Mind Advantage in the Sydney Morning Herald
This article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 20 May 2007. Discussing the usefulness of proxy grandparenting – usually in the absence of the real ones – it quotes Mind Advantage’s Jacqui Manning in this excerpt:
There is also the fact, of course, that Bonus Granny is not my mother or mother-in-law. Psychologist Jacqui Manning, whose Balmain practice is preparing to launch support groups for new mothers, says this may be Bonus Granny’s biggest draw. “There is so much two-way anxiety involved with the mother-child relationship and the reason an outside figure can be so helpful is because the investment is not as intense and personal,” she says. “Even in a healthy childhood, needs get missed along the way and set up emotional ‘hotspots’. When your mother says something that touches one of those, your reaction will be emotional, not logical.
So when Bonus Granny calls my daughter “sparky”, it seems a compliment. If my mother says the same thing, she must have meant that Ava’s cousins have nicer manners. And they’re prettier.
Manning believes that many women of this generation, parenthood may be the first job that they feel they can’t do alone. “There is a lot of truth in that idea, it takes a village to raise a child. We are community-based creatures although we don’t live that way any more. But once you have had children, and you’ve got this little being and no idea what to do, you need that kinship of women who have had that experience.”