The feeling you refer to as ‘Bluetooth’ is more correctly conceptualised as Reverie.
This phenomenon was first written about by Bachelard -something akin to a sense of unity, togetherness with the cosmos -elements of the sublime. He linked the feeling to the experience of the baby in the mother’s lap.
Wilfred Bion (psychoanalyst) developed the theory of maternal reverie significantly in his theoretical writings of the 1960’s. The mother’s calm, open state of mind allows her to receive ( as a ‘container’) the child’s projections. In this experience of finding safe containment the child is enabled to develop thought and meaning. Anxiety and depression cause failures in reverie -hence the writer’s experiences.
There is a nice summary of the concept here if you want to read further:
The concept is explored in many other areas of psychoanalytic literature -Winnicott, Kelin to name just a couple of others. It is a central tenet of psychoanalytic understanding of children and how they develop, and features in the day to day work of Child psychotherapists in consulting rooms. The therapist and setting create conditions possible for the experience of reverie -a very complex process in disturbed children who have had adverse or traumatic early experiences and who struggle to find ways of ‘healthy’ relating. The results of this work can however be remarkable, but the process takes time, careful and consistent work, and a close but ‘free floating’ type of attention. As in the maternal form, reverie is a repeated experience.
My personal view on certain forms of modern feminism is that yes, in agreement with the writer, they hardly ever talk about maternal preoccupation as a wonderful, extraordinary, developmental capacity provided mainly by women (who of course posses both womb -the first housing- and breast -the first nourishing, and the experience of maternal reverie). I find it rather sad and dispiriting that modern feminism seems to disavow the value of motherhood. It is difficult to adequately convey how important it is for an infant to receive a good enough mothering experience -this is in no way to dismiss other parents, parent couples, fathers etc… but the primary model is, and will remain for all time, the mother.
Our society seems to both revere the idea (in lip service at least) whilst at the same time making it harder and harder for mothers to offer this experience to children. I also do not denigrate the role of fathers -there is reverie there too -think of children’s books where the experience is so well described – Danny, Champion of the World for example etc…
I would add that currently there are just under 80,000 children in local authority care -this number has been increasing year on year.
I make a slightly political point here -child psychotherapy (as opposed to say clinical psychology) and this way of thinking about individual development, is under real threat of extinction in today’s NHS, and in CAMHS services, where clinical efforts are increasingly geared towards short term interventions – focused on behavioural models of understanding that ultimately aim to achieve a sort of compliance with treatment, rather than more authentic idiographic developments in relational capacity, internal resources and resilience.
The situation is pretty desperate in terms of the hope we are offering individual children.
Peter Kriens
3 years ago
So what did the dad think?
David Morley
3 years ago
When we talk about even well-evidenced normative differences between the sexes, it’s easy to slip from being descriptive (men or women are more likely to show this or that trait) to prescriptive (all men should be like this, all women should be like that).
I think a good deal of this has changed already, with men taking a much greater role and fully enjoying it. What’s more a lot of them are very good at it. Often more relaxed and easy going than mum.
But I suspect there are some limits – mum will never be dad, and dad will never be mum, and we would be better trying to accommodate that than guilt tripping parents for not putting their jobs first.
“The child penalty” is a very telling phrase. How happy would we be to talk about the “work penalty”, the penalty kids pay for having a working mum?
David Morley
3 years ago
Without making any claims to possess the magic Bluetooth, when my kids were young I found it extremely difficult to be away from them overnight. And I know of men who refuse to do this, even if it is something their job requires.
I always took it as an instinctive need to be there to protect them, born perhaps at a time when night meant predators.
margueritepage
3 years ago
I wonder how this works with same sex parenting when you have two mothers in the equation.
Not a problem. One can always crowdfund the vet’s bills. Ker-ching!
David Simpson
3 years ago
Although I think you’re absolutely right about the mother – child Bluetooth link, I think this has much wider ramifications for all of us. What your extreme situation during lockdown showed you very clearly is that that rhythm of being with your child at the right times and in the right way was very important to both of you, but you might not have been able to identify it so easily in a more “normal” setting. Maybe others have discovered through isolation things about their work life balance and rhythm that benefit from being changed.
Chris Jayne
3 years ago
Thanks for this Mary. My wife and I are working full time with a 1 and a 3 year old in fields that have got busier rather than quieter during the lockdown. This article is infinitely relatable.
We’ve both had to take holiday for similar reasons as yourself. Kids are fairly resilient so you hope that this will just be a blip if they’re young, and one they’ll quickly forget.
