Maternal influence

“ In the early part of this century it began slowly to dawn on the minds of the most enlightened men that women were in a truer sense the mothers of the race than had been previously supposed, and through the influence of these pioneers in the world of ideas, woman begins to realize her great maternal power. ”

“ Favorable Maternal Influences.—Every now and then a sensational newspaper has an article on how mothers will tend to make their children physically handsomer by gazing at beautiful works of art, beautiful scenes in nature, and seeing only handsome (one feels like inserting well-dressed in the category, also) people during pregnancy. ”

“ How beautiful, then, in its adaptation to the situation in which she is placed, and the duties she has to perform, is that instinct of maternal love, which, from its intensity and depth, its all-pervading and inextinguishable vitality, so lives and breathes through every act, thought, word, and look of the fond mother, that sooner would her infant doubt its own existence, than question that of her untiring love! ”

“ We are beginning to realize that one “born mother” in a thousand is not enough to leaven the maternal mass. And out of this discovery has risen a demand, which comes largely from women themselves, for education in motherhood, practical, sincere preparation for woman’s exclusive profession. ”

“ But when we consider woman from the point of view of her maternal functions, her physiological, psychological, and intellectual nature assumes an entirely changed aspect; for maternity is the natural function of the female, the end to which she has been created. Lofty sentiments, complete altruism, and far-sighted intelligence develop all of a sudden when she becomes a mother. ”

“ Toward him her own attitude rapidly became more and more protecting as a thwarted maternal complex in her—that same mothering instinct which in one shape or another expresses itself in every woman—was roused and quickened. ”

“ A mother may, during the period of gestation, exercise some influence, by her own voluntary mental and physical action, either unwittingly or purposely, in determining the traits and tendencies of her offspring. ”

“ What a deplorable sight—an intemperate mother! What a soul-ruinous example to a daughter! When we consider the relation between the mother and the child, how great are the maternal responsibilities. The mother ought to attract the attention of the child by her love. ”

“ The prenatal culturists and maternal-impressionists are trying to place on her a responsibility which she need not bear. Obviously, it is the mother who is most nearly concerned with the bogy of maternal impressions, and it should make for her peace of mind to know that it is nothing more than a bogy. ”

“ If the indirect connection that exists between the mother and child were better understood, and more justly appreciated, we should, doubtless, hear much less of the influence of the imagination of the mother upon the body of her infant, and thus one of the greatest of the attendant evils of pregnancy would be removed. ”

“ Let us contemplate at our leisure this delightful image of the maternal reverie—of that second childbirth by which she completes the invisible object of her love—the unknown offspring of desire.
A delightful spectacle, but even more sublime than delightful. Let us be modest here. With us the mother loves that which stirs in her bosom—that which she touches, clasps, enfolds in assured possession; she loves the reality, certain, agitated and moving, which responds to her own movements. ”

“ We speak of nothing anterior to the time when our earth assumed the dignity of maternity, and brought forth its first and only child. We shall trace the development of that child which, though millions of years old, is still in dependence on its parent. We shall describe the influence of the parent over the child, and the not less remarkable reaction of the child upon the parent. We shall foreshadow the destiny which still awaits the mother and child when millions of years shall have elapsed. ”

“ But far more important to the average prospective parent is the fact that many authorities positively claim that any pregnant mother may consciously and deliberately influence and shape the character, physical, mental, and moral of her unborn child. ”

“ There is no position in which maternal love shines more brightly than when the infant she has nourished at her breast is returned upon her hands, a man or woman, perhaps in middle age, but weak, ill, helpless, and requiring a mother’s care. ”

“ But how feeble are all the varieties of love, which childhood elicits, compared to that which exists in a mother's breast. Examine, I pray you, its unique nature, by contrast and comparison. We are wont to place our affections, where our virtues are appreciated, or to fix our reliance where some benefit may be conferred. But maternal love, is founded on utter helplessness. ”

“ But our love, though intense, is narrow and largely childish—the mother has not long left the influence of her own nursery; and neither wisdom nor power grew there. Some day our women will see this. They will understand at last what womanhood is for, and the power and glory of civilized motherhood. They will see that the educative influences of the first few years are pre-eminently important, and prepare for them as assiduously as they prepare to give a college education to older children.
The baby is a new human soul, learning Life. ”

“ This God-implanted paternal and maternal instinct, in their relation to the normally developing sexual natures, are so strong that matured young people are willing to assume every burden connected with maintaining a home and every sacrifice incident to raising a family of children.
Maternity not an affliction.—No normal wife, properly educated, who has the right view of marriage, looks upon maternity as an affliction. ”

“ But when we understand, even faintly, the conflicts which are possible in the mental life of the expectant mother—the 153incompatibility of her age-old maternal instinct and the desires born of our culture and civilization, it is not difficult to see that her adaptive capacity may be sorely tested. ”

“ Can maternity be natural when it is undesigned by the father or undesired by the mother? Can a maternity be natural, healthful, ennobling to the mother, to the child, to the father, and to the home, when no loving, tender, anxious forethought presides over thee relation in which it originated?—when the mother's nature loathed and repelled it, and the father's only thought was his own selfish gratification ”

“ For her motherhood entails no sacrifice. She has no regrets for a career cut short by marriage, because she finds in maternity the same supreme satisfaction of accomplishment which comes to the successful lawyer, financier, writer or artist.
Motherhood, like any other profession, requires preparation. For many generations the world has held that the maternal instinct and the ability to rear children were born in woman. It has been discovered that the maternal instinct, like many others, needs encouragement, while the ability to bring up children requires development or practical training. ”

