The Nature of Maternal Love - Essay Example

Running Head: MATERNAL LOVE Maternal Love s Maternal Love It is already very difficult to explain and describe what true love is, all the more it becomes tougher to describe or explain or even discuss what maternal love is all about. There are some things which cannot be expressed in words; you need to experience it if you want to cognize it. For example, the feeling of pain, excitement, anger, depression and love are all such states of mind which a person can fathom only when he goes through it. We often hear our parents tell us, “My child, you will appreciate me only when you become a mother.” It is very problematic to comprehend and justify any specific individual’s emotional feelings and turmoil unless one, himself, is in his or her position. Despite the indefinable and unexplainable nature of maternal love, there is not even a single piece of atom in this universe that can deny the statement that maternal love is the most resilient and irrevocable forms of love. According to “The Nature of Love”, “Love is a wondrous state, deep, tender, and rewarding”. In this, psychologists have admitted the fact that emotions are meant to be felt and experienced rather than talked of and discussed. “The little we know about love does not transcend simple observation, and the little we write about it has been written better by poets and novelists..” In simple words, we can define love as something unselfish willingly done for our loved ones without expecting any favor in return. (Harlow) The early signs of love in a human being is seen when a new born infant responds to his mother or surrogate mother. Apart from this intimate behavior of a child to his mother and of a mother to his child, psychologists have failed to discover the underlying causes for the formation of love and affection towards each other. Psychologists do not know which mechanisms are responsible for this development of love and affection in an infant towards his mother. According to the observations of the psychologists, they have derived that hunger, thirst, elimination; pain and sex come under primary drives whereas all other motives including love and affection are known as secondary drives. A mother is an exception to this observation as it has been perceived that a mother always reduces her primary drives in order to fulfill her secondary drives for her child. Such maternal ties with children are not seen for a temporary time period but are known to endure for a life long time. God gifted Eve with the mysterious, magical phenomena of conceiving and re-conceiving and giving birth to another human being after going through the process of nine months and then delivering the baby suffering so much pain. There is no other so special and such a beautiful relationship in the world than of a mom with her child. Maternal love forms in a woman even before pregnancy, when she is impregnated. She gets the good news of becoming a mother and she is elevated to the highest rank in this universe. Maternal bonding between her and her child develops and grows throughout the nine months that she bears the child. The feeling of her child moving inside her awes her and makes her the happiest person in the world. The first ultrasound, the first sight of the tiny little embryo inside her, the first time she listens to the child’s heartbeat and then after a few months a grown up humanly figure inside her wriggling and yawning away all fills her with motherly love, care and attachment with the unborn child. As the baby grows, he or she may become responsive to the mother. It is still unknown what trickles the motherly emotions and instincts in a woman. Without seeing the child, an unseen, irrevocable love is born for the child. This maternal love is sealed after the woman gives birth to her child. (Motherhood) It is impossible to recover from the pain of birth for both the child and mother if the love factor does not come in between. It is for love that both are able to overcome the pain and stress of birth and parenting. Because of the infinite love for the baby, a new mother is able to take care of her baby in a proper way. Though breast feeding is so painful yet mothers are willing to bear this pain for the sake of their baby’s good health. The bonding between them becomes strong and irreplaceable as each second passes. It is proven that a baby is only able to develop properly when he is under the care, love and protection of his mother. A baby tends to grow weak if for any reason he is deprived of his mother. Indeed, a weak and helpless newborn needs a mother who cares for him without any greed and without any personal reasons. As George Washington quotes, “All I am I owe to my mother”. (Quotes on Mothers) Indeed, the position and status of our mothers in our lives is very high as for her we are here where we are, without her help, patience, love, care and attention we had been nothing but a squirming worm in a the gutters of the city. Mothers play a very vital role in our lives and she has been given special dignities by God, Himself. It is witnessed and it is instinctive to a living