“Mother’s Intuition” (AAARRRRGH!)

One of the patriarchy’s many lies about motherhood is the phrase ‘mother’s intuition’ or ‘maternal instinct’. And before we get into this, it might be worthwhile to begin by making the distinction made by Adrienne Rich, one of the only feminist critics who writes from the distinct point of view of a mother. Rich separates between the experience of motherhood - Real thoughts and emotions that run through and often overwhelm women who become mothers - and the institution of motherhood, which is a construct of the patriarchy’s making. The institution of motherhood is detrimental to women for many reasons, the listing of which is an undertaking on far too large a scale for this blog, but we can take a tiny glimpse by deconstructing just this one phrase, for starters.

On its face the phrase seems harmless; a compliment, even. My anger at it - which, I assure you, is quite pervasive and complete - may strike the casual observer as unjustified; just another angry feminist going overboard. But I can’t get over how devious it is, how contemptibly wily. It’s amazing what two words can do to culture’s entire perception of motherhood, of women.

First of all, let’s begin with the obvious, which is that ‘maternal instinct’ or ‘mother’s intuition’ does not exist. Sure, there are women who are better equipped for motherhood - naturals, to borrow a term from sports or music - whether because they had a ‘good’ mother to model themselves on (a slippery term we won’t tackle now; for the moment we can just assume that a ‘good’ mother is one who is attuned to her child’s needs), or whether they are just naturally calm, patient, empathetic, what have you (again, too much of any of these does not necessarily make a mother ‘good’ but for the moment we will have to live with the vagueness). The point is, even women who start out financially, mentally, and emotionally stable, who want their baby and see its arrival as a blessing, who arrive on the other side of labor in relatively functional physical health; even these women should never be labeled as having instinct or intuition. Because instinct is something every member of a species has. If it’s built in, it’s built into everyone. If not, it’s not fucking instinct, okay?

In actuality most women not only don’t feel like they have a mothering ‘instinct’, they feel the exact opposite of that. The problem - and this is just one of the many problems with the term ‘instinct’- is that they cannot necessarily share these feelings. Once you are hit with the notion that you, as the mother, are somehow supposed to just know what to do with an infant, you feel it necessary to keep up with the charade. Besides, you tell yourself, instinct could kick in at any moment! Maybe, like MS DOS or those dial-up internet connections we used to have, I just have to wait…

But it never does. What does happen, though, is that you learn to fake it. Because when your baby cries all eyes turn to you. You can feel them boring a hole through your skull, and the pressure - bolstered by that deafening alarm that sounds within when your baby needs something - is immense. So you try everything. You try milk, you try bobbing up and down, you try bringing the knees up to help a slow intestinal tract, you try singing, you try cooing, you try holding the baby on its back, then on its stomach, you try every shape and size and make of pacifier, till your kitchen counter looks like a fucking pacifier museum. And all the while you look out at the world and say: I got this. You hide your sweat stains, and you pray.

I have a friend who always used to amaze me on this account. Her newborn baby girl had merely to whimper and she would give her need a name. “Oh, she’s tired” or “her stomach hurts” or “she’s hungry” or “she has gas” or whatever else. I would gaze at her, amazed that she had figured out exactly what this week-old creature wanted. Was this a baby-whisperer in our midst? It took me a while to figure out that she was just guessing, and these matter-of-fact statements were mainly a form of calming herself. Sure, her assumptions may have often been correct, but as often as not they weren’t. When the latter was true, she learned from her mistakes, and, like any form of study undertaken seriously and continuously, she eventually learned to understand her baby. Well, as best as any of us can.

Which leads me to my next point. Not intuition or instinct but intelligence. A mother’s knowledge of her baby’s needs is hard-won. In the past few years researchers have discovered that mothers’ brains do change during pregnancy, but these changes can lead to anxiety and depression - symptoms that arguably interfere with the response to babies’ needs - just as often as they lead to positive results such as empathy. In any case, brain changes, if, indeed, they occur in all mothers (a conclusion researchers are very far from making) are just the starting point, the soil in which seeds of communication can be planted. Real knowledge of an infant’s needs require constant study of every facial expression, every cry. Mothers (or fathers, when they are the primary caregivers) study their babies constantly. And anyone who’s ever been a parent knows that infants change on a moment’s notice, so the study becomes exhaustive research requiring constant observation, experimentation, and commitment. Not unlike a degree in science, wouldn’t you say? 

Would you call a great scientist, an expert in her/his field, ‘intuitive’? Would you chalk up her/his knowledge to ‘instinct’? I don’t think so.

So why do it to mothers?

Here’s where I get angry. Because it seems like it’s purposeful. It seems like the term ‘intuition’ or ‘instinct’ was made up by fathers who couldn’t be bothered to achieve the same intelligence for themselves, who weren’t diligent enough, patient enough, or caring enough to put in the time that the mothers of their children did into understanding and caring for their children. Much easier to chalk it up to something only women have in those female brains of theirs. Decades of Mars-Venus type proselytizing has maintained that sex is destiny (as Freud once put it), and any attempt at bridging the divide would be a non-starter. However the research on neurological changes is clear on this point: Men who become primary caregivers undergo the same brain alterations mothers do, it just depends on the amount of time they spend with their infant.

Calling it ‘mother’s intuition’ or ‘maternal instinct’ is a double-whammy. First, it negates the equal involvement of men in childcare. Passing off a crying infant to its mother becomes legitimate because she is better equipped to handle it. Second, and this is what really sends the red bells of fury ringing in my brain, by calling it ‘intuition’ rather than intelligence, by implying that women are born with the knowledge necessary rather than acquiring it, the patriarchy can keep from affording women any sort of intellectual advantage over men. We are better than men at childcare, but not because we are more intelligent than them, we were just born that way!

Want to make it a triple-whammy? Consider the fact that women have bought this lie throughout history. Under the guise of innocuousness, precisely because of this guise, perhaps, this phrase is one of the most oppressive forms of patriarchal BS I have encountered as a mother. It keeps us believing we must be primary caregivers because we were born to do so while men weren’t, and that if we don’t feel intuitive, if we don’t know instinctively what to do when our babies cry, well, then we must be unfit in some way. The latter insinuation, of course, forces women to perpetuate this lie, never to call its bluff, because to do so would be to admit something horrible, unthinkable, about ourselves; to ourselves. Hey, the best way to oppress someone is to get them to oppress themselves, no?

So here’s a thought. Next time you want to compliment a mother, call her smart, not intuitive. And hand her a glass of wine, for chrissakes. She has no doubt been having a very long day.