Preface: Kostas Gotzamanis
Published: March 2017 / 2nd Edition: March 2021
Katerina and Georgia first met at a training course. Katerina was a psychologist and Georgia a mother of two children with autism. Years later, Katerina became a mother and Georgia a psychologist. Motherhood – Finding Strength in Weakness is a conversation between them long after they met, where they talk primarily as mothers, and not as psychologists.
They both recall personal moments; they discuss the curveballs of motherhood, its joys and sorrows, father’s role, the challenges when raising a typically developing child, the challenges when raising a child that is different. They openly share their personal beliefs showing mutual respect, without being judgmental or presumptuous. Their discussions become a journey of redemption, the onset of a rewarding friendship and a fruitful dialogue. A dialogue that helps clear the sight of perplexed mothers who live in our modern “child-centric” society, where an entire industry flourishes under the pretext of children’s “happiness”. A society that overlooks the fact that in order for a woman to raise a happy child she must first develop her own self, and nourish it with the same love, care and strength that she feels for her child. For when a child is born, a mother is born.
Excerpts from the book:
Katerina
By demanding that our child be perfect and for it to excel, we may actually end up clipping their wings. This demand may be a sign that we have lost our own wings. That we have lost the ability to think creatively…
Georgia
We weren’t trained to tolerate diversity. Our society promotes homogeneity and casts out anything that is different. As if it is threatened by diversity itself. The masses are easy to manipulate. Free persons, not as much…
Katerina
Today mothers feel they’re constantly under the microscope; that they must present a flawless child to society, because if their child isn’t flawless, then they are the ones to blame. And what could be more devastating for a woman, than her failure to succeed in her most sacred and important role, that of the mother?
Georgia
When people get trapped in their roles as parents, they usually can’t help their children much. Carl Jung said that a child’s greatest burden is the life that its parents didn’t get to live…
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