The psychology of maternal instinct, or the psychology of motherhood, is a relatively new direction in psychology, which has already managed to absorb various knowledge and become interesting for most women. How is a mother born in a woman? At what point do you realize you are ready for motherhood? You will find answers to these and other questions in our article on maternal instinct.
What does the maternal instinct consist of?
We are born women and become mothers. Maternal instinct is not an instinct in its true biological meaning. This is a woman’s behavior that includes the satisfaction of the following maternal needs: the need for interaction with the child, the need for care and protection, and the need for maternal feeling.
The need to interact with the child is the very first one, and it is on this that the rest are based. When this need is satisfied, a woman experiences pleasure and other pleasant experiences. They can be obtained both in direct communication with the child, and in the process of care, feeding, education, etc. ...
The need for care and protection is the desire to feed, care for and protect your child from external threats and the dangerous consequences of his own activity. Usually a woman learns such things from her mother or from watching other mothers care for their children. However, some things, such as breastfeeding, cannot be learned in advance, so such actions are usually innate.
The need for motherhood is the most difficult. A woman thinks and analyzes her states and experiences. This is a special, so-called “maternal feeling”. It arises from a woman’s thoughts about the unborn child, its image, family and cultural models of motherhood and her own experience. All these needs, as well as the maternal instinct in general, can be satisfied by a woman only through the birth of a child. As you probably already understood, a child for every mother is not just a child, but a completely special phenomenon. He is capable of arousing the most tender feelings just by his presence in a woman’s field of vision. Why does this happen?
- Appearance and physical characteristics of the baby. It's no secret that babies have a special smell - some women react very sensitively to it with a flash of maternal instinct. And of course, few people are able to resist chubby legs and arms, big open eyes and delicate skin!
- Features of behavior. Children behave in a very special way - they are slow, awkward, unadapted to independent life, and their movements are poorly coordinated. But it is precisely all these oddities that largely arouse the maternal instinct in women, especially the need for care.
- Results of children's behavior and activities. These include grunting, sounds of pleasure, sniffling, drooling, special touches, sounds, facial expressions, violent and spontaneous reactions, playfulness, crookedly assembled pyramids, paint smeared on a sheet and other, other results of children's life activities. If an adult behaved this way, we would be angry; however, children's behavior evokes delight and tenderness in us.
Myths about maternal attachment
1. It's innate
A similar statement is true for the animal world, but humans have a much more complex mental organization. In order for a woman to naturally “switch on” her maternal instinct, it is necessary to go through a number of life stages:
- first to be a loved and desired child, to play “mother-daughter” in childhood,
- take care of younger ones (not necessarily your brothers or sisters),
- have experience of a favorable married life (realize yourself as a wife)
- go through a successful pregnancy and childbirth.
2. Occurs immediately after childbirth
Each woman has her own physiology, hormonal background, worldview, values and emotions that are unique to her. Some begin to experience strong feelings for the baby before his birth, while others take more than one month to feel a strong connection and be imbued with it.
And in the case of a difficult birth, poor health of the child or mother, difficult living conditions and extremely turbulent first months of the baby’s life, the maternal instinct can remain dormant for a very long time.
3. The stronger it is, the better.
In the manifestation of maternal instinct, as in many other matters, it is worth finding a middle ground. Having succumbed to it excessively, the woman begins to limit her baby in everything, trying to protect him from all potential dangers.
She herself loses the ability to think sensibly, leading herself to sleepless nights due to anxiety, panic attacks and nervous breakdowns. Such a selfless mother risks ruining relationships with loved ones, who are unlikely to like such care, bordering on madness. And the child himself, when he grows up, is unlikely to appreciate his mother’s efforts.
4. You can’t raise a child without it.
If a woman takes care of her baby, realizing her responsibility for his life and health, but does not impose on herself the idea of having an invisible connection with her child, this does not make her a bad mother.
Sometimes it is better to be a realist with a highly developed sense of responsibility and common sense - this will allow you not only to follow all care recommendations, but also to filter out unnecessary information without rushing to extremes.
5. Appears to all children
It often happens that women show care not only for their own, but also for other people’s children. But this does not mean at all that the absence of a feeling of tenderness when looking at someone else’s child indicates the underdevelopment of the maternal instinct: it can only manifest itself in relation to one’s own child. Conversely, a woman can sincerely care about other people’s children without at all trying to have her own.
