Domestic violence and motherhood – a view to non-residential mothers’ life stories

1. Domestic violence and motherhood – a view to non-residential mothers’ life stories CIF Conference 2009 Finland Kiljava Kirsi Nousiainen 4.8.2009 Kirsi Nousiainen

2. About the research • Presentation is based on doctoralthesis (Non-Residentialmothers. SpatialIdentity Construction, 2004) • Research on 18 mothers, who in divorceleftvoluntarilyorinvoluntarilytheirchildren to live with the fathers • Focus of the research is the identityconstruction as mothers in women’s life course • Data is interviewednarratives of life • Womenchosethemselveswhattheywanted to tell and considered as significant in theirlives Kirsi Nousiainen

3. Spatial identity and it’s construction Holisticview to identity: - significant is thatidentity is constructed in interactionwithotherpeople (Mead 1967) and her/hisenviroment (e.g. Burkitt 1991; 1999) - the spaciality of the identityconstructionconsists of physical, mental, social and symbolicdimensions - in women’s life storiesdifferentspaces for identityconstruction : myths of motherhood, relationships to significantothers (women’sownmothers and fathers, children’sfathers, children, othermothers), home, reflexsivity (understanding the meaning of life events to one’sownidentity and copingwithtraumaticevents) and moralfeelings (guilt and shame) Kirsi Nousiainen

4. Home space • In thispresentation I shallfocus on the home as a dialocicalspace in the mothers’ (11/18) storieswhohaveexperienceddomesticviolence • Domesticviolenceeither in childhood home or/andadultrelationship/home • Home as a sociallyproducedspaceconsists of people’srelations to the concretephysicalspace, the relations to eachother and an individualexperience. Home canalsobedefined as ”livedspace”, whichrefersspecifically to the experienced dimension of home (Granfelt 1998) Kirsi Nousiainen

5. Home space (2) • Feelingsare an essentialpart of one’ssense of home • Essential is alsothat home is a private – notpublic – space, thoughperceptions of private and publicdiffers in differentculturesbutalso in the individuallevel of experienceaccording to one’s social status orlivingconditions (Tedre 1999) • Iris Marion Young (1997) - criticizes the longing for solid and constantidentities, whichalsorepresents the idea of home - Young considerssafety, individualization, privacy and preservation as the mostimportantvaluesconcerning home All of thesevalueshavebeencrushed of the women and children, who live underdomesticviolence Kirsi Nousiainen

6. Childhood home What did the interwieved women tell me about domestic violence and home space their lived in? ”From the early childhood I have memories, that I sat on my father’s lap and played with fingers. When I think of my early childhood I recognize this absence, being somewhere else, that there was no contact at all. Because in that vision my father’s eyes are not visible.” (Marja) Kirsi Nousiainen

7. Childhood home (2) ” Best I remember the drinking of my mother and father. And when they had rows. […] They usually fought in the hall. We did not actually see them, but there was terrible shouting and noise to be heard from there. They hit each other every weekend […] I could not sleep during the nights and in several occasion I woke up when I heared somebody shouting for help. I begun to have nightmares. And it begun to have an effect on my school: I was very tired.” (Raija) Kirsi Nousiainen

8. Childhood home (3) ”I wasabout 5 or 6 yearsold and us childrenslept in the sameroom, and mum and dadslept in the next room. Manytimes I wasthinking, whentherewas a terriblenoise to beheardfromthere. Itcausedfear and anxiety to me. Thengradually I began to understand, thatitwas my dadhitting my mum. Then I began to beafraid of my father. Well, then he begun to hit us as wellall the time.” (Heini) In women’sstories of the violence in theirchildhoodhomestakesplacemostlyduringnights and theirhomestransformfromspaces of rest and safety to spaces of fear, darkness and restlessness. Fearsettles in the livedspace of home space: itsvoices, social relations, items. Parentsfail to secure the emotionalwellbeing of theirchildrenwhichmaycauseemotionalillbeing in adulthoodalso. Kirsi Nousiainen

9. Outside of home In women’s stories of their adult homes and as in the first example also in childhood homes one can feel herself as an outsider. ”Thinking of it afterwards now and also considering it a lot, I have had a very strong feeling that I ceased existing when my sister died and my brother was born soon after that.” (Hillevi) ”I had a feeling of being outside, outside of my own life. And it has been nourished … as though I have nothing to say to anything. […] And yes, I still and again have a feeling that I am somehow complitely outside and people act beyond me.” (Hillevi) Hillevi’s experiences of her childhood of being an outsider in her family and home has remained as a main feeling also in her adult relationships. Kirsi Nousiainen

10. Outside of home (2) Carolyn Steedman (1986) writesabout a ”psychoanalyticdrama”, whichdescribes a middleclasswoman’s life. Shepoints out thatinstead of interpreting the earlychildhoodexperiences of being an outsider according to theories of earlyattachmentbetween the mother and the child, wecanalsoconsider social, cultural and societalaspectscausingthisexperience. Anyway the sense of being an outsider in a relationship is oftencausedbylack of dialog and canbeconsidered as abandonment . In the worst case itmayalsocausedisability to construct a goodemotionalbondwitheitheranotheradultor the child. GillianRose(1993) saysthatwomenoftenexperiencespaceparadoxically; simultaneouslytheymayexperiencethemselves as captured and as outsiders. Kirsi Nousiainen

