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The article focuses on the usefulness of ambivalence in understanding not only the complex emotions involved in mothering but also cultural fantasies and fears about mothers. Psychoanalysis is necessary for any deep understanding of ambivalence. The traditional focus of analytic understanding has meant that maternal ambivalence, and the associated desire to make reparation to the baby, have been considered primarily as an action replay in the mother of her infantile experiences of ambivalence towards her own mother. To regain her sense of well-being, a mother needs to abandon impossible maternal ideals which dangerously magnify both self-hate and child-hate. Bearing in mind the importance of maternal development, the author has termed this process as maternal individuation. A woman's personal, cultural and ethnic history, her economic circumstances, her relationships, the psychological and physical state of her child can all impact on her response to ambivalence. Maternal ambivalence is viewed askance and defended against by both idealisation and denigration of mothers.