Mona Lisa Smile

I love the movie Mona Lisa Smile. Everytime I watch it something new jumps out at me. One thing always stays the same though: Joan is my favorite character. I feel like I have a lot in common with her. I love to learn and I love my classes and if I had no desire to be a wife and mother I think I would go to school for years and years and years.  But...I desire a family more. Of course I will work, but my dream is the day I can take care of my family and I don't think this makes me some sort of self-inflicted imprisoned woman. This is the same place Joan finds herself in. I feel like this enlightenment in the film is often overlooked with all of the "go out and be a free independent woman" messages. 

Anyway there is a particular quote that I just love by Joan's character while talking with her professor. She is discussing sacrificing graduate school for marriage:

Joan Brandwyn: It was my choice, not to go. He would have supported it.

Katherine Watson: But you don't have to choose! 

Joan Brandwyn: No, I have to. I want a home, I want a family! That's not something I'll sacrifice

.

Katherine Watson: No one's asking you to sacrifice that, Joan. I just want you to understand that you can do both. 

Joan Brandwyn: Do you think I'll wake up one morning and regret not being a lawyer? 

Katherine Watson: Yes, I'm afraid that you will. 

Joan Brandwyn: Not as much as I'd regret not having a family, not being there to raise them. I know exactly what I'm doing and it doesn't make me any less smart. This must seem terrible to you. 

Katherine Watson: I didn't say that. 

Joan Brandwyn: Sure you did. You always do. You stand in class and tell us to look beyond the image, but you don't. To you a housewife is someone who sold her soul for a center hall colonial. She has no depth, no intellect, no interests. You're the one who said I could do anything I wanted. This is what I want. 

Resonance & Connection

One specific concept I learned this semester which I had never heard before was the process of resonance within relationships. Our capacity to emotionally bond with another is mediated through a phenomenon known as resonance. Resonance is the tuning in to another’s internal state. Between two people there can be an energizing sense of connection which lasts beyond the interaction of the moment. Resonance is described as the interacting systems that define the influence of each system’s activity on the other.  Between two individuals, emotionally attuned and contingent communication creates resonance in which each member of the dyad is influenced by the other. This comes about when the emotional state of one person reverberates in that of the other; meaning that one person’s emotions are actually impacting the other person’s emotional state to where both people will experience the same feelings. This process of resonance, caused by factors like attunement, are what leads someone to “feel felt” by the other person, leading them to a feeling of connectedness. This sensation of “feeling felt” literally means that you feel as if you exist in the mind of another person. This is an example of how two people can feel such a connection since they both feel that they exist in the mind of each other. When relationships include this process of resonance, both people may continue to feel connected to each other, even when physically separated. In order to properly integrate resonance within a relationship, this type of emotional relating requires a person to be aware of their own internal state while being open to understanding and respecting the other person’s state of mind. Integration utilizes the resonance of different subsystems to achieve cohesive states and a coherent flow of states across time, which is why physical closeness is not needed to continue to feel this connection. It is this linkage of minds that enables the two people to have a deeper sense of being together than just physical proximity to one another. All of this takes someone who is focused in on the other person’s nonverbal cues and understanding how these cues are communicating what the person is truly feeling, regardless of their verbal communication.

This concept has had an impact on my personal life. Knowing that close emotional relationships are vital for my psychological well-being, I have made a personal effort to deepen my relationship with my fiancé. One road block has been the long distance between him and me. However, knowing that this process of resonance can be a strong factor in linking our minds throughout time, I have made, and will continue to make, extra efforts to understand the emotional states he is in at different points, as well as conveying how I am feeling to him instead of sending mixed messages and hoping he will decode it. One way of applying this concept in my interpersonal relationship is by de-centering. This ability to de-center will help me to attach my mind to my fiancé’s thoughts and feelings, allowing that sense of connection to form. By de-centering, I assure him that we will share in what both of our minds are thinking, creating that sense of resonance. I also know now that there is no way to not communicate within a relationship. If a couple is not communicating, they really are just not reading each other’s non-verbal cues. I will take the knowledge I know about resonance and apply it in my relationship by doing my best to understand the non-verbal communication of my fiancé. Resonance also means that when he experiences the most basic of emotions, such as happiness, I need to recognize and be interested in these things, even if I may not feel as excited about the specific event. The sense of just “feeling felt” by me will help him to better connect. Also, my ability to enjoy with him what he enjoys will allow our minds to “get on the same page.” This is also true in emphasizing with him when something happens that upsets him. I will not just shake it off and tell him to get over it; rather in an effort to create resonance between us I will alter my own emotions to match with his, letting him know that I care about the issue simply because he cares about it, and I care about us.

My Case for Stay-at-Home Moms

In preparing for my future role as a wife and mother, I have thought a lot about what will happen when I have a baby. My decision to raise my baby myself at home often raises some opposed opinions. I do believe people genuinely want to see me happy and they think they are giving good advice by telling me to take a job and put the baby in child-care, but here is my case for choosing to be a stay-at-home mom. 

The very first thing is the common myth that the second income will be oh-so-highly needed.  In reality, after taxes and deductions, only about 2/3 of the gross amount of that income will come to you as pocket cash.  Of that money, you will need to figure in the cost of things to maintain that job such as costs of transportation, clothing, and costs of meals (you can’t bring your lunch everyday if a coworker or boss asks to go out to eat), plus any additional costs that could be job-related.  So for someone like me, who would be just beginning a career while having a baby, the money I would get for a starting salary (just out of college and inexperienced) job is just not worth the cost of putting my baby in child-care.  My disclaimer here is that I am by no means saying that I would never work—I am specifically talking about the baby’s first 3-5 years.A fun side-note is that my education I am getting now would not be “wasted” by staying home to raise my baby, seeing as my education studies parent-children relationships.

