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¿NACEMOS para ser MADRES? ¿El instinto maternal es un hecho científico? — Transcript

by Pupina Plomer · 4,229 words · 639 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Why do we believe there is a maternal
0:02instinct? What if that instinct does
0:04exist? Why did so many societies have
0:06to teach their women to be mothers? Why
0:08does the image of a good mother change
0:10over time? Hello, my landeris. I bring
0:13you one of those videos that I like,
0:15which are those anthropological videos,
0:17where we are going to ask ourselves
0:19whether or not the maternal instinct
0:21exists and also why we believe it
0:23exists. I don't know if you have
0:24mothers close to your environment, or
0:26friends, or your own mothers, or
0:28sisters; but there is a belief that
0:30women are born with a maternal instinct
0:32: that when the baby is taken out of
0:33our belly, we see it and we fall in
0:35love, and we protect our offspring as
0:37if our genes came pre-programmed with
0:39that information. We create a universal
0:41image of what a mother is expected to
0:44do, understanding that this instinct is
0:46natural, automatic, and inherent to
0:48women. But science has a lot to tell us
0:50about this, science and of course
0:52history, because well, it's fine that
0:53I'm going to make a video with an
0:55anthropological perspective, but I
0:57won't stop making history now. It's
1:01kind of difficult to reproduce the
1:03history of motherhood because the truth
1:05is that we have few historical sources
1:08on that because no record has been kept
1:10of the emotions or feelings of mothers
1:12in the past. And there we have
1:14information regarding the numbers of
1:17births, infant mortality, births and so
1:19on, but the emotions felt by women have
1:22not been recorded as much, beyond
1:24diaries that we can find from the 15th
1:27century onwards. But before that, there
1:29are few sources that we have on this,
1:31and those that we do have are
1:32influenced by a male perspective; in
1:34other words, what a man thinks a woman
1:36feels when she is a mother. What we can
1:38say is that motherhood has not always
1:40been the same, but rather that it is
1:42historical, it has changed throughout
1:44the two centuries and the civilizations
1:46that we choose to look at. Something
1:48curious is that maternal love was not
1:50always seen as something natural. There
1:52were times in history when maternal
1:54love was not taken for granted, and
1:56bringing children into this world was
1:58seen as an obligation or something that
2:01you had to do as a woman; but it was
2:03not thought of as this altruistic act
2:05of love where you give your life to the
2:07being that is born from your womb. To
2:10get our bearings, let's do a brief
2:12recap and see how the maternal instinct
2:14is also a bit of a social, cultural,
2:16and historical construct. Let's do a
2:18recap of Western Europe from the 15th
2:20century onwards, which is the period
2:23when we already have a few more sources
2:25to work on this. We can see that during
2:27the 15th and 16th centuries in Western
2:30Europe, love was absent in motherhood.
