Canning 1

Florida State University

ENC 2315 Investigative Field Essay

Kaylee Canning
ENC 2315
Professor Hennessy
9/16/20

1
 Canning 2

Introduction

A mother’s touch and attention are things so valuable that goes unnoticed in so many people’s

life right until it is taken from them. It is most everyone’s worst

I included this phrase to appeal and
fear, but for some a reality that they cannot escape. It is important relate to any audience.

to figure out the effects on those who lose a mother early on in

childhood, and how it affects their adult life. This project explores the long-term effects on

children who have been maternally neglected and how they function as adults. I will dive into the

lives children who have experienced separation between their mothers whether it be through

prison, death, or neglection. We will also investigate the lives of orphans and different

separational theories that may explain the behavior seen from this perspective. I feel it is

important to research this topic because if there’s a Included a goal, explained the
importance, and gave possible
program that could be implemented or a specific type
solutions to the problem.
of therapy that could be used on these people, it

would be extremely beneficial towards their mental

health. The different types of separation from the mother can have different effect on the child in

the future, so I have included numerous examples with research to back these effects they face.

Method
Ensured to show the credibility of my
source, proving accurate advice.
My intent is to explore what future effects people

struggle with when they grow up absent of a maternal

connection. In order to gather even more trustworthy information, I met with my family friend,

Rebecca Harrelson, who is a licensed mental health counselor. I asked her about the sort of cases

she has seen in her experience in the mental health field, and what she would recommend to
 Canning 3

those who are going through this struggle. She claims that most of these people feel a sense of

insecurity in future relationships, although we will see this more in depth in the upcoming

sections.

Research

After interviewing a licensed mental health counselor and analyzing many reliable sources, I

have formed a few conclusions about what the sense of an absent mother can do to a person’s

mental health in the future. When I talked to Rebecca

First major conclusion- rest of the
about these effects, she mentions that the lack of
paragraph revolves around.
maternal care in early childhood can have a major

impact on the type of attachment style these people get

used to. She claims, “If a child doesn’t form an early bond with a parental figure early in life,

their attachment style could affect how they form relationships later in life.” For example, if

there is no sort of bond during childhood, it could make people affect how people form

relationships in the future, and it may create people to Cause and effect style commentary
proves the importance of the point
feel insecure or lack emotions throughout the being attempted.

relationship. Therefore, she claims “It is all because

the people don’t know how to receive love, or necessarily give it in a healthy way.” Learning

how to love is quite an abstract idea for most people who have never experienced it, so it makes

sense why some simply do not know how to give love they never received.

There are so many effects of this ongoing problem seen within day to day life as well. For

example in a journal named, “The Death of a Mother in Childhood: Reflected in the Work of

Two Writers” done by Ofra Lubetzky, she looks into two

Easy to tell the point we are moving
on to- daily problems. stories of writers who have grown up without a mother, and

This sentence easily connects two

different sources, allowing both to
prove the same point.
 Canning 4

when describing the first one, she claims, “The unavailability of a mother figure to mourn

remained entrenched in his imagination and phantasy…” (334) The author also claims although

he was raised by his aunt, the loss of his mother still affects his personality, and even his job.

Given this, it seems the thought of what his life would be like if this one thing were different

seems to linger in his mind, and it seems he is not the only one. When I asked Rebecca if she saw

any problems these people experience throughout daily life, she responded that “Older kids or

even young adults could struggle with the fact that they are not the same as their peers and

maybe that they’ve missed out, or there may be a level of comparison.” When she said this, it

made me think that having this idea in your head over a long period of time could obviously lead

to other symptoms, such as anxiety and depression.

