Rock bottom

‘I got to zero next day’

(Trish)

Most women articulated a particular point in time at which they felt they had reached a low point. For Trish it was the day after her children had been taken when she ‘trashed’

her house. For Marie, as we have heard, it was returning home to an empty house, while Sally tells us of reaching rock bottom around the time of initial separation from her children:

‘It was awful. I just drank myself stupid, took a loads of drugs, tried to kill myself’

99 These low points referred to as part of the fracture of the ‘incompleteness’ narrative form a basis for reflection to which I shall return in my discussion of the second narrative (see section 3.4.7).

3.3.7 Unfit

Within the incomplete narrative Sally articulates her feelings that her mother apart status negates her ability to perform her role working with vulnerable children:

‘then to have to come and say I didn’t have my children and yet I’m looking after somebody else’s children just.. it just didn’t feel right and I felt I’d be judged even more’.

Aisha perceived that her own upbringing substantiated judgments of her parenting capacities as substandard:

‘I wan’t in a good place then and I found out that basically my childhood, made a big part in that, meaning that they said that I was emotionally abused and

physically abused as a child and that could affect me, affect me being a mother to my son’

3.3.8 Contact

‘I feel complete. Like my family’s together but it is in a false environment and it

hurts when they go’ (Marie)

Defining time spent with children as ‘contact’, whether direct or indirect reinforces ‘gaps’

within the narrative of ‘incompleteness’. The chart on page ***** illustrates the varied contact arrangements between participants and their children and grandchildren. As

100 Marie (above) suggests, contact allows her temporarily to suspend elements of her incomplete status.

Contact time is precious and yet fraught with difficulty as every contact is a goodbye and a return to a home without your children. Mothers struggle to negotiate their identity as a mother in the artificial confines of contact centres” (Naqvi and Beckwith 2014, p.16).

Having received her first letter from her son’s adopters Aisha told me:

‘I don’t know who he is and that letter’s just helped me a bit to get to know him’.

Women told me of the importance of their contact and their stories allowed them to tell the grander narrative of the ‘good mother’ in the ways in which contact happens. Telling of bringing equal amounts of gifts such as magazines to each child, cooking with their children where it was possible within the confines of the contact centre, throwing a tea party for their first birthday and videos being filmed as keepsakes by contact workers are all ways that mothers apart are able to demonstrate their adherence to the ‘good mother’ narrative. Neil et al (2014) recognise the importance that contact can play in supporting birth relatives to cope with and make sense of the loss of a child.

Mothers whose children were adopted told stories about final contact sessions with their children to say goodbye. Nicola describes saying goodbye to her daughter who was asleep:

‘I had to hold her hand and rub her hand and say goodbye I love you sweetheart

I got out of that car I just felt so desolate’

Zoe’s final contact with her baby was held with her elder children present as well as her violent partner:

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‘Vile…I got in there, I was very upset. I could have killed the contact officer. She were “don’t cry, it’s going to be ok”. It’s not going to be ok love……They make you do it…. it’s so hard to let go’

The contact officer’s wish to soothe or reassure did not acknowledge the finality or pain of what was occurring.

3.3.9 Gatekeepers

Key relationships described within the terms of the incomplete mother are with

‘gatekeepers’, figures who sit between the mothers apart and their ability to be a

‘complete’ mother. Within the transcripts I identified the gatekeepers as social workers, special guardians, ex partners and foster carers. A number of stories placed children in the ‘gatekeeper’ role, often in situations in which the mothers’ role is supplanted by an abusive ex-partner, undermining the mother-child relationship through maternal

alienation (Monk, 2014; Morris, 2010).

Women who feel vulnerable also tell stories in which they situate themselves as

gatekeepers, often in the context of having to protect themselves from further hurt from their children.

Nicola’s story is one of a family who are able to communicate about very difficult issues, who find it hard at times but who find their own solutions. Nicola’s son, James, is cared for by her sister, Shelley. Nicola feels Shelley enables her to be accommodated within James’ life. Nicola’s relationship with Shelley is one in which she feels listened to, heard and supported. Nicola is clear that Shelley is keen for her to have a relationship with James:

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‘It’s with her to decide [about me seeing James]. Yeah. But she wants him to have a good relationship with me. She really does… Which is good cos she’s, she’s said to me before it’ll mess his head up if he hasn’t got a good relationship with his mum’

Nicola is letting us know that Shelley ultimately has power to withdraw her contact and the general decision making over James, but that Shelley does not wield this power insensitively. When decisions need to be made about James, Nicola describes the process, being clear not to brush over the challenges, yet concluding that she and Shelley communicate to find ways forward:

‘We’re alright, we can talk. You know it might take me a couple of days to say what I’ve got to say but I will say it in the end. You know, just to get it out there.

And Shelley will say to me you know, her face will change and she looks

nervous, you know and then she says what she needs to say and then I try and calm the situation and make it nice, the situation try what I can to make it nice for her.’