Does maternal instinct exist?

In a series of ten episodes (1), baptized ” Mammas Actress Isabella Rosselini encamps female animals to humorously talk about their maternal instincts. A certain species of spider is capable of sacrificing itself for its young, a fish carries its eggs in its mouth and thus deprives itself of being able to feed itself during the maturation of its offspring … This famous maternal instinct, well observed in the animal world, is it today swept aside as far as human hope is concerned?

“I’m afraid I don’t have the maternal instinct,” explains a woman on a forum, a month before giving birth. A surfer tells her, talking about her childbirth: “She goes out and they put it on me!” Very intense moment, you forget everything, she is there, she is yours, the instinct arrived at the same time as her! “. Another responds reassuringly: “The instinct can come when you put the baby in your arms, as it can come several days later. […]. We all have it. Behind these doubts, in the background, we often find feelings of guilt that seize these mothers in the making. From the start of the 1980s, Elisabeth Badinter published her shocking book Love in addition, which twisted the blow to the maternal instinct by speaking of maternal love, which is woven over the years. However, more than 30 years later, many future and young mothers are still asking the question, proof that the debate is still not settled.

Instinct, let us remember, is the set of characteristic behaviors of a species which are transmitted by genetic means and which are expressed in the absence of learning. In humans, we can for example cite the survival instinct or the self-preservation instinct. But from there to speaking of maternal instinct, there is a step. Applied to human beings, the term disturbs specialists in the matter. Monique Bydlowski, psychiatrist and director of research at Inserm, prefers to speak of “the desire to be a parent, which is more in the register of impulses that animate our psychic life. “

Listen to Monique Bydlowski, psychiatrist, author of I dream a child (2) : “The term maternal instinct does not correspond to a reality. Human beings are endowed with a psyche, which makes them deviate from their animal brothers. “

“When we speak of instinct, we ask ourselves the question of knowing if we act like animals”, explains Corinne Antoine, psychologist, author of The inner revolution. Psychology of pregnancy and motherhood (3). However, as humans, “we are no longer just in the survival of the species, we are in the bond, the attachment to the child. No room, therefore, for guilt. For her, becoming parents is acquired over time.

Listen to Corinne Antoine, psychologist, couple and family therapist: “Mothers need to be reassured. It is something that will be acquired through learning. “

This does not ignore mothers who are changed by their pregnancy, who recognize the crying of their baby among others, who have like a 6^e sense towards their child. They would simply not be just the “lucky ones” invaded by the maternal instinct but mothers won by empathy, a key concept for Monique Bydlowski: “Empathy is the ability to experience what the other feels in front of you, and this is what is mobilized in the face of a child. From the first days, we are led to say to ourselves: what does he feel? “.

It would seem that the turn of the matter has not yet been done, especially since since women benefit from contraception, becoming a parent is a matter of choice. “In the past, it was destiny to have a child,” recalls Monique Bydlowski. What is hard today is that it is a decision, so we feel responsible whereas before it “happened” to women. As for animals, they are far from always being a model. The female hamster, for example, free from any prejudice and strong in her maternal instinct, does not hesitate to eat some of her young to regain strength after giving birth.

(1) Currently showing on Arte

(2) Ed. Odile Jacob

(3) Ed. Larousse