She was looking forward to her dream child, but then everything turned out differently: historian, cultural scientist and author Christina Wessely talks in an interview about her postpartum depression and false expectations of motherly love.
Ms. Wessely, in your book “Liebesmühe” you tell the story of a late mother who initially doesn’t love her baby. Is it autobiographical?
Yes, the book has something to do with me and my experiences. I was 43 years old when my son was born and, like the protagonist, I slipped into postpartum depression after the birth. But the story and its characters also have fictional parts.
What expectations did you have when you became a mother?
I already knew that it wouldn’t all be a circus and Punch and Judy show, but, and this is important to me to say: this child didn’t happen to me and I then thought, well, I’ll just do it. It was a dream child.
With the birth of the child, you find yourself in a “hell of eternal recurrence,” with nursing times and walks and sleep routines. What memories do you have of this time?
At first I thought: Okay, this is life with a child. It felt like running the gauntlet when it came to recognizing the child’s much-vaunted rhythm and behaving accordingly. This mother in the book, i.e. me, just rushed around the city. Everything had become a threat.
The author Christina Wessely, 47, with her book “Liebesmühe” at the Leipzig Book Fair 2024. She is a professor for the cultural history of knowledge at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg.
© R. Stoffels / Imago Images
What were you afraid of?
That my son might wake up because it was so loud. The fact that the world outside could overstimulate him was always the keyword in the baby guides. It said: The baby needs to get some fresh air, but at the same time he shouldn’t be overstimulated. And suddenly all I could see in a big city like Berlin was a single sensory overload. I felt like a juggler with balls that could never all be kept in the air.
Your female character in the book asks the midwife what she should do with the baby if she has to go to the doctor. The midwife replies that the baby will come with her everywhere from now on. Did that scare you as much as your character did?
Yes, I experienced it as a total loss of autonomy. Today, I know from the doctors who treated me that there are two major risk factors for postpartum depression: the mother’s age and her level of education. I think that’s understandable: after 25 years of adult life, a woman loses her autonomy, also a part of her emancipation, her independence and self-activity. It shocked me that the opportunities for self-design that I always had were no longer available.
Yes, you win a lot. But you also lose something of your former self
Was the loss of autonomy the biggest turning point for you?
Yes, until today. My son is now almost five years old and, I would like to emphasize that, I am an enthusiastic mother. But I have changed. There’s this saying that says you don’t lose anything when you become a mother, you gain something. So you would remain who you are and also become someone else, a mother. I think that’s really only true with limitations. Yes, you win a lot. But you also lose something of your former self.
What exactly?
A fundamental and radical freedom that consists in the revisability of everything. In the past, I could have changed or left my place of residence, my job, my partner, no matter how difficult it would have been. And suddenly an element comes into life that cannot be changed. In my book I let the protagonist think about the age up to which a baby can be placed in the baby hatch in a kind of desperate thought experiment. But even that wouldn’t be a way out, because as a mother she can’t say: I’ll give this child away and then life will be as before. I will remain a mother, even if my child grows up with other people.
maternity
“Eye Mama Project”: intimate insights into motherhood – from the mothers themselves
There lies your son in your arms, the child you want, and you don’t feel the love that everyone is pleading for. What did that do to you?
It was absolutely horrible because I was expecting something different and because everyone else seemed to be experiencing something different. I came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with me, that everyone else could think and feel “normally” but not me.
When did you realize that it wasn’t just life with a child, but that you were sick?
The night I had suicidal thoughts. The child’s father had gone out for the first time and I was alone with the child. We lay next to each other in bed. It was as if I had split myself. I wasn’t sure anymore: Am I the one still in bed? Or am I already the one who goes to the window and jumps from the fourth floor? I had to cling to the mattress. I had to get up and do something to distract myself. I made myself some hot tea and deliberately burned myself on it to feel like I’m still here. And then I called my partner and said: You have to come home.
Help was sought and not said: Now pull yourself together
Did you get help immediately?
Yes, I am lucky that I live in social circumstances where it was immediately understood: This is not a temporary baby blues, but postpartum depression. Help was sought and not said: Now pull yourself together, others can do it too.
How do you tell the difference between baby blues and postpartum depression?
I’m not a doctor. But experts say that with hormonal fluctuations, the baby blues can start on the second or third day after birth and last for a maximum of a few weeks. If the depression extends beyond that and the child remains a stranger to you, I would get help.
You then started psychotherapy. Did it work?
Yes definitely. There was also drug therapy with anti-depressants that I was prescribed. But I would describe the healing process as twofold: on the one hand, there was therapy and medication. And on the other hand, when I was feeling better, I took care of myself by looking at: What is actually happening to me?
You are a historian and cultural scientist, did that help you process your situation?
Yes, because at some point I began to critically examine current ideas about motherhood and motherly love. My research then made it clear to me that these ideas are not “natural”, but rather shaped by the respective historical and social conditions. What is considered “normal” or “natural” today was viewed very differently just a few decades ago.
Mother’s love is not a natural feeling, but a historical invention of modernity
In the book you describe postpartum depression as a pathological reaction to pathological social expectations.
Yes. But I don’t want to play off the medical part of the disease against the social part. Depression results from neurobiological changes that can be responded to with medication. However, it always has a social side, which in this case has something to do with not being able to live up to social expectations or norms.
You mean the ideal of natural motherly love?
For example, yes. Mother’s love is not a natural feeling, but a historical invention of modernity. It was only around 1800 that maternal love was described as a supposedly natural feminine quality. Becoming aware of this helped me.
In your opinion, is there no such thing as motherly love?
Yes, but it is not “implanted” in women. Regarding any other kind of love, partner love for example, we agree that it must evolve. Love for children is presented – mind you in our society and in our present – as the only form of love that must arise immediately. And I am writing against this idea.
It seems as if couple relationships are allowed to be conducted individually, as if gender identities are allowed to develop freely, but the mother-child relationship has to fulfill clear expectations, for example that of unconditional love.
Yes. We know that gender identities are also cultural and social constructions. How we are and who we see ourselves as depends very much on our social influences. Only the mother is a figure who is still seen in connection with unadulterated nature.
“As if a passage had suddenly opened, violently torn open, love flows into her body,” you write towards the end of your book. Your protagonist has begun to love her child. After everything you’ve been through, is this the solution?
No, not everything is settled with love. But I wrote a personal book and in the end – after a lot of “labor of love” – luckily I finally found love. However, this great feeling does not contradict the need to develop a new social understanding of motherhood and fairer regulations for care work. Love for the child and criticism of the circumstances are not mutually exclusive.
Christina Wessely has published: “Liebesmühe”, Hanser Verlag 2024, 22 euros