Have you ever wondered if emotions are contagious?
Sure, it sounds kind of weird, but we’ve all experienced it. When your boss is stressed, you seem to feel it radiating off them like heat from a stove. When your best friend gets the promotion she’s been working towards for months, her joy is infectious and you feel happy, too. But can mothers transfer their own emotions onto their child?
And if they can, what does this mean for you?
The Mother-Child Emotional Connection, Explained
We already know that a mother who is stressed during pregnancy transfers her emotions to her developing child. Science shows that if an expectant mother experiences high stress during pregnancy, her child is more likely to experience conditions like ADHD or depression. And evidence suggests that this transference continues after the baby is born. A study conducted by UCSF found that when mothers experienced stress, their babies’ heart rates increased compared to baseline. The more stressed a mother was, the more stressed the baby became, too. The researchers describe the mother’s stress as “contagious” to the baby.
How Your Subconscious Emotions Transfer to Your Children
Oftentimes, mothers are not conscious of this transference. We live in a society where emotions themselves are often overlooked. We don’t want to feel the feelings that are painful, or that may open us up to the judgment of others.
For example, lots of expectant mothers feel some level of ambivalence about having a baby. This is completely normal. Having a baby doesn’t just bring new responsibilities, it also brings new fears–about the baby’s health, about your health, about how you will change, about how your relationship with your partner will change. But cultural conditioning tells us that we’re not supposed to have these concerns, and that pregnancy should be met only with gratitude and joy. So a lot of women avoid feeling this emotion fully, leading to ambient stress in the body. Whenever an emotion isn’t processed consciously, it lingers below our conscious awareness trying to get us to pay attention.
It’s important to note here that our goal is never to blame or shame mothers for their emotions. It’s not your fault if you experienced trauma or painful external circumstances during pregnancy. You haven’t failed, and there’s nothing wrong with you. We want you to understand the transference of emotions so that you can be empowered not only to heal yourself, but to help your little one heal, too.
The Impact of Transference In the Creation of Disease
For an example of how transference impacts kids, take the disease of tonsilitis. This disease is a hidden request for a mother’s presence and love. It is also an expression of the words the mother didn’t say. Suppressed anger and not being able to speak her mind manifests in the child as a disease in the tonsils and throat. This way, her unspoken anger is expressed–albeit not that effectively, of course.
Many children get tonsillitis in the fall when they are separated from their mother. This happens frequently just after the Thanksgiving break. Of course, cold and flu season are partially to blame. But this also happens because children are able to spend more time with their mothers over the holiday and the separation is repaired. The illness stems from a conflict of separation. Sometimes children get sick as a way to get their needs met.
How To Deal with Transference Between Mother and Child
In the United States, mothers face cultural and practical challenges. Maternity leave rights and pregnancy accommodations are complicated and vary by state. Many mothers have to return to work before they really want to because of financial pressures. Mothers face shame and unwanted opinions for how they choose to raise a child. And corporate culture often punishes mothers for the time they take away from work to bond with their baby. These are all very real stressors, which are sometimes impossible to avoid. That might make you feel hopeless to consider–is there anything you can do to bring down your stress levels? The answer is yes.
In our Mother Child Workshop, you’ll find the information and tools you’ll need to get your stress under control and stop negative transference. You can stop stressing and start enjoying motherhood again. This program helps restore balance to your life, helps you prepare for motherhood, and shows you how to overcome societal programming about what mothers are supposed to be. Whether you’re an expectant mother, a first time mom, or a mom with teenagers, this self-paced workshop is for you. Join the workshop or join our membership today for full access to all our workshops!
