Posted on 09/13/2023 12:10:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Ms. Conaboy is a journalist specializing in health and the author of the forthcoming book “Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood,” from which this essay has been adapted.
Around the time that Mimi Niles became a mother, an upstairs neighbor in her New York City apartment building had twins. When the two women ran into each other in the hallway or on the sidewalk, Ms. Niles would ask the neighbor how she was faring.
“Fabulous,” Ms. Niles remembered her saying. “I’m so happy.”
Ms. Niles was dumbfounded. She was not feeling fabulous in new motherhood. She was exhausted and anxious. She slept little and cried a lot. Even as she worked to bond with her daughter through co-sleeping and baby-wearing, she struggled to understand what the baby needed.
But Ms. Niles soon discovered that there was little room for that struggle within the prevailing narrative of motherhood, or even in her conversations with other parents.
All around her swirled near-rapturous descriptions of the joys of new motherhood. They all celebrated the same thing — the woman who is able to instantly intuit and satisfy her baby’s every need, and to do it all on her own.
Ms. Niles, who is now a midwife and researcher, wondered what was going on. Of course, she was aware of the “baby blues” and knew women who suffered from postpartum depression, but what she took issue with was something more fundamental, about how our culture approaches motherhood. Where did the idea that motherhood is hard-wired for women come from? Is there a man behind the curtain?
In a sense, there is a man behind the curtain. Many of them, actually.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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I remember back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and journalists actually had enough education to get through a sentence or two before we decided that they were total dumb*sses.
Fresh Warm Steaming Male Bovine Excrement!
“I remember back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and journalists actually had enough education to get through a sentence or two before we decided that they were total dumb*sses.”
Me too, that’s when Jim Rob started FR with the stone tablets.
Gotta give a bump to Laz.
5.56mm
If maternal instinct was that universal a search for “baby books for parents” wouldn’t have nearly half a million hits.
She should take a trip to the farm or veterinary hospital and observe.
I see this stupidity from people that Claim they believe in evolution
Let keep it simple
The human child is probably the most high maintenance offspring in the world.
If there was no maternal instinct to protect guide it nurturate it
human beings would have died out long ago.
They would not have survived.
Human females would have had to evolve that instinct
I guess men created oxytocin and other hormones, too.
The Patriarch defined Mother Earth — #ing misogynistic bastards!!!
The world is a psych ward and some of us are just the visitors.
Bs
Pretty tricky of us, wasn’t it?
Exactly. It does exist and many women have it.
LOL
Those who believe this garbage do so as to justify abortion.
Those who have an abortion not only lack a maternal instinct, they also lack basic human goodness and morality.
You know... like a sociopath.
Did she have a bad mom, poor role models, or is she just angry and stupid?
Motherhood is natural. Mother-child bonding is natural. It is 100% in conformity with our human nature. It is not something that eeevvvvviiiiil men created to oppress those innocent poor frail delicate women.
Truly, the left is insane.
1st, it is the NYT. Why go past the first para?
2nd, destroying the “myth” is part of making it easier to take away your child. This is part of the tranny/pedo playbook — which explains why the NYT would push it.
Without the mother instinct, humans would be no different from other short-term mothers in the wild. Without the mother instinct, humans would cease to exist, and in fact, the species would have been short-lived.
Without the mother instinct, most other emotions would be useless, and would in fact, be extraneous.
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