11. Violent home ”Itwaslikeslightpushingwhichdoesnotcausebruises. Pushing me off the bed. I haveslept at the neighbours’ and in the car. Slept on the couch.” (Inka) ”I wastoldthat I wasbeaten just because I am such a badwife. So I started to believe, that I really am bad.” (Ilona) ”I rememberthatoften I read at night. And I rememberwhen the newspapercame. I gottotallyscaredwhen I hear the sound of it outside ourdownstairwindow. […] I havesomekind of trauma eventoday, thatI’mscared to go to sleep.” (Katri) The violencesome of the womenexperiencedwasverybrutal. Domesticviolenceconstucts the home space in a twistedspacebecause the violenceoftenoccurs at nighttime and italsobrakes the borderbetweenprivate home space and publicspace. Sometimes the violentmancomes to the womansworkingplaceordrives the woman outside of home. In theseoccasionswomenmaynothave a safeplace at all and she is vulnerableboth in private and publicspace. Because of thisit is possible to considerthesewomenhomeless in somesense. Kirsi Nousiainen

12. The lack of own space ”And when I workedlate in the evenig […] Ittookmaybefive, tenminutes to come home. He waswaiting for me at the bedroomwindowwhether I comeornot. And if I wasnot home byhalfpastnine, I was (according to him) betrayinghim.” (Johanna) Violentmenoftenrule the home spacewithmentalorphysicalviolence and the mostruledplacecanbe the couplesjointbedroom. The bedroom is a symbol of the sexualgamebetweenman and a woman and byrulingit the manmay show hispower of the woman’ssexuality. Home spacemaybecome a spacethat the violentmanhas the power of and the woman’sspacewilldiminish. The lack of ownspacemaybe at the sametimebothphysical and mental (like in the example). Kirsi Nousiainen

13. Leaving home Most of the 18 womenwanted to continue to live with the childrenafter the cohabitationormarriageended. For manyreasons (which I have no timehere to gothrough) itwasnotpossible. Anywaymany of the womenlived in such a livingconditionsthattheyfinallyhad to leavewithorwithoutchildren. In western societiesthere is still a culturalvital vision of a goodmother, which is the heart of home and menarethosewholeave. Thesewomen – thoughsome of themhavewanted the life to turn in anotherwaywhatcomes to theirmotherhood – canbeconsidered as somekind of pioneers clearing the path to allwomen to question and breaknarrowculturalborders of motherhood. Kirsi Nousiainen

14. Conclusions I haveshown in my presentationhowwomenarevulnerablebecause of the domesticviolence in theirhomes. Home is a space for parenting and ifyouare an outsider, youarenotable to rest, feelsafe and experiencebelonging, itaffectsyou and yourparenting. The women I interviewed and wholivedapartfromtheirchildrentold in manywayshowtheyvaluedquitetraditional and ordinarymotherhood and tried to act accoording to that, butthoughtthatotherpeopleconsideredthem as losers. Theyfeltthemselvesguiltybecausetheycouldn’t live with the children and takecare of themfulltime. In manycases the guiltcouldbeconsidered as a feeling of shamebecause of thissituation. Anyhow, mostlytheyconsideredthemselves as goodmothers. Theymettheirchildren as often as possible and lived an ordinaryeveryday life withthemduringthosemeetingperiods. Many of thosewomenwhosechildren’sfatherhadbeenviolent, had a constantfearthat he couldharm the childrenorthat the father’schildcarewasnotsufficient. Kirsi Nousiainen

15. Dialogical space Whenmeeting as a social workeror as a researcer , a woman, whosemotherhood is fragileorbrokenit is important to develope a dialogicalspacewhereshe and the workertogether in intercoursefocus on finding a mutualunderstanding and new interpretations. A dialogicalspaceconsists on listening to eachother, interest to oneanother’sopinions and mutualtrust. The women I interviewedtold me howimportantitwas to them to have a possibility to talkabouttheirmotherhood. I my selftried to be in thoseinterviewingsessions a researcher, butalso just anotherwoman and motherwith my ownexperiences and also a social worker. The use of life narratives is a goodmean of letting the client to tellabouther/his life and the use of italsogives a goodway of interpreting, understanding and reinterventingone’sexperiences and life events. Kirsi Nousiainen

16. References Burkitt, Ian (1991) Social Selves. Theories of the Social Formation of Personality. London, Newbury Park, New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Burkitt, Ian (1999) Bodies of Thought. Embodiment, Identity and Modernity London, Newbury Park, New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Granfelt, Riitta (1998) Kertomuksia naisten kodittomuudesta. (Stories About Women’s Homelessness.) Pieksämäki: SKS. Mead, George Herbert (1967) Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nousiainen, Kirsi (2004) Lapsistaan erillään asuvat äidit. Äitiysidentiteetin rakentamisen tiloja. (Non-Residential Mothers. Spatial Identity Construction.) Jyväskylä: SoPhi. Rose, Gillian (1993) Feminism and Geography. The Limits of Geographical Knowledge.Great Britain: Polity Press. Steedman, Carolyn (1986) Landscape for a Good Woman. A Story of Two Lives. Tiptree: Virago Press Ltd. Tedre, Silva (1999) Hoivan sanattomat sopimukset. Tutkimus vanhusten kotipalvelun työntekijöiden työstä. (Unspoken Agreements on Care. A Research on Home Help Service Worker’s Work With Elderly People.) Joensuu: Joensuun yliopisto. Young, Iris Marion (1997) Intersecting Voices. Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy and Policy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Kirsi Nousiainen