being’s nature whether it is a human’s or an animal’s baby, in times of danger, illness or fear the child always calls upon his mother and clings to her for protection and safety. It is in her arms that we feel safe and secure. Arlene Benedict stated about mother: "To a childs ear, "mother" is magic in any language." (Quotes on mothers) When we are hungry we remember our mothers, when we are sad or are feeling down and lonely we realize that only our mothers love us. When we are far away from her, it is she whom we miss rather than our dads. When we are scared of the dark, we call upon our mothers. The first word that a baby learns to speak is the word “mum” and when in pain the first word that comes out of our mouths is the word “mum”. In the 21st century, we lack the equipment which can gauge the intensity of love which a mother possesses in her heart for her child. If we could measure we would cry until we would get exhausted yet we could not repay what our mothers have done for us. In one of the mother stories, “Mother, what can I give you? What can I do for you?” a man asked his mother what he could do for her as he wanted to repay her for her love and sacrifices. After insisting a lot his mother said, "I slept with you, when you wetted the bed in the night. I changed your nappy (diaper made of cotton cloth, used in India) and moved you to the dry part of the bed, while I slept on the wet portion. You wanted to repay me. Can you sleep here even for one night with me on a damp bed? If you can, Ill take it that you have repaid me." This story illustrates the sacrifices and deep love of a mother for her child that even if the child brings the whole world at her feet he cannot repay even one percent of what she has done to bring him up. (Mother Stories: You are beautiful) We celebrate mother’s day and bring gifts for our moms. We have only one day to give her when she has sacrificed her whole life for us, may be even her dreams, her free will to live her life according to her desires. She gave her everything to us without even thinking once that it meant to make lot of sacrifices and compromises. When our mothers have not made a child’s day then how can we fix a day for her. Our whole life is hers and we are so miser and selfish so as to have dedicated just one day for her. We must be ashamed of ourselves when we argue with her or rebuke her at her growing age. W.R Wallace said; “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world”. (Quotes on mothers) Indeed, it is the biggest reality of life. One mother can create generations of good people and that same mother can destroy the world’s peace. Mother is a very powerful and impressive figure in the society. A society can be judged by looking at the mothers of the society. We grow up in the hands of our mothers and after achieving things in life we take pride in what we are forgetting the one who helped us in climbing the first stairs of our lives, crossing the first hurdles. If we look at a single mother of a fifteen month old son, we would see a woman struggling to make a place in the society for her own self and her going to be born child. Then we see a mother striving to overcome her financial and emotional state so that her child is not deprived of anything. She plays the role of a father as well as a mother for her child in the endeavor to bring him up under normal, stress-free and cheerful conditions. The book, “Mothers are like that”, written by Carol Carrick tributes mothers and eulogizes them. This book reveals the universal nature of all mothers in the world whether it is a chicken guarding her nest full of eggs or whether it a human mother tucking her baby into the bed at night. This book highlights the fact that all mothers are the same. They are protective, caring and loving. All mothers are always ready to protect their child from worldly dangers. (Mothers Are Like That) “How true it is that of all the debts in the world, the one that can never be repaid is the one you owe to your mother”. (Quotes on mothers) A Mother is the most precious gift and blessing we have received from God. Ask those who do not have mothers, who do not even know how their mothers looked like. They will tell you how they feel without their mothers? How lonely and empty a person’s world is without his or her mother. We are lucky to have experienced maternal love. At the end I would like to state a wise man’s saying, References Anonymous. (n.d.). Maternal Love. Motherhood. Retrieved from http://www.motherhood4real.com/maternal-love.html Anonymous. (n.d.). Mother Stories: You are beautiful. Ezsoftech. Retrieved from http://www.ezsoftech.com/stories/mis33.asp Anonymous. (n.d.). Mothers Are Like That. Indobase. Retrieved from http://www.indobase.com/holidays/mothers-day/books/mothers-are-like-that.html Harlow, H. F. (n.d.). The Nature of Love. Classics in the History of Psychology. Retrieved from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Harlow/love.htm (book) Washington, G. Benedict, A. and Wallace, W. R. (n.d.). Quotes on Mothers. Angelfire. Retrieved from http://www.angelfire.com/ma4/memajs/quotes/mom.html Read More