Motherly love

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mother and Child by Adi Holzer .

As a mother's love is defined as the love of a mother to her children , in the strict sense, a mainly by the birth of prominent particularly strong emotional attachment to their biological children. (The word meaning “love of a child for its mother” is not discussed here.)

Conditions and reality

Mother's love as a claim

Sculpture mother with child

At present, and especially in Germany and Italy, a love that is also portrayed externally by the mother, up to and including selflessness , is, as it were, an expectation of society; Mother's love is often seen as the most original and strongest form of love. It is often assumed, unspoken, that motherly love should be equally strong for all children. Accordingly, motherly love is expected and observed as a rule. Further claims include equality of love for all children and equally for sons and daughters. France's great philosopher and feminist Elisabeth Badinter exposes these claims as unrealistic. Mothers are human and have to "live with what has been given to them, and they can only pass that on." Developing feelings for your child, according to Badinter, is cultural and not biological, as is often suggested. Thus, motherly love is neither a necessary consequence of motherhood nor can it be explained biologically.

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Physical and other mothers

The necessity of biological motherhood is controversial, that is, as with the term mother itself, the extension of the term motherly love to other people who are the main reference persons for the child. This applies in particular to adoptive mothers and more generally to those people (women) who look after and raise the child on a daily basis. In particular, the individual personal perception of affected persons as well as the linguistic and cultural stereotype of maternal love must be separated from the scientific assessment.

From a scientific point of view, depending on the subject and the theories represented, the different weighting of the character of a person by hereditary disposition ( inheritance in relation to the character of experience and upbringing ) appears through. This is an old scientific conflict, with the preference for scientific doctrine (s) having changed frequently over the past decades and centuries.

Sociologically, among other things, there are essential differences in the decision-making process for the child:

The biological mother has (at most) a decision “for” a child. The birth of the child, at least biologically, irrevocably justifies the motherhood of this very child ( Pater semper incertus, mater certa - “the father is always uncertain”). The irrevocability of biological motherhood is a form of bond that can impair mother's love, both in the case of strenuous care and the upbringing of small children or even conflicts with adult children. If the child is very unwelcome, very unkind actions can result, up to and including infanticide , an act that is not entirely unusual even in contemporary German society (with a large number of unreported cases ).

On the other hand, foster mothers , adoptive mothers or stepmothers , for example also in blended families , can develop intimate relationships and feelings with "their" children. Not all of these mothers adopt the children entrusted to them, because according to the law, such a step requires the explicit consent of the birth parents of the child, which in comparison is seldom given, since the kinship with them expires forever and irretrievably before the law. When it comes to the bond between foster parents and their foster children , a distinction must be made between short-term and long-term foster children . Only the latter are integrated into their new family in the long term through the care situation and the development of a close mother-child relationship is therefore explicitly desired.

So even though many of these adopting mothers are by law not related to or belonging to “their” child, this aspect often strengthens the mother-child bond. If one is inescapably connected to the birth mother, the choice for or against adopting mothers - and adopting parents in general - always starts with the child. Before the law and society, however, it is often difficult for these constellations, because the “mothers” are not allowed to decide many important things for “their” children - often not even the simplest. Stepchild and foster child laws are highly complex, practically a "science in itself".

Forms of expression

Akseli Gallen-Kallela , Lemminkäinen's mother , 1897

In addition to the process of childbirth, which has only recently been romanticized , breastfeeding with breast milk is an emotionally intensive core area, in the context of which mother love can develop. However, mothers experience breastfeeding differently and ambiguously , so that “fulfilled” love does not have to represent the sole or dominant feeling. However, it is also true here that not only the biological mother can breastfeed a child, from the wet nurse to the milk mother, particularly known in the oriental region , to feeding the child with industrial products made from milk powder, there are many options here.

As with the more general concept of love , maternal love is understood to mean something different depending on the standards of different groups, times or entire cultures. This relates in particular to what “motherly love” or, as a related term, motherhood in general, expresses itself in detail. An intimate, intimate emotionality would have been rather unusual 200 years ago, here one would have understood self-sacrifice and active care as a characteristic of motherly love, and a boy who was too tender, for example, would quickly have been dubbed a “mother's boy”.

Scientific aspects

biology

A biological thesis is that mother-love-analogous behavior (in animals one speaks more of mother-child bond) developed evolutionarily and in some mammal species, especially primates, which have a long developmental period in children, serve the preservation of the species and social learning processes. The whole spectrum of the word meaning motherly love in humans is certainly not covered by this biological explanation attempt. A close mother-child bond does not occur in all mammals either. Since all human behavior is shaped more by cultural and social processes than by biological foundations, people can in any case grow up without love from their biological mother (and even become a "good mother"), especially if institutional provisions are made for this.

anthropology

Mother's love in the emotional sense, as the basis of a mother-child relationship, gives the child in infancy a good chance to build up a " basic trust " in its environment (cf. Dieter Claessens ' family and value system ), which after one year becomes " socialization “, The learning of the respective social rules and norms, is much easier. However, this basic trust of the child does not necessarily have to be fixated on the biological mother, so that the father, grandparents or a biologically unrelated person can also assume the function of the primary caregiver. The socialization theorist Alfred Lorenzer speaks of the mother-child dyad , in which the mother also represents the first "interface" to society, i.e. actively participates in the child's socialization.

psychology

At the same time, however, there are also psychological and psychoanalytical explanations which - based on the socially prescribed form of mother-child relationship - analyze the relationship and emotional network between mother and child and, if necessary, include the later mother behavior in the beloved or unloved child.

So differentiates z. B. Erich Fromm in The Art of Loving Between Maternal and Paternal Love. Accordingly, one experiences maternal love unconditionally, while one experiences fatherly love z. B. must earn through good references or outstanding sporting achievements. However, according to Fromm, maternal love is not reserved for the biological mother, but also a consequence of the social organization of childhood. The role of the mother is thus also a placeholder for the role of the primary caregiver of the child, which is, however, usually taken by the birth mother.

In the second half of the 2000s, the psychologist and neurologist Craig Kinsley used experiments with rats to demonstrate that maternal behavior is not innate, but hormonally conditioned and learned.

sociology

As mentioned, motherly love is also a cultural stereotype . In particular, motherly love is socially assumed to be “natural” in many cultures, especially in Central Europe, so that the violation of this matter of course (a bad mother ) needs justification. Due to this social expectation and even exaggeration, concepts of “motherly love” also have a strong ideological character and can therefore be very demanding, even unattainable.

A systematically different behavior towards first-born and later-born, as well as towards sons and daughters, whereby the latter direct their search for emancipation much more sharply against the social role of the mother, is the subject of sociological research and theories. The same applies to the child's love for the mother, which is differently expressed.

Whether it ever in people "of nature was" such a feeling, is anthropologically quite controversial; In any case, in animals there are completely different maternal instincts , which can also get by without any protection or care.

The underlining of motherly love over fatherly love ( fatherly love ) and the presumption derived from it of a closer bond between mother and child, especially in legal conflicts, for example in the case of divorce , is culturally - that is, in different castes , classes , classes , strata , occupational groups - handled very differently.

Differences between motherly and fatherly love are also stereotypical cultural patterns in all societies and are already evident in the different emphasis on each parent, as in the case of mother tongue and fatherland or “ father state ” and “the bosom of the church”.

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Mother's love  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Annick Eimer: Frauenbild: "There is no mother and no child ... so also not mother's love" In: Die Zeit. November 4, 2016 ( zeit.de ).
  2. ↑ maternity. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 12 : L, M - (VI). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1885, Sp. 2822 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).