreme
measure, by means of voluntary abandoning a child.
c) And at last the third variant. It joins the cases when pregnancy
arises in conditions of well developed motivation to preserve a child.
In these cases abandoning of a child used to be practically forced and
under pressure of the second persons, usually parents or a husband of "abandonist"
woman. Such cases are relatively rare, but they are always accompanied
by serious psychological injuries of women.
Summarizing all the abovementioned one can consider that on the psychological
level a complex of reasons as a result of which a woman abandons her child,
may be represented in the following costituents:
1. A lack of own volitional, intellectual resources for solving a complicated
life situation arose which is perceived as "a situation of inability".
For example, parents of an under-age mother blame her for giving birth
to a child out of wedlock and "they'll never let him or her set foot
on our threshold", or "you are living off our bread".
2. Individual resources are enough, but a child does not meet mother's
plans in life. At the same time a value of motherhood in general and her
own desire to have children in future in particularly are declared. The
vector of feelings is oriented towards a situation in future and that in
present is perceived as a dissappointing obstacle.
3. A sensation of a lack of social support. Not so much availability
or absence of real support as subjective sensation of such a support plays
in this case an important role.
4. Strong emotional charge of a situation of pregnancy and delivery.
In this situation an adverse response to the beloved man who has left her
or an acute stress response to the rape is transfered upon a child, as
a result indifference or disgust towards him or her arise. In these cases
a probable dynamics of the emotional constituent during pregnancy and especially
after delivery is as following: from disgust to sympathy and pity. In this
case she-"abandonist" feels an agonizing inner conflict between
two opposite tendencies: between one's own firm decision to abandon her
child in revenge upon an offender or under pressure of the surroundings
and emotions towards this child which have awoke inside her. A short-term
stay in a maternity home do not give to a woman a real opportunity to arrive
at a considered and adequate decision.