Yesterday, May 08, 2016 was Mother’s Day. The day was celebrated globally including Ghana where people expressed their appreciation and gratitude to their mothers and women in general.
It is a no-brainer to declare that mothers are important. But we live in a no-brainer age in which the very concept of motherhood is now under attack. Thus, we must come to the defence of mothers and motherhood.
This seems odd, given how valued mothers have been throughout human history. Mothers provide invaluable benefits to all, and their work is priceless. As Ann Crittenden wrote in 2001, “The very definition of a mother is selfless service to another.”
She cites two old sayings in connection with motherhood: A Jewish adage says: “God could not be everywhere, and therefore He made mothers.” And an Arabic proverb puts it this way: “The mother is a school; if she is well reared, you are sure to build a nation.”
Yet, despite the overwhelming importance of mothers, like all things decent and of value, mums are under siege. So this article will seek to examine the importance of motherhood. I will simply focus on the vital roles mothers play in raising and seeing to the wellbeing of children, especially during their formative years.
This, of course, raises related issues which include women and careers and formal day care. But here I mainly wish to summarise some of the data which verify what we already know by common sense, that mothers are crucial to the development of children.
Numerous international studies have shown that maternal deprivation at early age can affect the mother-child bonding process, and can impair a child’s emotional, social and psychological development. For example, a major 1990 American report found that a higher proportion of children under age one in day care “show anxious-avoidance attachment to their mothers than do home-reared infants.” Other researchers have also found out that maternal separation can profoundly affect the brain’s biochemistry, with lifelong consequences for growth and mental ability.
Not only is the important role of instilling values, purpose and responsibility best met by a child’s biological parents at an early age, but so too is the cultivation of a sense of security and wellbeing. Indeed, as one expert puts it, the attachment relationship that a young child forges with his mother “forms the foundation stone of personality.” Regular and prolonged detachment from the mother can demonstrably impair a child’s intellectual and emotional development, and affect a child throughout his or her life.
Studies in bonding and attachment theory have shown that a child’s emotional and mental wellbeing are inexorably tied up with continuous, sustained, stable physical and emotional contact between mother and child. Taking the child away from its mother during this critical period can result in a number of harmful results: “Children deprived of parental care in early childhood are likely to be withdrawn, disruptive, insecure, or even intellectually stunted. New research even suggests that the depression resulting from separation anxiety in early childhood can cause a permanent impairment of the immune system making these children prone to physical illness through their lives.”
A parent’s absence or inaccessibility, either physical or emotional, can have a profound effect on a child’s emotional health. One study from Norway, for example, found that children experiencing less maternal care than others had higher levels of behavioural problems. Learning can also be impaired.
A recent 10-year study involving 1,300 American children found that the more hours that toddlers spend in child care, the more likely they are to turn out aggressive, disobedient and defiant. The researchers said the correlation held true regardless of whether the children came from rich or poor homes.
Much more can be said by way of the evidence of the special and crucial role which mothers play in the development of children. What I have presented here is simply a small part of the overall information about mums and their importance.
As mentioned, it may sound strange to actually have to defend motherhood, but we live in strange times. As George Orwell once remarked, “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
So if we have to celebrate this Mother’s day by restating the obvious, then so be it. Mothers are absolutely vital to every one of us, and their role and service needs to be recognised. Three cheers for mothers – they deserve all the accolades and praise we can heap upon them.
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