The illusion of unconditional love

The biggest misconception about motherhood? Love. It's not always the immediate, unconditional feeling society portrays. It's a complex emotion that grows over time.

Navigating societal expectations

Feeling overwhelmed by societal expectations? Your journey is unique, and there's no one-size-fits-all approach to motherhood.

The myth of maternal instinct. there are mothers who wish their 

children were never born There are 

mothers who fantasize about disappearing 

There are mothers who love their 

children and still want to die 

But you're not supposed to know that 

because we were taught a lie so deep so 

sacred that even speaking it out loud 

sounds like violence that all mothers 

love that all mothers must love that 

it's natural It's not This myth has a 

body count It's in the exhausted face of 

the mother rocking a child at 3:00 a.m 

silently screaming inside It's in the 

graves of infants smothered in 

desperation It's in the suicide notes of 

women who couldn't fake the love society 

demanded of them And worse it's in the 

history books sanitized justified 

institutionalized 

Charles Darwin never sanctified 

motherhood but his theories were twisted 

into weapons to force women into 

reproductive cages Jacques Jalis showed 

us how modernity didn't free women It 

tightened the noose Modernity wasn't a 

gift It was a mandate a punishment a 

tool of statecraft 

Do you really think instinct explains 

why some women walk out of hospitals 

without their newborns 

Do you really think nature intended for 

love to be mandatory They lied They lied 

to control women's bodies their choices 

their futures and worst of all their 

feelings 

This isn't a video about motherhood It's 

a video about survival under the myth of 

motherhood and the price millions have 

paid for an emotion they were forced to 

feel If you have the stomach for the 

truth stay If not leave now 

Because what comes next is brutal and 

it's real 

If maternal instinct were truly 

universal the world wouldn't be full of 

abandoned children 

Every year thousands of newborns are 

left in dumpsters bathrooms church steps 

hospital hallways not in war zones not 

in poverty alone but in suburbs cities 

middle class homes The reasons vary The 

myth doesn't We still pretend that 

maternal love is automatic biological 

unshakable as natural as breathing But 

even Darwin didn't say that In fact when 

he wrote the descent of man he spoke of 

parental care not as an act of divine 

morality or instinctual purity but as a 

strategic evolutionary behavior 

developed under pressure selected over 

time for its reproductive advantage In 

other words a tendency not a law 

It is doubtful whether the offspring of 

the early progenitors of man would have 

been able to survive unless the parents 

had been capable of feeling affection 

for them Charles Darwin the descent of 

man 1871 

Affection was useful not sacred But 

somewhere between usefulness and dogma 

we invented a narrative that all mothers 

are wired to love That this wiring is 

inevitable that any woman who doesn't 

feel it must be sick evil or inhuman 

This distortion didn't come from Darwin 

It came from the social machinery built 

on top of him Biology became morality 

Survival behavior became emotional 

obligation And what Darwin offered as a 

possibility was weaponized into an 

expectation Now let's tear that apart 

The truth is maternal behavior varies 

wildly across species across cultures 

across individuals In rats the presence 

of oxytocin and dopamine the so-called 

bonding chemicals isn't consistent It 

depends on prior stress trauma hormonal 

cycles Some mothers groom and nurse 

obsessively Others ignore or cannibalize 

their young In humans the pattern is 

even less predictable 

One of the most significant studies on 

postpartum bonding Brockington at Almas 

2006 found that up to 26% of mothers 

experience maternal rejection a 

disconnection or aversion to their 

newborn Not temporary depression not 

just exhaustion rejection This is not 

rare It's not criminal It's real But 

because of the myth those mothers often 

stay silent and silence becomes shame 

and shame becomes violence inward or 

outward 

So how did we get here Because science 

once bent through ideology loses its 

nuance Darwin's careful empirical 

framing of parental care was swallowed 

by cultural hunger for certainty 

especially in the 19th and 20th 

centuries when Western societies were 

obsessed with stabilizing the nuclear 

family and reinforcing gender roles And 

nothing stabilized it better than saying 

this is how women are by nature It's not 

how women are it's how they were told 

they must be Darwin saw nature as 

