Parental instinct

“ It is not purely instinctive, but depends on intelligence. It is only possible if the child has the intelligence to see the parent as something besides a parent--as some one needing care and protection--and if the child himself takes a parental attitude towards the parent. But that is a grown-up attitude, seldom taken by {151} young children. It is not the infantile instinct, which, if there is such an instinct, is the spring of trustful, docile, dependent, childlike and childish behavior. ”

“ Parental, or, rather, maternal instinct is one, and perhaps the greatest source of "tender" altruistic emotion, of that disinterested love for and desire to protect the helpless which is the least egotistical and perhaps the loveliest of human sentiments. ”

“ The love of children and interest in their welfare which springs from the altruistic and object-loving tendencies involved in the parental instincts may thus become fused with the strongly egoistic tendencies grouped together under the self-preserving and self-regarding instincts and sentiments ”

“ The paternal instinct, at first so profoundly stirred in him, grew weak and meaningless, as the sure development of time would place the child by nature and instinct, and later by choice, with his wife and her other children. ”

“ They run to their mother by instinct, when want, fear, or pain impels them. They require no teaching or training for this. But for them to come simply because their mother wishes them to come—to be controlled, in other words, by her will, instead of by their own impulses, is a different thing altogether. They have no instinct for that. They have only a capacity for its development. ”

“ If parents forget what they are for, and try to foster a more than ordinary tie, they make themselves a menace to those whom they most love. Any exaggeration is abnormal. If the childhood bond is over-strong, or the childhood dependence too long cultivated, then the relationship has overstepped its purpose, and, as we shall later see, has laid the foundation for a future neurosis.
Mothering the World. Probably no instinct has so many ways of indirect expression as this mothering impulse of protection. ”

“ Why then, seeing the inadequacy of instinct in all these lines, are we so sure of its infallible guidance in the care of babies? A modern human mother has far less instinct to guide her than her arboreal ancestors: the real advantage her babies profit by are obtained through the development of the father—in reason, in knowledge, in skill, in the prosperity and progress of the world he makes. ”

“ As the parent sustains a physical, intellectual and moral relation to the child, it is his mission to provide for its physical, mental and moral wants. "He that provideth not for his own house hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." Natural affection will prompt to this. Children are in a state of utter helplessness. The infant is at the mercy of the parent. Instinct impels the parent to provide for its wants. ”

“ This much is to be urged in favour of the unwillingness of fathers to incur the burden of children: that while the maternal instinct from the very first—nay, even in girlhood—makes the woman look forward with anticipative joy to the time of becoming a mother, the paternal instinct is seldom developed until the child is actually there to call it forth. ”

“ The grade of "care" given by the mother of to-day is too often exactly that of the mother of many thousand years ago. We depend almost altogether on what is known as "the maternal instinct," which is a "natural instinct," to be sure, just as it is a natural instinct for the male to fight. The right education of a child to-day requires more than instinct to produce the best results. ”

“ Usually one parent is willing to be master but the other lacks the mental equipment to meet the issue, and argues, as he or she imagines, in favor of the child. The parent whose instinct is correct, whose judgment is true, whose interpretation of the situation is just, should not be dissuaded, or argued away from his or her duty. ”

“ It can leave the instinctive love of children undimmed, and extend the poignant devotion of a parent, in imagination, to the whole world. And parental love itself will prompt the parent who has the life of the spirit to give to his children the sense of justice, the readiness for service, the reverence, the will that controls self-seeking, which he feels to be a greater good than any personal success. ”

“ For example, the instinct to love and obey a parent impels the child to [Pg 95] do what that parent says, when he tells him not to yield to some impulse which would lead him into trouble according to the canons of modern society. ”

“ THE RIGHT CONDITION.—The great practical inference is, that those parents who desire intellectual and moral children, must love each other; because, this love, besides perpetually calling forth and cultivating their higher faculties, awakens them to the highest pitch of exalted action in that climax, concentration, and consummation of love which propagates their existing qualities, the mental endowment of offspring being proportionate to the purity and intensity of parental love. ”

“ The mistaken idea that instinct is a sufficient guide in so delicate and sacred and vital a matter, the comfortable superstition that babies bring their own directions with them,—these fictions have existed long enough. If a girl asks me why, since the function of parenthood is so uncertain, she should make the sacrifices necessary to such training, sacrifices entailed by this highest education of body, mind, and spirit, I can only say that it is better to be ready, even if one is not called for, than to be called for and found wanting. ”

“ Even this instinct is so imperfect and immature that it can not distinguish between the coming of their mother and the appearance of the face of a boy peering down upon them, or even the rustling of the leaves around them by a stick. ”

“ Again the social and the maternal instincts and sympathy are identified and classed as under the dominion of the moral sense, pages 168-170: "It is evident, in the first place, that with mankind the instinctive impulses have different degrees of strength; a savage, will risk his own life to save that of a member of the same community, but will be wholly indifferent about a stranger; a young and timid mother urged by the maternal instinct will, without a moment's hesitation, run the greatest danger for her own infant, but not for a [Pg 10] mere fellow-creature. ”

“ It has been shown that the desire for children, but more especially male children, which is a characteristic of all races the world over, is not motivated solely by the instinct of reproduction but also by the desire of the parent, and that generally the male parent, to possess a natural and obvious means to avenge himself of the wrongs done to him by his own father. ”

