Blog Post #2- The maternal instinct

I have grown up knowing the axiom, “a mother loves her child when she’s pregnant, and a father loves his child when he sees it.” By this line of logic, one would argue that a father would have a hard time loving his child before it is born, simply because he has not seen it, felt it, or cared for it whatsoever. In contrast, one would argue that the love a mother has for her child is instinctual during pregnancy because she is literally caring for it, protecting it, and it is a part of her. During our reading, the fathers of children born out of wedlock are continually portrayed as…uninterested. As Solinger explains, “the sexual partners of these women recognized the vulnerability of these girls…and used that vulnerability to escape their own responsibility for their sexual adventure, for the pregnancy, and for parenthood,” (73). When the babies were given up for the adoption, we can only assume the men didn’t care. In contrast, when the babies were lost, the women were almost always devastated, to say the least. Put succinctly, one woman explained, “The grief was so intense I thought I would die,” (74).

            From this assessment, it is easy to conclude that women simply have the maternal instinct where as men lack it. However, I do attribute much of this difference to the plain fact that men do not have any contact with their child until it is physically out of the womb. When a man in confronted with an unintended pregnancy, he does not feel the same responsibility for that child until he is truly caring for it. It’s a theory anyway…very easily disputable.

            Feminists might be cautious to make this assertion. It can be argued that the grief is so specifically intense for these women because not only are they losing their children, but the baby is more than often being wrenched away from them in a process that is completely dehumanizing, described as “teenage [slavery],” (75). The feminist claim is that a distinctly female maternal instinct takes the responsibility away from men and applies it solely to women. They may be more apt to argue that men have an equal role in parenthood, an equal responsibility to fight for the rights of a child, and an equal responsibility to stand up for a woman put in the situation of these 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s birthmothers.

-Adam Kunkel