Love

"Maternal Desire: On Love, Children, and the Inner Life" by Daphne de Marneffe is one of the most moving and eloquent books I have ever read. It is based on a simple premise, namely that the desire to care for one's children is one of life's great pleasures and opportunities for fulfillment. In creating a relationship, and, by extension, a psychological life, suggests de Marneffe, women find particular and crucial meaning and authenticity. Grounded in …

…of motherhood. Maternal Desire also poses challenges to us as clinicians and scholars to broaden our views of women, motherhood, and child rearing. Such broadening, which begins for the individual woman in our consulting rooms, must first begin in our minds. It must then extend to social and educational policy and to the workplace. To help women to live and feel the complex lives that are our legacy, de Marneffe suggests, would benefit us all.