Moving on…

The next issue centers on why the first five years of life are the most important.  This is incredibly interesting to me as I have had the opportunity to research this in child and family studies. The theories of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth on Attachment, commonly known today as the “Bowlby-Ainsworth Attachment Theory,” is the leading theory used today in understanding relationships.  And where, you ask, does this begin to matter in a person’s life? It begins to matter the day the baby is born and is the most crucial the first 3 years of the baby’s life. In these years, the baby’s PRIMARY need is to be meaningfully attached, specifically to the mother. The mother’s accurate attentive care is important because during this process the child is forming mental representations of self and others that will serve as a filter for understanding and perceiving future relationships and social interactions.  The severity of a need for a mother to be emotionally, maturely, and psychologically prepared to be attuned to the baby’s needs is seen through this theory.  As the theory proposed, the way a child’s needs are responded to, and the time manner the child is responded to, will directly construct how the child abstracts assumptions about their self and others. This is where the idea of attachment styles comes in. 

A secure attachment style is ideal and this is a situation where the child’s needs are accurately and consistently met (I won’t get into the other styles, since after all; you didn’t come here for a class lecture).  The attachment style affects the FORMATION and maintenance of relationships.  In other words, the mother-child relationships set the stage for the rest of your life in how you cope with your relationships you have today.  The quality of security children experience in their attachment relationships is thought to be internalized in the form of working models called Internalized Working Models (IWM). These IWM are thought to be closely related to representational models of the self. For example, if a child’s needs for comfort are frequently rejected or ridiculed, the child may come to develop not only a model of the attachment figure as rejecting, but also of himself or herself as unworthy of love and attention. The IWM charges the infant’s understandings about one’s lovableness and worthiness and about one’s trustworthiness. Basically, the connection between the mother and the child is IRREPLACEABLE. This is why they say that you cannot spoil a baby in the first year of life.  The whole cry-it-out thing is scarily unhealthy for the baby—because in this the baby’s needs are not being met and therefore forming an IWM that reflects this.  After about three years old, the child’s IWM is relatively stable and at this point the child is pretty resilient in situations that counteract the security that has already been established by the loving care of the mother.

So my next point is about why the secure relationship is needed specifically from the mother.  The mother is the primary caregiver (in most situations) for the baby and thus they come to know that their primary source of relief will be from the mother. This is why infants/toddlers may cry around a stranger but be instantly calmed by the presence of the mother.  This gets me so excited to have a baby one day and know that I will be that security and that comfort that they desperately seek. All babies will show behaviors such as clinginess to the mother or neediness for the mother.  The way the mother reacts in these situations are not all the same.  A mother who is accurately responding to the child’s needs adjust their pace and behavior in accordance to the baby’s behavior.  However some mothers have difficulty responding in a loving, attuned, consistent way and are inconsistent and usually detached.  They will respond by doing things like mock the baby, stare down at the baby, speak sarcastically, hostilely reject and just be harsh in general.  Why does the response of the mother even matter? If you’re feeding the baby, changing the baby, and letting the baby sleep, should that be enough? Absolutely not! It matters because it forms the infant’s classification of attachment and their IWM they will use for the rest of their lives.

A quick example of what accurately perceiving needs looks like:

Mother number one is breastfeeding and as she sees her baby look up at her and drop the nipple out of her mouth she begins to speak sweetly to the child. The baby continues to stare up at the mother and the mother continues her sweet remarks in a soft, loving voice.  The mother realizes that as long as the baby is staring up at her she must meet the baby’s needs.

Mother number two breastfeeds her child and also notices that the baby looks up at her. The mother’s over the top interaction and over-exaggerated facial expressions is obviously not of interest to the baby who looks away.  In response the mother moves her head in front of the baby forcing the baby to look as her amps up her performance.  The baby looks away again and the mother is not taking this as a cue to lower her behavior; rather she continues until the baby is closing her eyes to avoid eye contact with the mother. 

Why do I bring this up? Well it’s obvious that both of these mothers have good intentions (just as I am sure many child-care workers do), however it is the job of the mother to accurately perceive what it is the baby really needs and sometimes the cues are so subtle (like a look in the eyes) that it takes someone who puts a lot of attention into the relationship to perceive.

This brings me to the last point, (sigh, I know, this has been quite a rant), the issue of child-care at such a young age.  Even if I do everything I can to be the most loving and fulfilling mother for my child, meeting their needs the quickest and best I can; their attachment classification and IWM can be counteracted by a childcare center.  This means that if I were to drop my 2 year old off at daycare and the caregivers cannot give him or her attention they need in a quick amount of time or in an appropriate way, the child will construct their ideas of relationships off of this, rather than off of the care I have been actively trying to give. (Scary huh?) The BEST care of infants and toddlers is a loving, caring mother.  However, I have to note that it is important that the mother is doing what they want to be doing because that will also affect the child.  Lucky for me, I desire to be a stay-at-home mother and I cannot wait to do everything I can for my baby so that he or she will form secure mindsets about their sense of self-worth and their ideas of the people around them. 

I Said "YES!"