Another thing regarding this topic that is necessary to investigate is different attachment

styles and the effect that has on the future mental state. Using an article by Kimberly Howard,

she notes the difference between two different

With this line, I form an important
theories of attachment and gives readers a further connection regarding future
By looking into long developed emotional connections.
view into each.
theories, it makes my points more
accurate and reliable. For example,

“Bowlby referred to the lack of accessibility as either separation

or loss, depending on whether it was temporary or permanent in nature…”(6) She is noting that

Bowlby attachment style refers much more to the physical aspect of caregiving. It is seen again

when she describes, “According to attachment theory, a

Conclusions are straight to the point-
must have open communication. secure attachment is derived from the child’s appraisal

of his/her mother’s (or other attachment figure’s)

availability. Availability implies that the mother is physically accessible to the child.” (1) This
 Canning 5

means the more time spent around the mother, the happier they will be and the greater the chance

they will get to form meaningful emotional connections with the mother. Also, if these

connections with the mother continue to grow there is a much better chance that they will be able

to form meaningful emotional connections with others as well in the future. Not only this, we see

a similar theory in the same article that claims, “…the child must develop a belief that the lines

of communication with his/her mother are open, and second, the child must believe that his/her

mother will respond if called upon for help.”(6) This theory is by Ainsworth, and he makes it

quite clear that it is necessary to have an open line of communication since infantry, and if not

then there must be a sense of detachment. When that comes in is when all the future problems

and headaches start to develop. If one faces this sense of detachment in their current parental

relationship, it will be extremely difficult to unlearn these sorts of traits and relearn how to give

emotional support and how to raise children so they can count on you.

Not only is it important to talk about theories of attachment, but it is also important to

measure the attachment quality of relationships between parents and infants and obviously note

the impacts these have on future relationships/ well-being. Patricia C. Broderick does a great job

explaining these in her textbook, The Life Span: Human Development for Helping Professionals,

explaining that most babies are found to be “securely attached”. (127) Meaning, they show

distress when the mother is separated, and seek

Clear transition from theories to
comfort in her when she returns. But also, these measurements. Accurate and concise.

babies tend to show the beginnings of optimism and

hope as they grow. Then we see “avoidant babies” who seem to avoid their mothers when they

By including this statement, I bring in are leaving in order to form some sort of defense against
past versus present which is an
efficient source of commentary. anxiety and tend to be more anxious and defendant as they grow
 Canning 6

up. (128) It is proven that the type of attachment quality depends on the child’s upbringing so it

would make sense that children who grow up without a mother figure at all tend to deal with

heavy mental health problems.

A study I recently explored based off this topic shows a little bit about how the children in

these situations grew up to have adulthood depression. A researcher named Thomas Crook

carried out these studies and resulted, “The incidence of parental death prior to age 16 was

found to be 21% in the group of patients who

In any research paper, it is important
scored high on the depression scale as to include a source that includes
statistics to prove a hypothesis or
compared with 12% in those who obtained low proposal.

scores.”(253) These statistics clearly speak for

themselves and prove to readers that adult depression is much more likely when someone has

experienced a maternal death or separation during childhood. Another part in this study

claims “The incidence of childhood parental death in a group of 153 depressed inpatients was

21.6%, and among the 163 controls, the incidence was 20.2%.” (254) Given this sample was

from purely depressed individuals, having a death in the family, specifically the mother can

cause detrimental mental health effects on young adults.

Another interesting topic I wanted to touch on was the effects of those whose mothers

have been incarcerated. Research in a recent book, Disrupted Childhoods : Children of Women

in Prison, has been published on the way this incarceration

From this entry its clear I took a
affects the Connected the hypothetical scenario
different approach to my thesis and
to help prove my thesis.
proved my point through a unique
idea. children of

these mothers

Using pathos here, I create a sense of

fear/sadness to encourage them to
act.
 Canning 7

and it reads, “They may even feel the need to keep the parent’s imprisonment secret

throughout the duration of the parent’s time in prison, which may impede the child’s ability

to adjust to the parent’s absence.” (5) By attempting to keep the parents time in prison secret,

it will clearly hamper the mental health of the child by forcing them to hold in their

emotions. This habit of holding in one’s emotions is clearly bound to carry on into their

adulthood lifestyle. Another notable factor is the fact that these children may also fall into

their parent’s footsteps and become criminals themselves. (6) It is a worrisome thought but is

deemed likely simply because children are bound to take after similar behavior that they see,

and with an absent mother they are only destined to feel more lost and therefore more likely

to copy any sort of behavior they see from a parental figure.

