As I read "An Odd Break With the Human Heart," a couple of days ago, I could see my daughter doing the things that I was reading about and it just really made me realize how fast children pick up on certain things. One statement that Elizabeth said that triggered my daughters' images in my head, is when she started talking about taking her three-year-old niece ( the same age as my daughter) for a walk and just examining the way that the little girl worried about her fluffy white rabbit. The little girl made sure that the bunny was secure in her basket and that she was careful to go over bumps on the sidewalk. Shortly after telling this story, Elizabeth said that she " Felt overwhelmed by how sweet she was in her compassion, but I felt troubled too, by how prepared she was for the life of a girl."
This statement got me thinking as well, that my daughter too, is already learning the basics for being nurturing, a girl and even mother like, even almost starting to develop a motherly instinct, because do we truly know when that happens? Is it when you first find out that your pregnant or when you start to feel your baby move, when you give birth, or could it be the first time you fall in love with a doll that has become the best part of your life growing up? By the way my daughter truly cares for her stuffed animals and the way she makes sure that they are fed, bathed, and have their rest, isn't that like being a mother? Yes it night not be the whole motherly traits or the whole actions, but the fact that she acknowledges their needs and that she knows what "to do" (give them medicine/cuddle them) when "their sick", could this not be the beginning of her instincts or just the beginning of her "girl duties."
People say that when a women becomes a mother her motherly instincts come through, but don't we learn basic instincts while growing up, such as learning to suck on things that touch our mouths, when hungry, lose the fear of height when we start learning to climb stairs, or try to find something to hold on to when we fell that were falling.
These two conversations that we had in class brought together my post for today, we talked about the article and also about the blog that someone had wrote about the motherly instinct. Its hard to say when it starts but I feel that if it continues to develops when we are mothers, so couldn't we possibly assume that it started to grow somewhere in our youth, as we grew up learning to care for someone and we just call it motherly instinct when we are mothers.
Your connections to your daughter and the class material are so strong! As they should be.
ReplyDeleteI guess our class was calling into question the reality of maternal instinct as a "basic instinct"; I think we were pushing more toward the notion as being socialized (a social construction) so that women would feel they NEED to want children, have children, and take care of them. What about the "paternal instinct"?
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oh, ok, I see what your trying to say. As far as paternal instict. I feel that, since motherly instinct is more socially constructed, fatherly instinct could possibly also be, but the reason that its not is because we have also constructed the notion that women are the more nurturing ones and the ones that raise the children. This notion has left fathers to think/feel that they have other things to take care of first(provide for family), than to be the main caregiver with their children, if the mother is around. In my personal situation, since my boyfirend does spend more time with our daughter i feel he has a paternal instinct, he knows so much about her, even the smalledst details, and deffinfily worries a lot when she is sick or falls. I do as well but I feel that i dont need to spend a lot of time (althought i would like to) with her to know that I have maternal instincs, I felt that since she was in me, but with fathers i feel they gain it along the way, and they might not all develop the same as mothers or as strongs. I guess it all depends on the connection of the child and the father.
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