2:33This does not mean that mothers did not
2:35love their children, but it was not
2:36something that was expected. This issue
2:38of giving birth to a child and seeing
2:40it and falling in love was not the norm
2:41. The behavior of mothers fluctuated
2:44between rejection and indifference,
2:46partly due to the high infant mortality
2:49rate. I mean, I feared that you
2:50wouldn't get attached to your child
2:52because there was a high probability
2:53that they wouldn't survive. And there
2:55was also a cultural aspect, which we
2:58saw in the video about adolescence,
3:00which is that during that time,
3:02children were seen as miniature adults;
3:04they weren't seen as pretty babies with
3:07cheeks, although they surely endeared
3:09them to some mothers. They were seen as
3:12miniature adults, who in fact, when
3:14they learned to walk and do activities,
3:16were kind of told to do the same things
3:18that adults did on a child-sized scale,
3:20but we can't talk about an innate love
3:23for their children, which doesn't mean
3:25that some mothers didn't love their
3:27children, but in general terms, this
3:29issue of love as we understand it today
3:31was not the norm, but rather
3:33indifference and rejection. Motherhood
3:35was not central to society, partly
3:37because of what I'm telling you about
3:39the high mortality rate. It was common
3:41at that time for mothers who had some
3:43kind of privileged social position to
3:46directly assign the upbringing of their
3:48children to wet nurses, that is, poor
3:50women who needed to work and hired them
3:53to breastfeed and raise their children,
3:55because this issue of affection was not
3:57there. Like, well, I need to have a
3:59child to bring offspring into this
4:00world, but another woman is going to
4:02take care of him because I don't feel
4:03like taking care of him. Towards the
4:0517th and 19th centuries, things changed
4:08a bit and this thing we know as
4:10maternal love appeared. This has to do,
4:12of course, with the birth of the
4:14construction of the nuclear family, as
4:17we understand it today, and of course
4:19with capitalism, because everything has
4:21to do with capitalism. When the forms
4:23of production began to require more
4:25people to work, obviously the need for
4:28women to bring more people into this
4:30world increased. We saw this in a lot
4:33of videos: in the video about the
4:34witches 'house, in the video about
4:36adolescence, in the video about 15th
4:38birthday parties, how starting with the
4:41Industrial Revolution and the
4:42consolidation of capitalism, especially
4:45in the late 16th and early 19th
4:46centuries, this pressure on women's
4:48bodies to produce children increased,
4:51so that these children would be future
4:53workers, future laborers. This concept
4:56of the nuclear family emerged, where
4:58mothers and fathers had many children
5:00together and this was like the basic
5:02unit of society, families that had to
5:04have children. Children somehow become
5:07the most precious assets precisely
5:09because they are the ones who are going
5:11to be workers in the future. And the
5:13maternal instinct is mentioned for the
5:15first time as a natural value for
5:18building states. In other words,
5:20basically, that women love their
5:22children, protect them, guarantee their
5:24survival so that these children would
5:27later be useful for building states
5:29that were in need of people, either for
5:31armies or for work. In this context,
5:34for example, during the French
5:36Revolution, Rousseau himself introduced
5:38the idea of maternal care and
5:40tenderness as keys to survival if you
5:42weren't a bad mother. In other words,
5:45it began to be thought that children
5:46who were loved were the children who
5:48were most capable of surviving. So, in
5:49some way, the issue of maternal love,
5:52the maternal instinct, was promoted.
5:54Texts speak of maternal love to
5:56guarantee population. And already in
5:59the 20th century, this maternal
6:01instinct, which began to be understood
6:03as the obligation that women have to
6:05love our children from before they are
6:08born, began to mix with other feelings
6:10such as love as an obligation, as love
6:12by force and guilt. The guilt that if
6:15you don't love your child enough, you
6:17are a bad mother. And being a bad
6:19mother is the worst thing you can be in
6:21any society. The maternal
6:22responsibility that was raised in the
6:24previous century here directly
6:26transformed into guilt. Of course, one
6:29of the great developers of these ideas,
6:31Freud; Obviously, Freud gave a
6:33theoretical structure, let's say, to
6:35this whole idea of maternal guilt which
6:37, if you ask me, since I'm not a big
6:39fan of psychoanalysis, is typical of
6:41this era at the beginning of the 20th
6:43century. Today, we can't continue to
6:45think about human relationships with
6:47the same logic that Freud thought of
6:48100 years ago. But anyway, this idea of
6:50guilt, of being a bad mother, of how
6:52you're going to ruin your child's life
6:54if you don't love him enough, appears.