6. It is synonymous with love for a child.
Love cannot arise overnight; it is a complex feeling, the emergence of which can, without exaggeration, take months and even years. The child changes every day, and your relationship is constantly evolving. And the desire to care and protect can appear relatively quickly, regardless of the child’s personality and age. Instinct involves an unconscious urge to do something for the baby, while love is more of a conscious choice for the benefit of a loved one.
7. This instinct doesn't go away.
As children grow older, parents move somewhat away from their upbringing; some begin to actively build their personal lives and careers and switch to other concerns. The mother occupies a smaller place in the child's life. And the maternal instinct naturally begins to fade away: the child needs to be released, allowed to live his own life. Excessive parenting can be harmful.
What to do if maternal instinct does not wake up / istockphoto.com
About the emergence of maternal instinct
Maternal instinct and its manifestations are unique and constant for every woman, but they change for different children. By the time the child is born, the mother has a complex consisting of knowledge and skills in caring for children, experiences and relationships associated with them, the need for them, their values and meaning for the woman. All this is designated by the concept of “maternal sphere”. This is what is often called maternal instinct in everyday life. In its formation, the maternal sphere goes through a number of stages:
- Interaction with one's own mother It begins when the expectant mother is in the womb of her own mother, and continues almost throughout her life. Thanks to interaction with her own mother, a woman understands the emotional meaning of mother-child communication and child care, the values of childhood are laid, and the emotional basis for the future style of interaction with the child arises.
- Development of the maternal sphere in games The maternal instinct actively develops in those moments when the expectant mother plays family and daughter-mother with a baby doll. The doll is a model of a baby; In this way, the girl practices the basics of child care with her.
- BabysittingThe expectant mother babysits the babies, due to which, in addition to mastering some skills in handling the child, she will develop a keen interest in him and a positive emotional attitude. It is at this stage that the values of motherhood and the value of the child as such are first laid down. It is very important to play babysitter before puberty, because... subsequently there is some connection between the maternal sphere and the sphere of sexual experiences.
- Interaction with her own child It is during this period that all the experience that a woman has managed to accumulate during her life is manifested. This stage begins with awareness of your pregnancy, which can be accompanied by anxiety or negative emotions, as well as calmness, joy, and most often ambivalent feelings. Further, the development of maternal instinct is facilitated by the baby’s movements, which the woman should feel without anxiety or irritation.
Then comes childbirth, which many women fear. The most optimal attitude towards childbirth is described by the formula “childbirth is difficult and creative work.” After the baby is born, the woman forms her own emotional attitude towards caring for the child. It very much depends on tactile contact with the baby and includes the first reactions of anxiety and fear for the child, getting used to him and his characteristics, the emergence of pleasure from touching him and his transition to “affectionate caution.”
Then confidence in movements appears. The child develops an attachment to his mother, which also activates her maternal instinct. For example, he usually rejoices at her arrival more than other people. The mother shares with the child the joy of his discoveries of the world and activity in it.
Gradually, a woman develops a style of maternal relationship with her child. As a rule, he can be anxious, adequate (treating the child as a full-fledged person, sympathy and attunement to him), detached, unstable or emotionally cold. In the case of an adequate attitude, the mother becomes more and more interested in her child, she spends a lot of time with him, especially in games.
What is maternal instinct and when does it appear?
Why do some women develop the desire to become a mother at the age of 18, others after 40, and still others do not have the need for a child at all? How to learn to turn on the parental instinct at will if it is suddenly absent? And this, by the way, is not uncommon these days!
Whether you are ripe or not to become a mother depends not only on physiology, but also on many psychological reasons - the experience acquired in the parental family, personal priorities and social stereotypes. If they encourage you to first make a career and then have a child, then such an attitude may well drown out the parental instinct for many years to come.
It is also slowed down by taking contraceptives for many years. The body gets used to treating childbirth as something extremely undesirable and, even when you stop using protection, by inertia it resists the onset of pregnancy.
Doctors call this phenomenon psychogenic infertility. It seems that there are no medical obstacles to conception and the woman is psychologically ripe for motherhood, but physiologically she is still not ready for it. What is the reason?
LOVING CHILDREN BY INHERITANCE
Genes responsible for the strength and depth of parental emotions force brain cells to synthesize special substances: serotonin, which is involved in the transmission of nerve impulses, and the enzyme that destroys it, monoamine oxidase (MAO).
If your hereditary program maintains a balance between the production of serotonin and its breakdown, then your emotional attachments are deep and constant, and the thought that you will soon become a mother makes you the happiest woman in the world.