“ But it has become so much an accepted axiom that children are to be manufactured into anything that happens to suit the taste or convenience of their guardians, that it probably never occurred to the parent in question that he was committing a cruel and foolish act in forcing his son out of the path into which the boy's natural instinct was guiding him. ”

“ For instance, the maternal instinct, although it leads in many cases to severe and sustained self-denial for the benefit of the offspring, is nevertheless clearly distinct from conscience. The mother in tending her young does so in obedience to an inherited instinct, and not from any fear of subsequent self-reproach if she leaves her family to perish. She follows the maternal instinct, so long as it continues in operation, just as she would follow any other instinct ”

“ By-and-by, traits of disposition appear, the child has little ways of his own; and, at first, every new display of personality is a delightful surprise. That the infant should show pleasure at the sight of his father, that his face should cloud in sympathy with his mother, must always be wonderful to us. But the wonder stales; his parents are used to the fact by the time the child shows himself as a complete human being like themselves, with affections, desires, powers ”

“ What does maternal instinct contribute to this sum of influences? Has maternal instinct even evolved any method of feeding, dressing, teaching, disciplining, educating children which commands attention, not to say respect? ”

“ In a word, they must think and behave as they desire him to think and behave, and, so far as is humanly possible, they must thus behave all the time. This of course necessitates considerable self-restraint and self-training on the parents’ part; but it is absolutely indispensable. The child’s eyes and ears are always wide open; his suggestibility is such that he is prone to absorb and react to any inconsistency of parental speech or behaviour, no matter how occasional or seemingly insignificant it may be. ”

“ If it is but natural, the parental influence will not extend beyond the worldly gain and temporal welfare of the child. The parent will exert no power over the soul. But if it be spiritual, and extend beyond the mere instincts of natural affection, it will expand the mind, and develop all the melting charities of our nature. ”

“ It seems to us that fathers more often learn to love their children through following the conduct prescribed by good form and pretending to love them, or through love of display, pride or by association, than through any "natural tendency."
The almost universality of the maternal instinct is proven by the peoples in the world today, for scarcely anybody would have a chance for existence if it were not for the care of the mothers. ”

“ As long as children have not reached adolescence and the consciousness thereof, they may endure nor even note the mood of parental possession. But once complete self-consciousness dawns, the sense of ownership becomes intolerable to any child that is more than a domestic automaton, and, if persisted in, makes any wholesomeness of relation between parent and child unthinkable. ”

“ For our mothers to insure good conditions for their children requires more than maternal instinct.
The "natural" mother of to-day is reared without an inkling of what lies before her; and no preacting instinct warns her of the effect of her girlhood's wasted opportunities. She marries still by "instinct," which often leads her astray ”

“ That the divine instinct has not taught them properly to feed the young infant and the growing child we have learned but slowly and at great cost in human life and suffering; but we have learned it. Our next lesson should be to realize that our instincts cannot be relied upon when it comes to understanding the child's mind, the meaning of his various activities, and how best to guide his mental and moral development.
Mistakes that parents—and teachers—make in dealing with the child's mind are not often fatal. ”

“ The parent who sedulously endeavours to form the heart and enlarge the understanding of his child, has given that dignity to the discharge of a duty, common to the whole animal world, that only reason can give. This is the parental affection of humanity, and leaves instinctive natural affection far behind. ”

“ But that her son should have availed himself of the foundation she laid is praise enough, in a world where there is such a rebound from parental influence that it generally seems that the child makes use of the directions given by the parent only to avoid the prescribed path. ”

“ Remembering that every envious, murmuring, discontented thought leaves a track in the very substance of the child's brain for such thoughts to run in again and again--that this track, this rut, so to speak, is ever widening and deepening with the traffic in ugly thoughts--the mother's care is to hinder at the outset the formation of any such track. She sees into her child's soul--sees the evil temper in the act of rising: now is her opportunity. ”

“ Recognizing the fact that the little child acts merely as his instinct and feelings prompt, she must make all training at this stage of his life take the form of developing the instincts. Probably the strongest of these at this time is imitation. Consequently most of the teaching must take advantage of the imitative instinct. The first care should be to surround the child with the qualities we desire him to possess. The mother who scolds, gives way to temper, or is unwilling or unable to control her own emotions and acts can hope for little self-control in her child. ”

“ For in proportion as the emotional nature becomes more evolved, and there grows up a higher sense of parental responsibility, the begetting of children that cannot be properly reared will be universally held intolerable. ”

“ Of course it may be asserted that this evolution has taken the wrong direction, and is not an improvement. I think the contrary may be shown to be true. The paternal instinct is as important to the adolescent stages of man as the maternal is for the period of infancy. ”

“ Surely the duty of parents is plain. To set before their children from earliest infancy examples of placidity and strength of character, to educate their will no less than their intellect, to guard them as far as possible from all harmful suggestions, to love them without idolising them, to study carefully their physical as well as their mental and moral needs—in this way, and in this way alone, can safety be had against the dread evil of hysteria and allied nervous troubles. ”

“ The Parental affection requires to be somewhat more minutely analysed.
First of all, there can be no doubt, that all that power of exciting trains of ideas of our own pains and pleasures, which belongs to the pains and pleasures of any of our fellow-creatures, is possessed by the pains and pleasures of a man’s child. ”

“ Some parents, upon discerning that the pugnacious instinct is manifesting itself vigorously in their boy, isolate him from other boys—keep him by himself through a period of a year or more that the tendency may not be accentuated. ”