Tris Torrance
3 years ago
An interesting read, and I certainly agree about the Bluetooth.
However I do think that if a parent is on Twitter, then their child is on its own.
The feeling you refer to as ‘Bluetooth’ is more correctly conceptualised as Reverie.
This phenomenon was first written about by Bachelard -something akin to a sense of unity, togetherness with the cosmos -elements of the sublime. He linked the feeling to the experience of the baby in the mother’s lap.
Wilfred Bion (psychoanalyst) developed the theory of maternal reverie significantly in his theoretical writings of the 1960’s. The mother’s calm, open state of mind allows her to receive ( as a ‘container’) the child’s projections. In this experience of finding safe containment the child is enabled to develop thought and meaning. Anxiety and depression cause failures in reverie -hence the writer’s experiences.
There is a nice summary of the concept here if you want to read further:
https://research.gold.ac.uk…
I don’t know the writer but he sums it up nicely.
The concept is explored in many other areas of psychoanalytic literature -Winnicott, Kelin to name just a couple of others. It is a central tenet of psychoanalytic understanding of children and how they develop, and features in the day to day work of Child psychotherapists in consulting rooms. The therapist and setting create conditions possible for the experience of reverie -a very complex process in disturbed children who have had adverse or traumatic early experiences and who struggle to find ways of ‘healthy’ relating. The results of this work can however be remarkable, but the process takes time, careful and consistent work, and a close but ‘free floating’ type of attention. As in the maternal form, reverie is a repeated experience.
My personal view on certain forms of modern feminism is that yes, in agreement with the writer, they hardly ever talk about maternal preoccupation as a wonderful, extraordinary, developmental capacity provided mainly by women (who of course posses both womb -the first housing- and breast -the first nourishing, and the experience of maternal reverie). I find it rather sad and dispiriting that modern feminism seems to disavow the value of motherhood. It is difficult to adequately convey how important it is for an infant to receive a good enough mothering experience -this is in no way to dismiss other parents, parent couples, fathers etc… but the primary model is, and will remain for all time, the mother.
Our society seems to both revere the idea (in lip service at least) whilst at the same time making it harder and harder for mothers to offer this experience to children. I also do not denigrate the role of fathers -there is reverie there too -think of children’s books where the experience is so well described – Danny, Champion of the World for example etc…
I would add that currently there are just under 80,000 children in local authority care -this number has been increasing year on year.
I make a slightly political point here -child psychotherapy (as opposed to say clinical psychology) and this way of thinking about individual development, is under real threat of extinction in today’s NHS, and in CAMHS services, where clinical efforts are increasingly geared towards short term interventions – focused on behavioural models of understanding that ultimately aim to achieve a sort of compliance with treatment, rather than more authentic idiographic developments in relational capacity, internal resources and resilience.
The situation is pretty desperate in terms of the hope we are offering individual children.
So what did the dad think?
I think a good deal of this has changed already, with men taking a much greater role and fully enjoying it. What’s more a lot of them are very good at it. Often more relaxed and easy going than mum.
But I suspect there are some limits – mum will never be dad, and dad will never be mum, and we would be better trying to accommodate that than guilt tripping parents for not putting their jobs first.
“The child penalty” is a very telling phrase. How happy would we be to talk about the “work penalty”, the penalty kids pay for having a working mum?
Without making any claims to possess the magic Bluetooth, when my kids were young I found it extremely difficult to be away from them overnight. And I know of men who refuse to do this, even if it is something their job requires.
I always took it as an instinctive need to be there to protect them, born perhaps at a time when night meant predators.
I wonder how this works with same sex parenting when you have two mothers in the equation.
Excellent question.
Perhaps there will be a cat fight?
Not a problem. One can always crowdfund the vet’s bills. Ker-ching!
Although I think you’re absolutely right about the mother – child Bluetooth link, I think this has much wider ramifications for all of us. What your extreme situation during lockdown showed you very clearly is that that rhythm of being with your child at the right times and in the right way was very important to both of you, but you might not have been able to identify it so easily in a more “normal” setting. Maybe others have discovered through isolation things about their work life balance and rhythm that benefit from being changed.
Thanks for this Mary. My wife and I are working full time with a 1 and a 3 year old in fields that have got busier rather than quieter during the lockdown. This article is infinitely relatable.
We’ve both had to take holiday for similar reasons as yourself. Kids are fairly resilient so you hope that this will just be a blip if they’re young, and one they’ll quickly forget.
An interesting read, and I certainly agree about the Bluetooth.
However I do think that if a parent is on Twitter, then their child is on its own.