"Fyrtiotalisterna" och deras döttrar

Två generationers modernitet

Abstract

The present article treats the view of motherhood held by two generations of middle-class women: the so-called generation of 1968, and those born in the 1960s. As parents, the generation of 1968 had taken on an ambitious project ⁠— to "free" their children from authoritarian structures, teach them to penetrate and reveal the abuse of power, grow less egoistic and display a greater degree of solidarity. In contrast, the maternal role which these women assume (based on the symbiosis between mother and child, where the child often had the last say), seems remarkably reactionary. Two dominant perceptions of the day can have contributed to this situation: the conviction that equality in couple relationships could easily be achieved by parents exchanging roles with one another, and the dominant socio-psychologically/psychoanalytically coloured discourse dealing with the fact that it was the "duty" of each mother to correctly understand and fulfill every need expressed by the child from the moment of its birth. These perceptions were not challenged by the mothers during the course of the interviews. However, that the mother-child symbiosis is nowadays taken somewhat less for granted and has been made the object of reflection can be noted in the interviews conducted with mothers born during the 1960s. Motherhood, in the form of a symbiotic relationship between mother and child, can even be perceived as a threat to the self, an obstacle to individual liberty. The members of the younger generation appear to be struggling to be allowed to "be themselves" in an entirely different manner ⁠— even in terms of their maternal role.