adaptation flux survival not destiny But 

society read his work as scripture This 

was never about nature It was about 

keeping women in place 

When a woman today says "I don't feel 

connected to my child She's not 

violating nature She's violating a story 

A violent story carved into our social 

code with the authority of science but 

none of its honesty The truth is harder 

uglier and freeing There is no universal 

maternal instinct only behavior 

variation possibility and pressure Some 

mothers love instantly Some never do And 

some learn slowly painfully under the 

weight of a lie they were never allowed 

to question That lie started with a 

misreading of science and it cost lives 

Before 

a woman was ever allowed to love her 

child she was ordered to have one 

You can't talk about maternal instinct 

without talking about power Not the 

power of nature the power of history of 

governments kings churches and doctors 

All engineering the same thing 

Motherhood as duty as punishment as 

social infrastructure 

Long before we wrapped it in 

sentimentality motherhood was a 

mechanism of control And it wasn't 

hidden It was law It was religion It was 

policy In the 18th and 19th centuries as 

Western Europe industrialized nations 

began treating childbirth like national 

service France in particular obsessed 

over demographic decline And in response 

it turned the female body into a state 

resource 

Jacqu Jalis French historian and author 

of Larre Leafrey documented this shift 

with surgical precision 

He didn't describe a natural evolution 

of motherhood He described a 

colonization of it Maternity ceased to 

be a fact of life It became a mission an 

obligation a political function Jacqu 

jali 

And when something becomes a mission 

there's no room for refusal In 

revolutionary France motherhood was 

weaponized to secure the future of the 

republic Women were taught that bearing 

and raising children wasn't just a 

family matter It was a patriotic act 

Refusing motherhood wasn't just immoral 

it was treason Suddenly childbirth was 

not just biological It was moralized 

institutionalized sacralized The state 

offered medals to prolific mothers The 

church sanctified maternal suffering 

Medicine led by male physicians invaded 

the birthing process turning the 

midwife's intimate domain into a site of 

surveillance and control Pregnancy and 

labor once managed within the female 

community became regulated by science 

and policy The womb was no longer 

private It belonged to the nation And 

women who stepped out of line they were 

erased pathized punished Single mothers 

were locked in asylums ories 

Abortions were criminalized Infanticide 

even when born of desperation was 

treated not as a social failure but as 

individual monstrosity 

The mother who refused her role was no 

longer a woman She was a monster 

Jalis 

And that narrative stuck even today when 

a woman expresses regret about 

motherhood or sorrow or apathy She's met 

with confusion with disgust as if she 

betrayed something holy But that 

holiness was manufactured It was 

designed to keep populations growing to 

keep women anchored to the domestic 

sphere to make reproduction feel like 

destiny The love we associate with 

motherhood was always conditional 

Conditional on obedience on sacrifice on 

silence 

Jealous's work is devastating not 

because it's radical but because it's 

meticulously documented birth records 

church decrees medical journals all of 

them echoing the same quiet violence 

Mothers are not born They are made Made 

through fear through ideology through 

generations of forced expectation 

We like to say now that motherhood is a 

choice But for centuries it wasn't And 

the remnants of that coercion the 

glorified suffering the guilt the 

pressure to love without limit are still 

with us Not because they're natural but 

because they were engineered to feel 

that way 

Some mothers love their children so 

deeply it devours them Others give birth 

and feel nothing The silence between 

those two truths is where most violence 

begins 

We've constructed a world where maternal 

love isn't just expected it's required 

mandatory automatic 

So when it doesn't appear when a mother 

looks at her child and feels absence 

confusion or even disgust the response 

isn't compassion it's condemnation She's 

branded as broken as dangerous as less 

than human But what if she's not What if 

the absence of love isn't a defect but a 

mirror reflecting the unbearable weight 

of a lie Mothers who feel alienated from 

their children don't appear in textbooks 

but they exist everywhere 

They show up in emergency rooms saying 

"I think I'm going to hurt my baby." 

