Why We Mother:

Jennifer Macy.

For a parenting magazine.

Big blue eyes gaze back into mine. Tiny fingers wrap around mine, seemingly microscopic in comparison. Thoughts race through my mind: ‘She’s so tiny, so vulnerable’. The need to kiss and squeeze her is overwhelming. Revealing my true anthropological nature, I muse over what instinct it is that makes me feel that way. Is it biological? A genetic or hormonal response to her appearance, her squeals, her scent? That would certainly benefit the species, an instinct to protect and nurture one’s young. Or is it a cultural adaptation that I’ve learned my whole life, that babies are to be cared for and loved? Michael Crichton suggests in his best-seller novel The Lost World, that the cloned Velociraptors lack the social training to be able to care for their young. This puts them at a serious disadvantage for survival. But is there more to parenting than what our own mothers have taught us? (or in lieu of mothers: those self-help books, parenting for dummies and the like)

Consider animal parents. Outdoorsy folk know that there’s nothing more dangerous than a mama grizzly defending her young cubs. And we’ve all seen puppies and kitties tenderly cared for by their mamas. The Discovery Channel is full of stories of how far a mama mountain lion will go to shuttle her young brood across rapid rivers to remove them from harm’s way.

It is known that when animals are domesticated, they undergo certain changes. One is a process of “juvenilezation”, that is retaining traits indicating youth instead of developing mature, adult traits. These traits include smaller “faces”, over all smaller body size and continuation of “frisky” behavior into adulthood. In their natural habitat, the herd is led by the biggest, strongest, most “mature” member, the guy with the biggest horns or loudest roar. The others appear smaller and less mature, or younger, than the leader. This mechanism encourages the leader to protect them. Juvenilezation in domestic animals indicates that they regard their human masters as their leaders, their protectors. As an evolutionary process, this continued appearance of youth increases an animal’s fitness, or probability of survival and reproduction. There is some evidence that this same process is happening to humans, as we become a more inter-dependent species over the centuries.

For juvenilezation to work as an evolutionary adaptation, there has to be a counterpart. Something has to act upon the leader or caretaker, encouraging that individual to put more effort into this animal than another. There has to be something about those smaller features and greater overall immaturity, that inspires one to protect, perhaps survival of the herd itself. Is this our “mothering” instinct? Does being small and young make your “leader” want to protect you? Could this be why mothers (and dads, too, evolution hasn’t ignored them) feel such a strong urge to protect their young? Perhaps it is just that, the mothering instinct, that makes juvenilezation occur.

There is a cultural component to parent-infant relationships, as well. Two generations back, parents were instructed that holding their babies too much would spoil them. Many parents heeded that advice, admitting now it was against their better judgment. So perhaps it is a deep, powerful instinct to snuggle and squeeze our babies, to hold them to our hearts, both literally and figuratively. Perhaps my need to cuddle my girl is a real, biological instinct. And who can argue with that?

I have a Part II in mind, if I can figure out what bothers me about this one and get more info on something...