How Does Motherly Love Manifest Itself
Maternal love is considered to be the most genuine of all the emotions a man can feel. A mother cares, loves, and caresses her child from his very birth. Selflessness lies at the core of this type of love. A mother fills her baby with care and love without expecting to receive anything in return. Such love is more noble and persistent than the passion between a man and a woman. The main reason is that a mother cannot replace her child, as she can do with her partner. At the same time, there is a possibility that a mother’s love will remain unrequited: sometimes children do not feel affection for their parents. However, it is difficult not to love your own mother. Luckily, it is but a rare case.
Maternal love does not depend on the appearance, character, health, and talents of a child. Even the most terrible quarrel and disagreement will not shake a mother’s love for a child. For a mother, there is no justice as a notion: she will always stand on the side of her children. Psychologists sometimes attribute a mother’s attachment to her child to biological reasons. Thus, a child develops inside his mother. She carries her baby for nine months in her body. Obviously, such a physiological connection gradually evolves into a psychological attachment. Motherly love is a boundless feeling that even the most eloquent words cannot describe.
What Is A Mother’s Love Like?
Nikolai Gogol gives a vivid example of the motherly love manifestation. The writer, among many other topics, discusses maternal and paternal love on the pages of Taras Bulba. The father condemns his sons when they do not obey his will. The father’s strictness places values and patriarchal principles above parental feelings for children. The author describes the sons’ return home. A couple of months have passed since the brothers left for their studies. Now the offspring of the glorious Cossack have come back to their family. The father is strict with his sons, censuring young people for disobedience. But on the contrary, the mother hugs and kisses the children. The woman scolds her husband for a fight with her sons. At the same time, the writer emphasizes that the mother will endure any resentment, pain, and injustice towards herself for the sake of her beloved children. The children’s disobedience doesn’t hurt their mother.
Parents’ Love For Their Children
Here is a real-life example. Modern mothers are trying to provide their children with the best living conditions. The principle ‘what I did not have, I will definitely give you’ often applies to the post-Soviet space. Children turn into a “training ground” for their parents’ unfulfilled dreams. Psychologists criticize such a child-rearing strategy. However, the root of such fathers and mothers’ actions lies precisely in the love for their baby. Mothers who truly love their children support and don’t blame them. The reason for parents’ pride is their children: not for special talents or merits, but simply for who they are. Motherly love manifests itself daily and does not know holidays or weekends. The parents’ attitude to children can be seen in the little things: care, attention, questions about classes, friends, feelings, etc. A mother will never put herself and her own interests in the first place. From the moment a child is born, a mother’s only interest is her child.
Parents’ Love For Daughters-in-Law and Sons-in-Law
Motherly love is a broad feeling and children are not its border. Thus, a mother will treat a son’s bride as her own daughter. The same goes for the tender feelings that parents feel for their sons-in-law. Another example is upbringing and education. In kindergartens and schools, teachers love other people’s children as their own. Women who work with children don’t have to play pretend: love comes from the heart.
Does a Child’s Death Affect Maternal Feelings?
Mother is the first person with whom newborn babies meet in this cold world. It’s no surprise that babies seek protection from their mothers, even when they grow up. A child feels his mother through tactile contact: touch, warmth, protection. This fact explains the children’s affection for their mothers. A maternal instinct is a special, personal, and unique woman’s emotion, independent of the children’s presence in her life. So, a childless kindergarten teacher spreads maternal feelings to pupils. Women who have not had children and who often extrapolate maternal affection to animals can serve as another example. In any case, motherly love is an eternal phenomenon. A child’s death does not affect the parents’ love for their children, even if they passed away. There are stories of how mothers react painfully to the loss of their children. A mother experiences the pain of a child’s death at the physiological level.
The Mother’s Role in a Child’s Life
Childhood is a period associated with the shaping of principles, attitudes, and ideals. A mother is a source that guides a child in a confusing and complicated world. There is no doubt that the primary building block of a future life is laid in childhood. A child feels safety, care, and tenderness coming from his parents. A mother acts as a role model, to whom a child pays attention. In the first days after birth, a mother appears as a barrier for a baby, as an image of a warm, reliable, and comfortable world.
A child absorbs the parents’ attitude towards himself. In the future, this attitude will become a model for an already adult child for establishing communication with his own children. The tenderness and warmth received in childhood are likely to be reflected in his own family. Children are sensitive to parental relationships. Lack of love in childhood is the cause of failures, obstacles, and difficulties in a person’s later life. It also results in isolation, indecision, fears, and phobias.
Is It Possible for Mother to Love Too Much?
Mother’s love is beyond any measure. In literature, this feeling is described as a great force that drives living beings on earth. In a woman’s ability to give life lies the uniqueness of a mother. Blindness is what makes motherly love so special. A parent loves his children with unconditional love. Mothers often overlook children’s pranks, whims, and mistakes. The main conflict of being a mother is the gap between love for a child and morality. A parent evaluates children subjectively. Overprotection promises a ruined child’s life due to the inability to adapt to life in society. A similar situation was described in literary works multiple times, for example, The Minor by Fonvizin, In Search of Lost Time by Proust, Oblomov by Goncharov, etc. However, such a model of relationship is not productive. It harms both children and parents.
What kind of love can be perceived as excessive? Sometimes emotions that a woman feels towards her child are stronger than a passion for her spouse. The overwhelming maternal love becomes the cause of a growing child’s suffering. With the excessive mother’s care for the children, all other worries and responsibilities of a woman fade away. Psychologists who study the phenomenon of maternal love distinguish several shades of this feeling:
- possessiveness;
- attachment;
- selfishness;
- frustration;
- joy;
- care;
- pride;
- the desire for self-assertion at a child’s expense, etc.
Is It Possible for Mother Not to Love Her Child?
People often reproach mothers, especially young ones, for a lack of love for their children. Having children is stressful, especially if this is the first experience. Preparing for parenting is difficult. Motherly love is sometimes viewed as an instinct. However, this instinct does not work for every woman. Young mothers face postpartum depression, feelings of devastation, and frustration. A person has to learn to be a parent. In such a situation, it often seems to others that the mother does not love her child. Women often report feeling relieved. But not love. It takes time for a mother to truly love and bond with her child. A woman is responsible for every step which is controlled by society. The second “enemy” of young mothers is the fear of disappointing the family and failing to cope with the duties of a parent. Loving your own children means satisfying their primary, core needs. Love, understanding, recognition, respect, a sense of their importance are what all people feel the need for, regardless of age. Mother’s love ensures the normal child’s development.
What Are the Characteristics of a Perfect Parent?
Experts draw a portrait of an ideal parent based on knowledge of the psychology laws. At the same time, tact, tolerance, the ability to listen and hear are important qualities for both parents and children. An ideal parent, for its part, has:
- understanding of internal needs and the ability to satisfy them;
- the ability to provide support to himself and his children;
- the opportunity to take care of the spiritual and everyday development of a child;
- the ability to demonstrate to a child that a mother is an ordinary person, with her own problems;
- the ability to divide areas of responsibility into one’s own and someone else’s;
- emotional independence;
- the talent to separate his own emotions from the feelings of other people.
Mother is the first word that a person utters and the last, it is our beginning and our end. We owe everything in life to this person, who for us is the closest person in the world. I thank my mother for the fact that I can breathe, see, and read this article. Undoubtedly, this is a love that lasts a lifetime and a generation. This love is inherited, it is with us in our hearts every day. If you are reading this, come and hug your mother!