- Author: Park, Ji Young
- Title: Bodily Experiences of Unwed mothers during Childbirth and Child-Rearing
- Language: Korean
- Type: PhD Thesis
- Publication Year: 2023
- Publisher: Yonsei University, Department of Theology
■ Abstract This study analyzed the psychological experiences of four unwed mothers during childbirth and child-rearing through narrative inquiry. Then this study intended to present a way of intervention of counseling and pastoral care for unwed mothers based on these analyses and understandings. According to Clandinin and Connelly(2007)’s methodology, I had lived with 4 participants and had narrated their living-telling-retellingreliving stories in the 3-dimensional narrative space.
I tried to understand the essence of experiences and the characteristics of narratives through participants’ stories to live by. I applied three main theories to understand phenomena that participants had lived. first normal family ideology and stigma, second intersubjective mutual recognition, third humans social brain and trauma theory were discussed. And based on Ivone Gebara’s ecofeminism theology I tried to understand unwed mothers life.
I interviewed 4 participants who experienced childbirth and child-rearing as an unwed mother for this study. They have reared their child over 8 years as unwed mothers and they are in their between thirties and forties. They are currently responsible for the multiple roles of raising children and in charge of family economy. According to the criteria for selecting participants I recruited and interviewed 4 participants. In the 3-dimensional narrative space I narrated experiences of 4 participants and analysed their stories. Then I arrived 3 resonant narrative threads focused on bodily experiences like below. The first resonant narrative thread is ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’, second is ‘recognition’ and ‘denial’, third is ‘growth’ and ‘change’.
The First, All participants were born and raised in normal families. But participants’ experiences in normal family were violence and denial of subjectivity, that is submission. After becoming an unwed mother they also experienced violence and stigma of ‘abnormality’. In other words, within the dichotomous archetype of ‘normality’ and ‘abnomality’ under patriarchal system, all participants had violent experiences with their bodies.
The second resonant narrative thread is ‘recognition’ and ‘denial’. Participants recognized and surrendered to new coming embryos not as an object but as a subject. But they experienced 3 denials like below because of their recognition to embroys. First, denials of their child from surrounding people, second, denials of their unwed child-birth, third, their denial of bodily changes as an pregnant woman.
The third resonant narrative thread is ‘growth’ and ‘change’. All participants were stigmatized as abnormal mothers as soon as becoming unwed mothers. But they had endured in suffer. Then they grew up to be people who help unwed mothers of similar situation. Then their original family’s relationship also have been changed. In other words, the relationship of domination and submission in their original family became to mutual recognition due to their child as the thirdness like Jessica Benjamin described.
Through this process, the researcher arrived the discussion about unwed mothers bodily experiences during childbirth and child-rearing. The first characteristic of participants experiences of childbirth and child-rearing is mutual-recognition. In the patriarchal normal family ideology, Participants experienced denial of subjectivity rather than recognition. In other words they experienced domination-submission and complementary relationship. In spite of that, they recognized their embryos as a subject and carried out childbirth.
Second, due to childbirth as an unwed mother, they also traumatized during childbirth and child-rearing. Cozolino(2018b) and Liberman(2015) emphasized our social brain as a product of evolutionary development. Therefore, stigma, exclusion and disconnection in relationships are experienced as trauma in our brain, just like physical violence. All participants experienced stigma and disconnection from the moment they discover pregnancy. And they feel guilty, lonely and hopeless.
Third, through childbirth and child-rearing, participants also experienced growth and recovery in the space of mutual recognition.
Then I derived the practical implication for unwed single mothers counseling. first, unwed mothers were traumatized in the process of childbirth and child-rearing. So bottom-up approaches centering bodily feeling are needed first. Second, They need to recover the relationship as a subject in the intersubjective space like the thirdness. Through this restoration of relations, participants recover their subjectivity and also their decisions as subjectivity were respected. Finally, it is necessary to restore the dignity and honor of unwed mothers that have been denied through the improvement of social stake holders perception of unwed mothers and formation of support group.
This study focused on the essence of experiences of unwed mothers during childbirth and child-rearing. And this study also purpose to provide adequate psychological help for unwed mothers in the filed of counseling and coaching.
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