The infant’s impact on changing identity in becoming a mother for Bangladeshi, white, African and African Caribbean mothers in an Inner London Borough

Summarising findings from the study as a whole, this paper concentrates on describing how the infant observation method’s research potential was enhanced by procedures to increase systematicity, and the opportunities for the triangulation of evidence. Particular attention was given to the value of exploring the impact of the observation material on the observers in the group in understanding the meaning and/or impact of cultural and ethnic differences. While a mother’s self confidence affects her availability to the baby, the study confirmed the importance to the mother of the support of her own mother during this time. Yet the infant observation method was particularly effective in illuminating how the babies’ demands and developmental paced changes in the mothers in the process of reorganisation in the internal world necessarily part of the process of moving from being her parents’ child to now also being a mother herself. Particularly significant was the degree to which the infants mobilised feelings of displacement in their mothers, as if the mother’s own baby can be experienced as a rival sibling. The support of the extended family could be particularly valuable in supporting the mother with emotional demands as well as with practical help. Across all families crucial to the mother’s emergent sense of herself as ‘mother’ were, on the one hand, the negotiation of her sense of loss and the experience of separateness mobilised by weaning her baby; and on the other hand, the impact of the development of clear attachment behaviour towards her. In demonstrating her importance to the infant, the behaviour also confirmed her sense of identity as ‘mother’. While the study provided rich opportunities for exploring implication of cultural differences in practices for managing child care and family relationships, we also gained insight into the impact of disrupted family ties brought about by migration, dislocation and economic and emotional, deprivation, the attempt to adjust to practise required in a new cultural context, and the difficulties that may arise when practices adaptive in one context are not supported within the host environment. These issues are illustrated with examples from observational accounts of a Bangladeshi and a West African first time mother.