The article made me think about how my sister just recently had a baby. There are many things that tie into this story from the article. I guess I should start from the beginning. I have one older sister. We were raised to be independent and hard workers. My sister works as a seventh grade teacher in Milwaukee, last year was her first year at school. She had also recently started seeing a new guy. Hindsight being twenty, twenty, makes me realize that the months prior to having her daughter she was not acting like herself.
Turns out that my sister was pregnant and she had no idea. I still remember that day in October when she went into the emergency room. She was woke in the middle of the night with cramps and stomach pains so she and her boyfriend went into the emergency. They told her that she was going to have a baby and her appendix was fine.
The article talks about how there may be no fatherly instinct, however in this story my sister boyfriend was the one that kept encouraging her to keep her baby and that everything would be ok. He was the one that was encouraging the family. My sister wasn't really ready to be a mom and told me that she did first consider giving my niece up for adoption. After she was born and my sister got to hold her she knew she could not give her baby up for adoption and her motherly instincts finally kicked in.
My sister never wanted to be a mom, she wanted to have a career. It wasn't until she got to hold and see her baby that she became a mother when a father typically becomes a father. I mean this situation is very extreme both of them had no time to prepare or develop motherly or fatherly instincts. Neither one of them was ready and they are both great parents.
The article "An Odd Break with the Human Heart" by Elizabeth Mitchell talks about the issues of motherly and fatherly instincts, the story that I presented shows that people are not necessarily born with motherly or fatherly instincts. If anything the story shows that maybe the fatherly instinct was stronger than my sisters motherly instinct.
Do you think that there is such as motherly or fatherly instincts?
Very Interesting story -- how are things now with your sister and the baby's father?
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't think those "instincts" exist naturally -- like most if not all of our feelings, views, personality, etc. they are socially constructed but vary from men to women depending on how maternal or paternal their experiences have been within the home, community, church, school, with siblings, whatever....