6:56Because it's always women's fault. If
6:57you work, you're a bad mother. If you
6:59don't work, you're a bad mother. If you
7:01work, you're a bad mother for leaving
7:03your child. If you don't work, you're a
7:05bad mother; you aren't setting an
7:06example. In other words, in any case,
7:07the feeling of guilt is always going to
7:09be on our minds. This brief historical
7:11review serves to help us see how
7:13something we think of as natural,
7:15something we think exists in societies,
7:18is a historical construction. And
7:20that's what we're going to talk about
7:22now. I'd like to go back to the great
7:26Simón de Boboa, who by the way has her
7:28own video, and a video that's doing
7:30quite well, fortunately. But in the mid
7:32-20th century, Simón de Boboa put
7:34forward this idea that you're not born
7:36a woman, you become one. This idea of
7:38how, in reality, everything we
7:40understand being a woman implies, we
7:42end up being because of the pressure
7:44from society; the pressure that society
7:46exerts on us to end up being that woman
7:48it wants, that we fit into an archetype
7:51where we're defined in opposition to
7:53men and all the steps in our upbringing
7:55end up leading us towards that ideal of
7:57a woman. This same logic can be applied
7:59to the ideal of a mother. Because I
8:02don't know about you, but I learned to
8:03walk, I learned to talk, and the first
8:05thing they put in my arms was a baby.
8:07What happens to those structures that
8:09we tend to consider naturally feminine?
8:12Personally, I don't want to be a mother
8:13because I understand what being a
8:15mother implies and I'm not willing to
8:17go through it because I basically don't
8:18have a desire. But this question arises
8:20: if we know everything that being a
8:22mother implies, why are there people
8:24who continue being one and do not
8:25consider it? Because this maternal
8:27instinct is not an unchangeable
8:29biological instinct. It has a social
8:31and psychological reproduction process
8:33rooted in the family structure in which
8:36we live. What I am going to do is
8:37somewhat obvious, but from the time we
8:39are little we are taught to take care
8:40of someone else, to take care of a baby
8:42. In Western societies, we understand
8:44that the role of caregivers is
8:46predominantly feminine. As I say, from
8:48the time we are little girls, we are
8:50asked to take care of a baby. The
8:52examples that we see above are women
8:54taking care of women. So, even as
8:56little girls we have a chip that kind
8:59of sets us on the path, right? It
9:00leaves us no alternative to exist other
9:03than reproducing that stereotype that
9:05is expected of women as mothers and
9:07caregivers, because everything we do
9:09with children leaves psychological
9:11marks. This issue of motherhood is
9:13reproduced because from the time we are
9:16little what we see is women mothering
9:18women. By the way, today we see, more
9:20and more, fathers who are actively
9:21involved in the tasks of parenting,
9:23child-rearing, and daily care. But hey,
9:26we're talking about 10 years ago. If we
9:29go back, women are mothering women.
9:32What many academics say here is that a
9:34desire is built up that is not innate,
9:36that we are not born with that desire;
9:39but I insist, from a young age we are
9:41taught that a woman's goal is to be a
9:43mother, to have a family, that the only
9:45way to achieve fulfillment and
9:47happiness is through children and
9:49always in contrast to the masculine. If
9:52men are not the ones who take care of
9:53them, then we have to be the ones. And
9:55this is a strong criticism of
9:57biological determinism that for many
9:59centuries has said that women are and
10:01have instinct by nature. In reality,
10:04here we are criticizing that
10:05determinism because the fact that
10:07culturally women are generally the ones
10:09who take care of children is not
10:10biological. What happens there is that
10:13the Social Organization of the
10:14Patriarchy puts us in that place from a
10:16young age. So of course we have more
10:18capacity to take care of children
10:20because from a young age we are
10:21instilled with the idea of taking care
10:23of children. What I am saying is
10:25somewhat obvious. Some may say to me, "
10:27Oh, this is obvious." But as obvious as
10:29it may be, I think it is worth
10:30emphasizing. Because what ends up
10:32happening is that when caregiving tasks
10:34fall to women, the response is usually:
10:36"Well, because they make it easier, it
10:37goes better, they solve things faster;
10:39and it is not that we solve things
10:41faster because we are smarter, but
10:43because we have been taught to solve
10:44these things since we were little." So,
10:47it became clear that there is something
10:49instinctive that separates us from
10:50animals or that we are animals. Let's
10:54think about the ways in which different
10:56animals are raised. For example, let's
10:58think about the way felines are raised.
