NUMBER 1021 • 10 AUGUST •
ambiguity
INDEX
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As my observations progressed I became aware that the focus of the observations
was on the substitute caring being offered to Nathan within a nursery setting.
The experience of watching women providing nurturing care to a small child was
both the source of great pleasure and enormous distress to me as an observer.
Inherent in such intimacy of observations, is the exploitative potential of
established trust which makes women especially vulnerable as subjects of
observations. I experienced this as a dichotomy between the personal ‘me’ as
observer observing nurturing tasks in a way which exposed the carer’s abilities
to meet Nathan’s needs within an institutional setting and the discussion in the
seminar group where I shared my observations, concerns and pain about what I was
observing. This raised issues for me about the possibility of betrayal of trust
and the power dynamic which operates in all observations.
Ironically my role as observer placed me in a powerless position to intervene and this shared powerlessness led to an emotional as well as an intellectual commitment to promoting the interests of the carers I was observing. Discussions in seminar groups focused on my sense of wanting to offer some form of training to the carers, to improve the consistency and quality of care on offer to the children in the nursery, in essence to offer the same reciprocity for their willingness to participate in the observations. At the same time my sense of responsibility had led to an over-identification with carers’ stresses. When a carer found it difficult to put a child to sleep in my presence I felt upset by the child’s unsettled reaction and reflected on the potential for oppressive practices. On reflection, the pattern of my observations up to that point suggests my distress in the observer role has crystallised and my internal sense of oppression is projected and externalised in one particular observation. I will explore this theme within the context of motherhood because my role as observer in the nursery raised issues for me about my own experiences of providing nurturing for my own children and my experience of being mothered myself. I have come to realise that my observations awakened my experience of my own emotions in a powerful way. Rich (1989) writes about the experience of motherhood as “the suffering of ambivalence, the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw edged nerves and blissful gratification and tenderness.” |
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