One other factor I wanted to include in my research was the personality traits seen

through orphans, growing up with a permanent With this example, it goes outside the
box and includes research from a
sense of detachment and no real place to call perspective someone may not have
Fromthought
this, I wanted
of. to provide a sense
home. In an article called, “A Comparative of logos, from the research of
aggression rates.
Psychosocial Study of Aggression, Attachment

Style and Other Personality Correlates among

Orphan, Destitute, Creche-Attender and Normal

After the example, I support it with
characteristics from research. Children.” by Rajasree Chakraborty, and he did a

research study on the immense amount of aggression seen

within orphans and the reasons why it is seen. After committing his experiment he concludes,

“The results indicate that Orphan children have higher scores with respect to the different

dimensions of aggression such as, state anger/ feelings, state anger/expression, trait

anger/temperament, trait anger/ reaction anger expression out and anger control in comparison to
 Canning 8

normal controls.”(45) With all of that being said, it makes it clear that regarding orphans, they

tend have much higher of an aggression rate then those of whom grew up in a healthy,

supporting family. This is not to say that all orphans experience severe aggression but only that

some of whom felt like they never fit in. there are plenty of orphans who have been adopted by

happy, healthy, and living environments that have done nothing but good for their mental state

and future well-being.

Discussion

There are many things I have concluded from my research on how the lack of maternal care

throughout childhood has effects on future mental health. I have learned there is an increasing

chance of depression and aggression, which stem from the lack of maternal warmth through

infantry. Also, I have concluded the lack of this emotional connection makes things extremely

difficult in forming future connections because they

Here, I list out all my findings and how
force people to learn how to genuinely form a they connect to the research I have
been studying.
loving connection when they have no idea what it

feels like.

The findings I have concluded throughout my research are very important to consider when

deciding how I can make change to this ongoing problem. Maybe a help line based specifically

on this problem can be formed and it could be supported by people who have been through the

same thing. It is important to urge these people to go to a counselling session and provide

councilors with a more in-depth problem-solving analysis when dealing with this problem. I feel

like this would decrease rates of aggression and depression and have a lasting effect on children/

young adults.
 Canning 9

Works Cited

Lubetzky, Ofra. “The Death of a Mother in Childhood: Reflected in the Work of Two

Writers.” Journal of Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology & Health, vol. 32, no. 4, Summer

2018, pp. 339–345. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=a9h&AN=130280498&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Howard, Kimberly et al. “Early mother-child separation, parenting, and child well-being in Early

Head Start families.” Attachment & human development vol. 13,1 (2011): 5-26.

doi:10.1080/14616734.2010.488119

Crook, T., & Eliot, J. (1980). Parental death during childhood and adult depression: A critical

review of the literature. Psychological Bulletin, 87(2), 252–

259. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.87.2.252

Siegel, Jane A. Disrupted Childhoods : Children of Women in Prison. Rutgers University

Press,2011.EBSCOhostsearch.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=433556&si=eds-live&scope=site.

Broderick, Patricia C. The Life Span: Human Development for Helping Professionals. 3rd ed.,

Pearson Learning Solutions, 2013, bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781269153508.

Chakraborty, Rajasree, et al. “A Comparative Psychosocial Study of Aggression, Attachment

Style and Other Personality Correlates among Orphan, Destitute, Creche-Attender and

Normal Children.” SIS Journal of Projective Psychology & Mental Health, vol. 26, no. 1,

Jan.pp.EBSCOhostsearch.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=a9h&AN=133726501&site=eds-live&scope=site
Canning 10