Pregnancy itself compensates for feelings of inner emptiness, literally filling the woman with new life. Women who experience this emptiness often feel depleted after childbirth and may be anxious to get pregnant again soon afterwards, resenting any discussion of contraception. The baby can also represent one’s own baby self to love in a way that one was not loved. Being a mother enhances status and although mothers are not necessarily treated well, they are regarded as good. Children can counteract boredom and loneliness, providing interest and entertainment, and can satisfy the need to be needed. They can compensate for a lack of material possessions and give a sense of potency: ‘Something new created in a material world,’ as one unemployed and destitute young man put it when he was asked how he felt about the pregnancy of his girlfriend.
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