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Most people in society believe that a mother must behave in a specific way around their newborns. However, some current research discredits such a belief, citing that it is biologically unsupported and only socially and historically grown. Historically, society believes that women have instinctive longing to have children and can take care of them excellently irrespective of their experience and wants. However, caring for children and wanting to have them may seem significant. Thus, for some individuals, the notion that, naturally, mothers know what to do when they give birth to their children is unrealistic and creates needless stress and worry. According to Gill (2020), the maternal instinct is exaggerated since anyone parenting a child learns on the job. The learning can be via virtuous role models, instructions, and noticing what works or does not work with each newborn. Accordingly, there is no actual biological mother instinct as it is socially created and historically grown.
Research suggests that individuals learn how to take care of their children from when the child is born and continues until the newborn matures. Many individuals assume that maternal instinct immediately develops, and the mother develops immediate feelings of motherly love. Although, most mothers develop motherly feelings of affection days after birth, for some women, it takes months later to feel them (Gill, 2020). Immediately a mother gives birth, and the feelings do not happen, many of them think that it is a failure on their side. Such occurrence makes some feel that they do not have a maternal instinct. Gill (2020) adds that though, such individuals require help to develop realistic and open anticipations, society should not instill pressure in women when they develop motherly feelings and do not know how to handle their newborns days or months later after giving birth. Instead, it should help them grow realistic feelings and ways of handling their children. Therefore, there is no actual biological mother instinct as it is socially created and historically grown.
The maternal instinct is a myth since a person can gain and maintain a keen sense of their young ones regardless of their gender or sexuality. Nonetheless, according to Gill (2020), this capability differs from maternal instinct. For instance, a parent may understand the communication of their newborns, they can also comprehend their behaviors during cold, and their response to different stimuli. Similarly, parents could sense when there was danger in a child’s room in the olden days and some of his or her responses to stimuli. The maternal instinct concerning what a child needs and their response to the environment comes from deep love and closeness. Therefore, by spending more hours and thinking about the child, one will develop a motherly instinct as they do not come automatically after birth (Gill, 2020). The parent develops parental instinct after seeing and understanding different signs that the child demonstrates in response to different stimuli, and it is not limited to mothers. Consequently, fathers can develop the parental instinct as well as it is a subject to learning and not caused by nature. Therefore, there is no actual biological mother instinct as it is socially created and historically grown.
Society always confuses maternal drive to parental instinct, which is natural. Instead, in the context of parenting, it should give behavior direction, motivation but not an irresistible potency; therefore, it should refer to maternal drive. Accordingly, human beings have few instincts, and even they might lack the one to eat. The maternal drive is hormonal, as when a woman chooses not to be a mother, she will not experience biological changes since there is no maternal drive. The maternal drive can result from hormones such as those for pregnancy which is nearly uniform to all mammals where parental drive commences immediately; however, it is not in all beings.
Mother instinct is not biological but learned through social interaction. A study on some women suggests that their maternal drive commenced a year after giving birth to a baby (Neal, 2017). Such parents confirmed that the maternal drive mostly comes through learning and not by nature as they gained experience of parenting as they continued to take care of their child. The women thought that there was something wrong with them until they read more and encountered some research that suggested that the motherly drive is not natural but acquired with time. Therefore, women are not naturally caregivers, and society should treat them as men by not imposing much pressure on them to eliminate a patriarchal society. According to the illustrations of the women in the study, mother instinct is not biological but historically grown and socially created.
Through the drive, human beings are motivated to do some things. Drives are not innate, and they help in survival, or else most individuals may just wait and die during hard times. There can be an inner battle to do something but with no motivation, and one cannot perform the required action. Experiment on rats that are treated with drugs that makes them lose their brain response that triggers motivation leads to their starvation since they do not have an urge for food. Besides, such rats did not have an urge for sex (Safvat Safai & Ghodsi, 2018, p. 98). A similar scenario can happen in human beings whereby they may have sex but may not want to have babies. However, when having sex constantly, the children will come, and this means that they need not be interested until they appear.
According to human history, women did not have to want children so long as they engage in sex since people have sex because they want it. (Safvat Safai and Ghodsi, 2018, p. 100) argue that the main reason why people have children is that they want to continue the generation. Historical books like the Bible commanded people to multiply and fill the earth. The same notion is in human minds since it is a proximate motivation but not the drive to have sex (Gibbens, 2018). Therefore, it is difficult to conclude that the maternal drive is natural as people do not necessarily do sex to have babies, but the children just come in the process. Therefore, there is no actual biological mother instinct as it is socially created and historically grown.
However, there is a bonding that exists between a mother and the child during pregnancy as a result of oxytocin. Nevertheless, the same hormones cannot directly result in maternal instinct. Maternal instinct is a different thing since it demands that a woman should know how to handle her child immediately after birth. Some individuals confuse parental bonding that results from the oxytocin hormone with maternal instinct. Although parental bonding is natural, the maternal instinct is acquired; one develops the instinct later as the child grows. Thus, biological mother instinct does not exist; it is determined by social interaction and history of the mother with the child.
In conclusion, studies indicate that the maternal instinct is socially created and not biologically supported as it is acquired days, months, or years after birth. In addition, any parent, irrespective of gender, can acquire a maternal drive. Since it is subjected to learning, anybody, be it a mother or a father, can develop this instinct after the child’s birth. One can learn what the children need in different situations after observing their behaviors in response to different stimuli. For instance, a child may respond differently to cold than to pain. By love and closeness over time, any parent can learn these responses. The research also argues that individuals mistake maternal drive for parental instinct and occasionally misuse the word. Maternal instinct is innate, while parental drive is acquired. Since motherly behaviors are not natural, society should not mistake the words and use them correctly.
Therefore, parental instinct does not exist and the maternal drive grows as a parent interacts with the child. Thus, something that is not tangible should not be applied as biological. The aim of individuals while having sex is not to have children; however, nature just makes it happen. The humans do not have in mind the need to increase the population but they just enjoy to have sex. According to these findings, human beings can only acquire maternal drive through learning and not biologically. Evidently, there is no actual biological mother drive as it is socially created and grows overtime.
References
Gibbens, S. 2018. National Gography. Is Maternal Instinct Only for Moms? Here’s the Science. Web.
Gill, K. 2020. Health line Parenthood. Maternal instinct: Does it Exist. Web.
Neal, J. 2017. The Maternal Instinct Is a Myth and We’ve Got the Science to Prove It. Web.
Safvat Safai, S. and Ghodsi, S.F., 2018. A Survey of Maternal Instinct Based on the Theories of Simone De Beauvoir. Scientific Research Quarterly of Woman and Culture, 9(34), pp.95-110.
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