11:01For example, my cats, who have not yet
11:03appeared. They have young, the females
11:06have young, they take care of them
11:07alone, let's say, the male just
11:09fertilizes them and leaves. In the case
11:11of cats, they have young and when the
11:12young are adults they leave and are no
11:14longer seen by their mother or they
11:15cross paths, but they do not maintain
11:17that family bond. They are not a pride
11:19like lions, for example. And in all
11:21that care work, the father does not
11:23intervene. Then we have, for example,
11:25penguins, which have something that is
11:27fantastic. In the case of penguins,
11:29especially Antarctic penguins, they
11:31have a very particular way of raising
11:33their eggs where both the male and the
11:35female take turns taking care of the
11:37egg so that it is never left alone and
11:40exposed to being eaten by other animals
11:42or freezing. One of the two always
11:44stays with the egg while the other goes
11:46to eat it and sometimes goes away for
11:48weeks and sometimes the male stays for
11:50weeks incubating the egg until the
11:51female returns. Then when the chick is
11:54born, the same thing happens, they take
11:56turns, that is, they have a very shared
11:58parenting issue for evolutionary
12:00reasons, for survival reasons, they
12:02share a lot of parenting. Well, we
12:05humans are neither cats nor penguins.
12:09We have a difference when it comes to
12:11raising our young, that is, our babies,
12:14which was somewhat key to human
12:16evolution and was what allowed us to
12:18develop many of the things we have
12:21today and that differentiate us from
12:23other animals, and that was the ability
12:26to raise children in community. For
12:28example, in primates, most of the
12:30raising of children is done by the
12:32female, the mother. But we humans,
12:34unlike our closest genetic relatives,
12:36have something different, which is that
12:39we have cooperative parenting
12:41structures. This was one of the
12:43elements that, as I said, allowed us to
12:45evolve. Different studies establish
12:48that our ancestors began to speak
12:50between approximately 200,000 and
12:52300,000 years ago. The ability to speak
12:55is essential for generating greater
12:57cooperation between members of
12:58different groups and is considered,
13:00precisely, to have been one of the key
13:02elements when it came to evolution. For
13:04example, compared to Neanderthals, who
13:07did not have verbal communication, it
13:09allowed us to coordinate the home, care
13:11, gathering, transportation, social
13:13bonds, and social hierarchies. In that
13:16context, the ability to speak and
13:18coordinate among ourselves also allowed
13:20us to coordinate parenting and care.
13:23These human groups from 200 years ago
13:26had a form of cooperative parenting
13:28that was extremely important for
13:30ensuring survival. In those contexts,
13:33mothers were relieved of caregiving
13:35duties to do other things, such as
13:37getting married. But also, by not being
13:40focused on parenting all the time, they
13:42shortened their fertility cycles and
13:45could get pregnant every one or two
13:47years because they did not dedicate all
13:50their energy to raising children, but
13:52shared it with other members of the
13:54group. This was key for evolution,
13:57considering that human children and
13:59babies take a long time to develop and
14:01reach a fertile age. Other animals can
14:03already reproduce at two or three years
14:05of age. In the case of humans, at least
14:0715 years have to pass. And one of the
14:09elements that allowed this
14:11collaborative parenting was, as I said,
14:14speech, but also the presence of
14:16grandmothers, menopausal women,
14:19postmenopausal women. It has been
14:23widely studied that another element
14:25that precisely allowed the evolutionary
14:28success and survival of human groups
14:30was that women did not die when they
14:32reached the end of their reproductive
14:34age. In many other species, when
14:36individuals can no longer reproduce,
14:38they tend to die because they no longer
14:41fulfill their biological function. In
14:43the case of humans, since in addition
14:45to biological functions, we have
14:46culture. It often happened that
14:48grandmothers, that is, postmenopausal
14:51women, did not die or were discarded by
14:53the groups because they were very
14:55important when it came to distributing
14:57the raising of children. These
14:59grandmothers' presence allowed for baby
15:01care; since they no longer had their
15:03own babies, they took care of the
15:05babies so that the women could
15:06reproduce in shorter periods of time.
