D. W. Winnicott's list of why a mother hates her baby (Hate in the Counter-Transference, 1949)

The mother, however, hates her infant from the word go. I believe Freud thought it possible that a mother may under certain circumstances have only love for her boy baby; but we may doubt this. We know about a mother's love and we appreciate its reality and power. Let me give some of the reasons why a mother hates her baby, even a boy.


A. The baby is not her own (mental) conception.

B. The baby is not the one of childhood play, father's child, brother's child, etc.

C. The baby is not magically produced.

D. The baby is a danger to her body in pregnancy and at birth.

E. The baby is an interference with her private life, a challenge to preoccupation.

F. To a greater or lesser extent a mother feels that her own mother demands a baby, so that her baby is produced to placate her mother.

G. The baby hurts her nipples even by suckling, which is at first a chewing activity.

H. He is ruthless, treats her as scum, an unpaid servant, a slave.

I. She has to love him, excretions and all, at any rate at the beginning, till he has doubts about himself.

J. He tries to hurt her, periodically bites her, all in love.

K. He shows disillusionment about her.

L. His excited love is cupboard love, so that having got what he wants he throws her away like orange peel.

M. The baby at first must dominate, he must be protected from coincidences, life must unfold at the baby's rate and all this needs his mother's continuous and detailed study. For instance, she must not be anxious when holding him, etc.

N. At first he does not know at all what she does or what she sacrifices for him. Especially he cannot allow for her hate.

O. He is suspicious, refuses her good food, and makes her doubt herself, but eats well with his aunt.

P. After an awful morning with him she goes out, and he smiles at a stranger, who says: 'Isn't he sweet!'

Q. If she fails him at the start she knows he will pay her out for ever.

R. He excites her but frustrates—she mustn't eat him or trade in sex with him.

https://tpocambodia.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Winnicott-Hate-in-the-Counter-Transference.pdf

Esther Kinsky, Seeing Further

Attending the book launch for Esther Kinsky in conversation with Daisy Hildyard a few weeks ago at Juno Books, and going to the pub with Esther afterward was very special, especially on Shabbat where greetings were exchanged in recognition of common heritage. Esther spoke much about her time living in Hungary and her efforts to rehabilitate an old cinema in a small, otherwise forgotten village. She also mused about the magic of the cinema in so poetic a manner so as to tempt me to run to the big screen following the event and immerse myself in the collective viewing experience, popcorn in lap, the warm bodies of others palpable. 

In the following passage, Esther laments the changes to viewing and how we see in today's digital world - the viewing of films less an event for community congregation and collective viewing or looking in the shared cinema, replaced by an increasingly privatised viewing experience, not only from our own homes but also, at times from our own individual screens. Moreover, the on-demand experience of private, at-home viewing means the viewer is always the selector, which deprives her of the discovery of someone else's programming, of being moved by another's choice. 

I recalled my years in cegep, the college building located right beside a cinema, and my frequent solo trips to see a film in between classes, alone but together with others who shared my city. Somehow even 2009 feels like quite a different time. 

Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be?