Stereotypes And Misconceptions In Elaine Heffner's The Good Enough Mother

When baby is born and a woman enters motherhood, her maternal instincts come naturally, either right away or over time. The one major problem with that is that becoming a mother comes with somestereotypes and misconseptions to be a perfect one. Stereotypes and misconceptions are both opinions about a group of individuals. Misconceptions, however, are lies made up about a group. Mothers, especially new ones, are pressured so much in their lives, because they have a child to take responsibility for. All of these presumptions may add stress that a new mother is already dealing with from learning how to take care of her baby. Family members and even community members put these mothers to shame by telling them how to do something the “correct”

Most of them end up feeling like it is their fault if anything goes wrong. Elaine Heffner, the writer of “The Good Enough Mother” admits that moms are considered the ones at fault for every bad situation in their childrens lives (Paragraph 2). She agrees that mothers feel they are the ones blamed for problems in their children’s lives. Heffner also adds in, “The message mothers take from all of this is that there is a right way to do things, and if you do it the wrong way you will damage your child” (Paragraph 5). Mother should not have to feel guilty every time their child does something wrong. In an interview, Elizabeth Magdaleno, a nurse at Central California Women’s Facility, gives an example of her hard time as a mother, “Your grandma was hard on me when I had Amanda. She would tell me ‘No you’re doing this or that wrong’ and it was frustrating, because I didn’t know what the best thing to do was”. Children need to make mistakes sometimes in order for them, and their mothers, to learn how to do something the right way next time. Just because a child does do something wrong does not make the mother unsuitable to be a parent. Society needs to understand that no mother is perfect and they all make mistakes every once in a

A last misconception is how people believe that a woman cannot be single if they have children. This is stated because civilization thinks a child need both a mother and a father to grow up well. Yes, maybe a child will have a great life with both parents, but even if the child only has one parent, they can still have an amazing life. A majority of people think that if a child only has a mother they may not grow up equally balanced and may turn into a bad kid. For example, if a male does not have a father to discipline him, he may turn into a kid that fights at school, because he does not have that discipline that he would get from a father. However, just because they only have a mother does not mean they will end up violent. As long as their mother raises them correctly, they will be a well adjusted citizen. It is also stated that if a single mom has a child they may become poor. Robert Franklin, author of the article “Children Need Both Parents, Even after Divorce” , implies, “single mothers with children living with them are far more likely to live in poverty than is any other segment of society”. Now this may be true for single mothers who do not have a good career, but it is not true for all of them. Some mothers may have an excellent career and are paid very well. In this case, this stereotype is false, because this mother would have a lot of money and they would not have to live in poverty. Conclusively, a mother can be the only parent to a child, just because she is