15:08At the same time, when we say that
15:10parenting was collaborative, it doesn't
15:11mean that I take care of my grandchild,
15:12and you take care of your grandchild.
15:14Rather, all members of the group
15:16coordinated and agreed to share these
15:19tasks, and this was key to ensuring
15:21people's evolutionary success. At the
15:24same time, this distribution of care
15:26had a cooperative and somewhat
15:28altruistic meaning because, as I said,
15:31members of the groups who did not have
15:34children were dedicated to caring for
15:36others. This distributed care system
15:39seems to have evolutionarily selected
15:41for a greater capacity for cooperation
15:43and altruism because, for example, we
15:46not only shared parenting, but we also
15:48shared food and activities, and we took
15:50care of each other within the groups.
15:53It was also key that babies did not
15:55have a passive role within the groups.
15:58Babies are very intelligent. Anyone who
16:00has babies around knows that they are
16:02very intelligent and are capable of
16:04reading social signals and modifying
16:06their behavior to, for example, get
16:07their mother's attention, get something
16:10they like, or obtain affection. So, it
16:12is mutual. I mean, in this relationship
16:14where people take care of babies, we
16:16don't have to think of babies as
16:17passive subjects, but rather that they
16:19also manipulate the behavior of others.
16:21This idea somewhat questions this
16:23concept of the maternal instinct as
16:25something individual that each woman is
16:27born with, because humans did not
16:29evolve to raise children alone.
16:31Parenting has always been cooperative.
16:34Of course, in capitalist times it
16:36became increasingly individualized.
16:38Although grandmothers are almost always
16:41present, the cooperative and collective
16:43aspect practiced by our early ancestors
16:46, where grandmothers, mothers, aunts,
16:48and sisters were key to evolution, is
16:50no longer there. The mother is not
16:52isolated and is not solely responsible
16:54for parenting. Some of these elements
16:57are still present today, where the
16:58woman's closest nuclear group usually
17:00participates in parenting, but in these
17:02early groups that I'm talking about,
17:04fathers, uncles, and brothers also
17:06participated. In other words,
17:07cooperative parenting was not an
17:09exclusively feminine issue. I would
17:10like to ask you, what role have you
17:12seen the women in your family play? In
17:14your aunts, grandmothers, or sisters?
17:16Have they been involved in raising your
17:18children, nephews, or siblings? And the
17:20boys? Well, I'll leave them in the
17:21comments. Luckily, today it's more
17:23surprising than ever to see more and
17:25more fathers, uncles, and grandparents
17:26involved in raising their little ones.
17:28It wouldn't be the norm, but
17:29fortunately it's becoming more and more
17:31common because something is changing in
17:33the cultural sense. Because although we
17:35continue to reproduce this idea of
17:36maternal instinct, we are increasingly
17:38open to the possibility that parenting
17:40can be something more shared and
17:42collaborative like those early
17:44ancestors. Now, to finish, I would like
17:46to introduce an idea that I read while
17:48making the video, which is from the
17:50anthropologist Adrien Rich, which I
17:52think really wraps up what we were
17:54talking about in this video about
17:56maternal instinct: thinking of
17:58motherhood as an experience or as an
18:00institution. What she's going to
18:02suggest is that it's one thing for a
18:04mother to develop super close, intimate
18:06, and profound bonds with her child. In
18:08other words, for a mother to see her
18:10child come out of her womb and fall in
18:11love and say, "This is the being I've
18:13dreamed of my whole life." And to care
18:15for him tooth and nail. That's one
18:17thing, which would be an individual
18:19experience of motherhood, and another
18:22thing entirely is to think of a society
18:25that makes motherhood a universal
18:27obligation. It's one thing for you to
18:29want to be a mother and become that
18:31fighter and warrior mother, and another
18:33thing entirely for society to force you
18:35and impose on you the universal mandate
18:37that you have to be that mother. I find
18:40it very interesting because it's not
18:42asking whether or not the maternal
18:43instinct exists, but rather asking the
18:45question that I opened the video with,
18:47about why we believe that the maternal
18:49instinct exists. Because surely some
18:51woman will tell you: "Yes, I felt an
18:53instinct from the moment I got pregnant
18:55, an animal need to protect my child,"
18:57and another mother may tell you: "No,
18:59look, he was born and I had no idea
19:01what he was." And over time I began to
19:03love him. Both of these are completely
19:05logical experiences that actually
19:07happen. I know many mothers who, when
19:09they gave birth, said, "I didn't love
19:11him at first sight, I fell in love with
19:12him over time." Others who did. The
19:14problem arises when we come to believe
19:16that this whole issue of maternal
19:18instinct acts as if it were a universal
19:20rule. Adrian Rich is going to say that
19:22under patriarchy, which is the
19:24structure in which we live, the aim is
19:26to ensure that women's reproductive
19:28potential remains under male control.
