Maternidade solo: as vivências de maternidade de mulheres-mães

Abstract

This paper has its origin in a qualitative research, inspired by the psychoanalytic method. Its goal is to inquire the experiences of the solo motherhood related to mothers-women, that is, women who take care of their child(ren) with little or no participation whatsoever of the fathers. Interviews with questions regarding motherhood were held with six mothers-women, all of them over eighteen years old, who prompted to talk about their experience about being a mother in this context. After the transcription of the interviews, the analysis of the data was held, based upon psychoanalytic concepts such as manifestations of the unconscious, transference and free-floating attention. As an outcome of this paper, we found out three categories: a) the happening of the pregnancy; b) parenthood in the solo motherhood; c) the weaving of desire, bonds and parenthood. In this debate we highlighted the singularities of the experiences of motherhood in each mother-woman, experiences sewn in intra and intersubjective contents. We also highlighted that the tasks related to parenthood and the act of taking care of the child(ren) is linked to the female figure. We concluded that solo motherhood has to do with affective and relational matters, which is beyond a category that classifies and names the mothers who take care of their child(ren) with little or no participation whatsoever of the father.