They sit in support groups whispering "I 

don't feel anything." They confess to 

therapists behind closed doors "I wish I 

hadn't had her I wish I could run These 

aren't monsters They're the casualties 

of a myth Postpartum depression affects 

over one in seven mothers worldwide 

But that's just the diagnosis There are 

deeper shadows Postpartum rage postnatal 

regret maternal ambivalence states that 

don't fit neatly into DSM categories but 

carve into the psyche just as violently 

Psychiatrist Dr Diana Lynn Barnes 

describes it bluntly We are asking women 

to meet a cultural expectation that 

doesn't allow for complexity 

And when they fail to perform love they 

are punished legally socially internally 

In 2015 in S Paulo a 22-year-old woman 

left her newborn in a public bathroom 

She didn't cry She didn't beg She said 

nothing Media called her heartless A 

judge called her unfit for society 

No one asked if she was safe if she had 

help if she'd ever wanted that child 

Some women abandon Others endure in 

silence They raise children while 

drowning in apathy resentment 

self-hatred 

Not because they're cruel because they 

were never allowed to say no 

The philosopher Julia Ceva once wrote 

"When a woman who has just given birth 

doesn't feel joy she doesn't stop being 

a mother She starts becoming one 

Becoming slowly painfully without 

instinct without divine love just 

confusion just breathe just survival." 

But we don't allow that narrative 

because the myth says love must be 

immediate total fierce and anything else 

is a sin Even Darwin careful as he was 

fed into this structure by implying that 

parental attachment would be naturally 

selected That affection was adaptive 

What he didn't say but what we must is 

that nature allows for failure Not every 

mother and every species bonds Not every 

human mother thrives and not every 

failure is a tragedy Some are the result 

of impossible expectations 

When we erase maternal ambivalence we 

don't protect children We create homes 

full of quiet buried violence The child 

senses it The mother hides it Society 

denies it And so we walk in circles 

generation after generation asking why 

women are unraveling while shoving love 

letters into their mouths Not all 

mothers love And that truth is not the 

enemy of care It is the beginning of 

honesty Until we can say it without 

flinching We are not protecting 

motherhood We are suffocating it 

You loved your child so much you stopped 

being a person and everyone called that 

beautiful 

That's the quiet horror of motherhood 

under patriarchy 

The better you are at it the more 

invisible you become Love isn't just 

expected it's weaponized The deeper the 

love the more you're asked to disappear 

inside it sleepdeprived bleeding 

emotionally starved career on hold body 

shattered But if you complain if you 

name the pain you're accused of not 

loving enough They call it selflessness 

But let's name it for what it is 

socially sanctioned self-destruction 

and it's sold as virtue 

The philosopher and feminist theorist 

Adrienne Rich wrote in of Woman Born 

"The institution of motherhood has 

nothing to do with the love of children 

and everything to do with the control of 

women It's the perfect trap Tell women 

they are naturally nurturing Then 

exploit that narrative until they can't 

breathe They'll do everything for free 

in silence without rest." And society 

will say she was such a good mother But 

what is a good mother exactly One who 

doesn't need one who doesn't want one 

who doesn't exist beyond service And 

when that erasure breaks her through 

depression anxiety chronic illness or 

rage she is pathized not liberated A 

2021 global study published in the 

Lancet revealed that nearly 40% of 

mothers with young children report 

clinical levels of psychological 

distress and most of them never receive 

support because suffering is built into 

the role It's expected romanticized 

Women bleeding from C-sections are 

praised for being strong when they 

return to work in 2 weeks Women with no 

sleep no help no autonomy are told "This 

is what motherhood is." And when they 

speak up they're gaslighted You should 

be grateful 

Not every woman can have a child 

Gratitude used as a gag The brutal irony 

is that maternal love in its most 

sincere form is often used against women 

It becomes a leash a test a trap Because 

the moment a mother expresses her needs 

her hunger for space time identity the 

love she gives is called into question 

She must choose between loving well and 

living fully And if she tries to do both 

she's branded selfish In the tree and 

the fruit Jacqu Jalis wrote that modern 

society idolize the mother as holy 

precisely so it could demand her 

suffering We turned mothers into saints 

to better justify their silence because 

saints don't scream Saints don't say 

"I'm not okay." And here's the ugliest 

truth The most loving mothers are often 

the most shattered because they gave 

everything And nobody asked them if they 

wanted to Nobody taught them they could 

say no This is what makes the myth of 

maternal instinct so cruel It doesn't 

just shame the women who don't feel love 

It destroys the women who do Because 

once they feel it society tells them 

"Now you owe us everything." 