19:30So, we continue to be told that we have
19:32to be mothers from a young age. She is
19:35going to separate motherhood as a
19:36biological and individual experience,
19:38where there is a potential relationship
19:40between mother and child that each
19:42mother constructs differently, and
19:44motherhood as an institution under
19:46norms and laws that impose motherhood
19:48on us simply because we are women. This
19:50is where these ideas of the ideal
19:52mother, the good mother, instinct, and
19:54warrior come into play. In reality,
19:56this is a logic that strips us of
19:58sovereignty over our own bodies and
20:00makes us believe that we came into this
20:02world with a single task: to fulfill
20:04ourselves by being good mothers. And on
20:07top of that, if you want to be a good
20:08mother, you have to have a legitimate
20:10child who has a father. In other words,
20:11it also adds the ties with fathers and
20:13with men. Here, when I was reading, she
20:16said at one point that only a child who
20:17has the father's last name is
20:19legitimate. In other words, on top of
20:20having to be a good mother, you have to
20:22be a good mother to a good child who is
20:24legitimate. And I thought it was crazy
20:26that I saw the other day—I don't
20:27remember who was talking about this the
20:29other day—what is this crazy thing
20:31that even good children who have our
20:33last names from our fathers, the last
20:35names always belong to their fathers?
20:37In other words, daughters always belong
20:39to their parents, and even if you have
20:41your mother's last name in front, it's
20:43still a man's last name, because it was
20:44the last name of your maternal
20:46grandfather, your mother's father. In
20:48other words, if you're a woman, you
20:50give your son or daughter your maternal
20:52last name, you give them your last name
20:54, that last name is probably your
20:55father's. And if you have your mother's
20:58last name, which your mother probably
20:59had, it's definitely the last name that
21:02belongs to a man, because children will
21:04always belong to a man. No matter how
21:05good a mother you are, there's always
21:07something wrong with it. So, it seems
21:09to me that the question of whether or
21:12not the maternal instinct exists should
21:15be, why was motherhood presented as the
21:17only destiny of women for so long?
21:20What's the difference between wanting
21:21to be a mother and feeling that
21:23everyone else expects you to do it? As
21:25always, more questions than answers.
21:27You know that I love to leave you with
21:28more questions than answers. You can
21:30leave me your thoughts on this topic in
21:32the comments. If you are a mother, I am
21:33especially interested in knowing what
21:35you think about these issues. If not,
21:36how have you seen the motherhoods
21:38around you? You can leave me a like, a
21:40comment, and you can go and watch my
21:41historical standup show. It depends on
21:43the past, that is not the issue. And
21:44what else do I have to tell you? I
21:46don't think I have to tell you anything
21:48else, I think. Well, suggestions as
21:50always. I have members who are
21:52uploading videos to members and I will
21:54see you next Monday.

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This page contains the full transcript of ¿NACEMOS para ser MADRES? ¿El instinto maternal es un hecho científico? by Pupina Plomer, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 4,229 words across 639 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

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