When faced with the emotional demands of caring for a newborn child, women often feel frightened, helpless and isolated. In the second of our Lent series in which writers select the book that helped them through a difficult patch in their lives, a psychiatrist recalls the book that taught her to let go of her expectation that mothers have to be perfect

It was August and I was in Florence attending a conference on philosophy and psychiatry, together with many other psychiatrist colleagues from different countries and cities. One of my Indian ­colleagues had never been to Florence before and asked what I thought he should see. I suggested a visit to the Uffizi, and when we met up later that day, I asked him what he thought of the collection. He was enthusiastic but also puzzled: “Great art,” he said. “And amazing history: but what was with all the pictures of mothers and babies?”

The multiple depictions of the Madonna and Child had no symbolic significance for him at all; so we spent the next few hours of that hot Italian evening sitting in a piazza with a coffee, watching people come and go; and talking about motherhood and how different our cultural experiences of it are.

I don’t think anyone would seriously dispute that motherhood tends to be seen as an ­idealised state for women; one associated with joy. In so many cultures and countries, motherhood bestows an extra-positive status on a woman which cements her social role in her family and among her peers, and there is even a legal concept of a right to a family life, which supports women who want to have children. And of course, for many, maybe most, the transition to ­motherhood is generally a time of happy preparation for a longed-for event.