When the gene that triggers the synthesis of MAO is damaged, an imbalance of serotonin occurs. Because of this, the parental instinct is dulled. Motherhood is perceived as a heavy cross with all the ensuing negative emotions and aggressive reactions. The news of pregnancy and the appearance of a baby not only does not make you happy, but plunges you into depression, which experts call the twilight of motherhood.
Advice. Don’t try to get out of this state yourself - tell a neuropsychiatrist about everything! He will select herbal remedies, homeopathic medicines or mild antidepressants that will help awaken the parental instinct.
You can also increase MAO synthesis with the help of antidepressant tea. Take equal parts of hawthorn, chamomile and St. John's wort flowers. Pour 1 tea. spoon the mixture with a glass of boiling water and leave covered for 15-20 minutes. Drink this tea 1-2 times a day to enhance your emotional well-being and enjoy parenting.
MOTERNITY HORMONES
Our readiness to become parents is largely determined by prolactin and oxytocin, produced by the pituitary gland. The level of the first hormone increases immediately after conception, awakening in the expectant mother tenderness for the unborn baby. The second enters the blood during childbirth and breastfeeding.
Nature provided a step-by-step mechanism for hormonal doping of parental feelings in case a woman did not plan to have a child and is not emotionally ready to become a mother. In 9 months, she will mature for this role thanks to prolactin, and oxytocin will help consolidate the effect.
Advice. If you want to mature enough to be a mother, volunteer to look after a small child. Just the sight of it, not to mention the exciting moment when you press the baby to your chest, stimulates a powerful release of prolactin. In some nulliparous women, in this situation, not only does the maternal instinct awaken, but milk may even appear.
When the baby is born, be sure to breastfeed. Then your affection for him will grow with every drop of milk. A signal about irritation of the nipples goes to the pituitary gland, and it releases another portion of motherhood hormones into the blood, connecting you with the baby.
SHARE THE JOY WITH DADDY
What about dads? They are not programmed to release prolactin in anticipation of a child. Is it really not possible for the stronger sex to experience the fullness of parental feelings? This is wrong!
Prolactin is very responsive to emotions, which is why it received its second name - “behavior hormone”. The novelty and strength of feelings that a man experiences when he is preparing to become a father and takes a child in his arms for the first time works like a detonator of prolactin release, firmly connecting dad and baby with invisible threads of emotional attachment.
Advice. Husband doesn't want a child? Make him hold the baby under some excuse. Many men are afraid to hold babies in their arms. Give him this opportunity, and then nature will take its course. Father's feelings flare up when they jointly attend antenatal clinics and childbirth preparation courses, and also if a man shares concerns about the child with his wife: walks with the child, irons his diapers, changes diapers, gives water from a bottle, gets up to the crying baby at night.
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Ready for motherhood
Unfortunately, not every woman is ready to become a mother. The reason why the maternal instinct may disappear is the lack of desire to become a mother. However, she is not the only one. The desire to give birth to a baby is, of course, important for feeling ready for motherhood, but it is not enough. The birth of a child is a very serious event, and one must treat it much more responsibly than entering college or buying a car. However, we should not forget that some things appear after the birth of a child, and their lack is more than compensated by love for the baby. So, what other qualities are considered necessary for a future mother?
- Personal maturity. This includes feeling like a woman, the ability to make important decisions, the ability to make choices, taking responsibility for one’s actions, the ability to establish close and warm relationships, independence, the ability to sympathize, work together, the ability to live in the present, creativity, interest in self-development and other people, the ability to enjoy life.
- An adequate understanding of the roles of mother and father in the family, what they should do, correct attitudes regarding upbringing and contact with the child. It is very important to have the right motives for parenthood. For example, the desire to have a child in order to keep your husband is not constructive, but the appearance of a baby as a continuation of your love with your husband is closer to the truth.
- Correct attitude towards the child. Psychologists describe 3 types of child value: emotional (the mother has positive experiences during communication with the child), heightened emotional (euphoria or excessive concentration of all affection on the child in the absence of other people in the mother’s life), replacement of the child’s independent value with others (the child attaches mother's status, eliminates the fear of loneliness in the future, etc....).
- Maternal competence. This is sensitivity to the child, the ability to understand the condition of children, flexibility and the ability to adapt to the child’s individual rhythm, knowledge of the characteristics of childhood, and the presence of some parenting skills.
- Formation of the maternal sphere. In order to be ready to become a mother, a woman must go through all the stages of formation of the maternal sphere, as a result of which she develops an understanding of the value of the child, a special warm attitude towards him, the need for him, and also acquires the skills of caring for the baby
