Should Society Set Limits on Who Can Mother?

There are a multitude of problems, both practical and ideological, with the government taking any steps to proactively protect children from abuse and even the suggestion arouses the fear of an Orwellian-style Big Brother (Big Sister? Sibling?) nightmare. The purpose of this essay is not to tackle those many important questions or to draft legislation but to provoke thought and discussion about something so basic that it is not yet even regarded as an “issue.”

It is taken as a given that a baby “belongs” to her/his parents and, in most cases, that translates to the mother — since she is the parent who absolutely must be present at a birth — and her male partner, if any, who takes on the father role. Biological fathers who are known but not living with the mother at birth are usually held responsible for financial support and granted visitation but do not, as a birthmother does, automatically have custody of the baby.

However, I believe it is time that we ask if parenthood, and even more specifically motherhood, is a “right.” For if every woman has this right, does any child have the right to a decent upbringing?

There are sound reasons for leaving newborns with the female who gave birth to them. After all, she alone is biologically equipped via her breast milk to feed the baby. More importantly, the experience of carrying the child to term together with (except in the rare instance of some forms of surrogate motherhood) her genetic relationship to her offspring, means that the vast majority of mothers start out with an extraordinarily powerful emotional bond with their babies.

It should be understood that this bond means that a mother loves her child but does not necessarily mean that she desires to spend twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week with her baby (although there are mothers who say they feel this way and the American “Workfare” reform may be a hardship for them but that is a subject for another essay). Rather, this maternal bond means that, normally, a mother has an overwhelmingly strong desire for her baby to thrive. Traditionally, many affluent women turned their newborns over to wet nurses and nannies as a matter of course; this does not indicate any failure of the maternal bond to form during pregnancy since these mothers typically looked after their children’s interests in a variety of ways. A maternal bond may have formed in a mother who voluntarily gives up all contact with her baby: the decision to give a child up for adoption may be a loving one, based on a realistic analysis of what the child needs.

However, very few things among that extraordinarily varied species known as humanity are foolproof and the motherhood bond, powerful as it may be, is not one of them. For women, like men, are individuals and as individuals they can be warped, pathological, and simply evil. The women in this group are not excluded from the category of those who engage in sexual intercourse, voluntarily or through rape, nor from the concomitant group known as mothers.

For some women, the experience of pregnancy may fail to form a bond that leads them to want a good life for their young. It is possible that these women have been so deprived of affection in their own lives that they are incapable of forming loving bonds with anyone. It is also possible that the physical changes of pregnancy, the misshapenness, sicknesses, and physical pain that accompany this natural process, actually bias a minority mothers against their offspring.

After a state made it legal for mothers to abandon newborns at hospitals one such woman showed up at a hospital and the worker who took her infant was surprised that the mother “handed it over without tenderness, as if it were a sack of potatoes.” She was equally surprised that she saw no regret on the other woman’s face, only “relief.”

While it is a commonplace saying that, “there’s an exception to every rule,” the uncomfortable truth that a mother may not love her children is something the vast majority of us are very reluctant to admit. Most people easily accept that a father may be uncaring and even vicious toward his young since, after all, they did not grow in his body. Thus, while they horrify, the stories of brutal fathers are readily believed.

In the case of equally cruel and abusive mothers we seem reluctant to accept the data even when it is staring at us in the face in the form of babies drowned in toilets and tossed into trashcans. Rather, we rush to say that the mother “did not know what she was doing.” That is possible. It is also possible that she knew perfectly well and did not care.

A few years ago, I made the acquaintanceship (it is hardly a “friendship”) of an Internet persona who applauds rapists and murderers and has proclaimed his desire to watch people, including small children, being tortured to death.

His anti-social attitudes are, he claims, based on his upbringing. According to the story he told of his background, his parents were married and lower-middle-class. His mother did not work outside the home — indeed, she could not because she was a schizophrenic. The two things she said most often to her son while he was growing up were “We never wanted you” and “The only thing you’re good for is sucking your father’s cock.” The latter was a chore he was called upon to perform with regularity throughout his childhood.

This fellow’s mother supposedly sent him to school in dirty clothes where he was ridiculed by the other children until such time as they decided to avoid the mean boy. When a first-grade teacher went around the room asking each student what day his or her birthday was on, this boy had to reply that he did not know: it had never been celebrated. As a result of his never being taught to brush his teeth as a youngster, he has spent several thousands of dollars in dental work.

There is no way to know if this Internet acquaintance is telling the truth about either his own attitudes or the childhood that formed them. It is entirely possible that, as people so often do on the Internet, he has simply created a bizarre persona.

However, there is also no way to say with confidence that his story, or one like it, could not occur since we place no limits on the type of women can have custody of the children that come down their birth canals.

Should we do so?

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. | 4 views | Trackback | Print this page |

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