“ The influence of a mother on her offspring is most powerful and farreaching. Her physical and mental characteristics pass to the fruit of her womb, and her children learn of her instinctively, before they are capable of speech or intelligent thought. ”

“ They have in their keeping the infant minds which they can mould and train for noble or ignoble lives. Unfortunately, the influence of mothers does not invariably abide in their children, but in most cases it is felt from the cradle to the grave by the children they have borne and reared properly. ”

“ If your nature prompts you to reveal yourself to her in the relation that leads to maternity control yourself, and be sternly true to yourself, to your wife, and your child that may ensue, until, by all other loving and endearing manifestations, you have created in her nature an earnest call for maternity. Then would she joyfully accept of you the germ of a new life, and, for the sake of her husband and her child, consecrate all the energies of her soul to its true development. ”

“ On the other hand, when maternity is accepted as a privilege, and love instead of bitterness reigns in the prospective mother’s heart, the babe is born tranquil, normal, healthy. Returning to the phrase, efficiency in motherhood, it is good business to bear normal children.
In this day, the woman who frets, rebels and weeps during pregnancy commands little sympathy and practical help from her husband and family. ”

“ If you wish your women to be something more than the physical mothers of your children, you must see to it that they are educated. The influence of the mother's character on her children during infancy is admitted by everybody. ”

“ There cultivate your intellectual powers together by reading, and by conversation,—especially, on all subjects pertaining to parentage and the ante-natal, as well as the post-natal, development, education and life of your children. How anxious will every true and loving husband and father be, to unite with his wife and the mother of his children, in the nursery, to impart and to receive all possible light in regard to these matters!
Neither should you ever impose maternity on your wife at the expense of her social nature. ”

“ It retains them, and they become the characteristics of the child and the man. Low spirits, violent passions, irritability, frivolity, in the pregnant woman, leave indelible marks on the unborn child.
8. FORMATION OF CHARACTER.—I believe that pre-natal influences may do as much in the formation of character as all the education that can come after, and that mothers may, in a measure, "will," what that influence shall be, and that, as knowledge on the subject increases, it will be more and more under their control. ”

“ It is impossible to give directions as to how it should be done; temperament, development, and environment influence the approach. The girl invariably responds to the glorification of her importance as woman and as future mother, and the theme leads on naturally to the miracle [199] of nature that guards and then creates; and the young men have shown themselves far from indifferent to their future fatherhood. ”

“ Such then is the duty of woman as a mother—to tend and watch over the wants of her child, to guard it in health, to nurse it in sickness, to be solicitous for it in all the changes of life, and to prevent, as much as possible, those many ills to which flesh is heir from assailing her fondly cherished offspring. ”

“ If these are truly womanly hands, and the nurse has in her a motherly heart, the child may lose little by the change during its first years. Later on, Nature asserts herself and only a mother’s love can satisfy a child’s yearnings.
On this subject of motherhood, as in all that you and I, my dear girl friends, have talked about together, we need to look into the Book of books for light and guidance.
Motherhood is part of Nature’s—or should I not rather say of God’s—plan for womanhood. ”

“ We have already pointed out the reasons why the mother should be considered, as intended more particularly by nature, for the office of nursing, rearing, and tutoring the infant. Although the effects of this position, are first manifested upon mothers, yet, as they constitute so large and influential a portion of females, their character, whatever it may be, will quickly diffuse itself over the whole sex, and consequently we may predicate of the whole, to a certain extent at least, the properties and peculiarities of character, which flow from the relation of mother and child. ”

“ Statistics and physicians from their observation agree in this, that the bearing of children by normal women, so far from being injurious to health, is as healthful, stimulating, and invigorating a function as the blooming of a flower, or the shedding of fruit, and a mother is no worse for the experience of maternity than is the plant or the tree for the fruit it bears. ”

“ If we admit every female child to be a future mother, and motherhood the highest function possible to the sex, then the awakening of the sex organs and the mother instinct, must be the most important developmental episode in the life story of every woman. ”

“ The woman about to become a mother, or with her new-born infant upon her bosom, should be the object of trembling care and sympathy wherever she bears her tender burden, or stretches her aching limbs. ”

“ What else do you do, when you impose on your wife a maternity unasked and abhorred? You commit the development and education of your child, during the most important and susceptible period of its existence, to one who assures you she is not prepared for the charge, who entreats you to spare her, and who loathes the very thought of its existence. Every element of her womanly nature, for the time being, recoils from its presence in her system. ”

“ One may say that the maternal instinct has been set free and organized on a vast scale, for the activities in which women most excel are those inspired by sympathy with children and with the weak or suffering classes. ”

“ Maternal Solicitude and Superstition.—The wonderful stories that are told are nearly all in the older literature and are much more reasonably explained on the score of coincidence than on that of any possible direct connection of cause and effect. Mothers, then, may be reassured and made to understand that the better their own health, the less they worry about their condition, the more likely is their pregnancy to terminate favorably with a perfectly healthy offspring. ”

“ To them, for long ages, the approach to motherhood has been by the most intense and exquisite love and longing, by the Supreme Desire, the overmastering demand for a child. Every thought they held in connection with the processes of maternity was open to the day, simple yet sacred. ”

“ The fundamental function of woman being motherhood, this with its secondary manifestations explains much of her behavior. The devotion of the young girl to the cadet who enslaves her reveals the same instinct which holds a wife faithful through difficulties and degradation,—the instinct from which have developed the virtues of loyalty, endurance and self-sacrifice. The period of pregnancy should be (if the imagination be not filled with old wives’ tales) one of health, exhilaration, development of psychic values and social consciousness. ”