Many new mothers feel even more stressed when they’re told caring for a baby and a maternal instinct should come naturally. What does that even mean?
On 7 December, U.S. Weekly magazine reported on Jennifer Lawrence’s talk with Viola Davis as part of Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series.
Some of their talk touched on motherhood and how Lawrence second-guesses her decisions when it comes to son Cy, 10 months. For her, motherhood hasn’t been something that’s come naturally.
“Every day of being a mom, I feel awful,” she said. “I feel guilty. I’m playing with him and I’m like, ‘Is this what he wants to be doing? Should we be outside? We’re outside. What if he’s cold? What if he’s going to get sick? Should we be inside? Is this enough? Is this developing your brain enough?’.” Reading this, I found myself nodding my head.
Last Tuesday, I went to a gig by the fantastic American singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten (I dare you to listen to her song Seventeen without feeling nostalgically choked up in a good way).
Before one of her songs, she mentioned her five-year-old son. I couldn’t note her exact quote, but basically she was told that being a mother should come naturally – and she found that, for her, it didn’t. She didn’t know what to do with the baby, and her mother told her there was no manual. Again, I found myself nodding my head.
Flying Solo As A New Mother
A week after I had my son, now eight, my mum left after providing much needed and excellent support. I posted on Facebook that I was nervous about my first day “flying solo”, and a (male) Facebook friend commented saying “Why? It’s so natural.”
ARGH WHY DO PEOPLE SAY THIS. Yeah, it might be natural if you step back and look at the human race as a whole, but it sure as hell wasn’t natural to me. I felt unmoored, lonely, anxious. I felt overwhelmed, often unable to know what I should do, and shouldn’t do, and how to tell those two things apart. To me, it didn’t feel natural whatsoever to be responsible for another human being. Talking to other mothers about this recently, I found the question is: who doesn’t feel this way? “It’s super unnatural!” a friend tells me. “Humans used to naturally live in groups with a lot of people to help the new mum and baby.”
I also felt a sort of paralysis of choice when my son was a baby, then a toddler. I felt so responsible for this little creature’s day. What should we do? Where should we go? Should we stay in? Did he need to get some fresh air in the pram and watch the world go by? Was it ‘tummy time’? Or did he need a snack or a nap?
There’s a book on the topic – a witty essay collection – called Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) by Jill Smokler, who was told by her gynaecologist that ‘motherhood is the most natural thing in the world’. “Everything I heard about motherhood before I was a mother has been proven completely incorrect,” she told the Huffington Post.
The Ever Elusive ‘Maternal Instinct’
No, the maternal instinct doesn’t always kick in right after having your baby, or sometimes even for weeks or months. It’s not innate – it’s learned. The healthline.com article ‘Maternal Instinct: Does It Really Exist?’ is a good read. “Parents-to-be, experienced parents, and those thinking about having children,” the article reads, “are bombarded with the idea that maternal instinct is something all women possess. It’s expected that women have some sort of instinctive desire to have children and somehow also know how to take care of them, regardless of needs, wants, or experience.”
“The idea of maternal instinct is largely a myth. The idea that you should instinctively know what to do once they are born is unrealistic and adds a whole lot of unnecessary anxiety and stress.”
In fact, it’s not uncommon for women to struggle to feel connected to or love their newborn immediately. YES BECAUSE WE’RE TOO EXHAUSTED FROM PREGNANCY, CHILDBIRTH, BREASTFEEDING, PUMPING BREAST MILK, BURPING THE BABY AND BEING UP ALL NIGHT TO BOND JUST YET.
As Van Etten went on to say at her gig, being a mother is something we have to learn – getting to know our baby, observing what works and doesn’t. I don’t want to be one of those people spouting platitudes, but I did find it got easier over time as I ‘learned my child’.
So, please, no one tell new mothers that caring for a baby or maternal instinct come naturally, because this often isn’t the case – and that’s totally, well, natural.