[Music] 

If maternal love is real it must be free 

And if it isn't free it isn't love It's 

obedience 

The final violence of the maternal 

instinct myth isn't in how it hurts 

women It's in how it steals their agency 

and calls it destiny Everything we've 

been told that to be a woman is to be a 

mother that to be a mother is to love 

without question collapses when you hold 

it up to one simple light choice Because 

love without choice is just coercion in 

disguise 

The most radical idea in this entire 

conversation isn't rage or grief or 

rejection It's that a woman should be 

able to say no not just to motherhood 

but to the performance of love She 

should be able to say I don't want to 

give birth I gave birth but I don't feel 

love I love my child but I want my life 

back I don't want to mother like this I 

want to matter And no system no religion 

no state no family should punish her for 

that clarity For centuries we confused 

biology with morality We let hormones 

stand in for ethics We let Darwin be 

rewritten as dogma We turned pain into 

virtue and silence into saintthood But 

freedom begins where the myth ends 

In of woman born Adrien Rich writes "The 

possibility of a woman choosing whether 

or not to bear children is basic to her 

freedom and that freedom includes the 

freedom not to love as others expect her 

to This is not the negation of 

motherhood It's the reclamation of it." 

Because only when motherhood is no 

longer mandatory Only when it's stripped 

of guilt fear and expectation can it 

become something real something powerful 

something chosen And what is chosen can 

be transformed It doesn't have to look 

like sacrifice It doesn't have to erase 

the mother It can be full of anger joy 

conflict pride contradiction and still 

be valid A mother who chooses to love 

with all her flaws and limits is not 

less than some mythic ideal She is more 

She is a subject not a function A woman 

not a role The collapse of the maternal 

instinct myth isn't the end of care It's 

the beginning of truthful care Care that 

isn't extracted expected or demanded 

Care that lives alongside desire 

alongside freedom 

We were told maternal love is natural 

But nature is indifferent What matters 

is this Love that cannot be refused has 

no meaning Motherhood that cannot be 

questioned is not sacred It is violence 

And stories like this one only matter if 

they help someone somewhere finally 

choose themselves 

They told us motherhood was pure holy 

natural They never warned us it could 

feel like drowning in silence bleeding 

behind a smile disappearing inside 

someone else's need This video wasn't 

made to comfort you It was made to speak 

the unspeakable to give language to the 

invisible ache that so many carry alone 

If you made it this far you already 

broke a rule You chose to look to listen 

And that alone just being here is a form 

of resistance 

Watching sharing letting this 

conversation exist in your mind and in 

the world That matters more than you 

know But if you believe in what we're 

doing here in exposing hard truths with 

honesty and depth and you want to help 

us keep pushing forward you can go one 

step further 

Becoming a channel member is more than 

just clicking a button It's joining a 

community of people who refuse to accept 

the sanitized versions of reality It's 

choosing content that respects your 

intelligence and your pain As a member 

you get exclusive posts early access 

behindthe-scenes updates but more than 

that you help make this work sustainable 

You help us speak louder dig deeper 

reach further You can also tap the super 

thanks button if you want to make a 

one-time contribution It's a small 

gesture but it carries a huge impact It 

tells us this content moved you It tells 

us it's worth continuing But truly even 

if you never spend a scent just by 

showing up you're helping keep this 

alive So thank you for watching for 

feeling for staying And if you believe 

others need to hear this too share it Be 

the reason someone else realizes they're 

not alone This is not just a video It's 

a mirror It's a crack in the myth And 

with your help we can keep breaking it 

open 

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## The Myth of Maternal Instinct: A Critical Analysis

Your text is a powerful, unsparing examination of the myth of “maternal instinct”—the pervasive belief that all mothers naturally, unfailingly love their children. It challenges the idea that maternal love is automatic, sacred, or universally experienced, and explores the real, often brutal consequences of this myth for women and society. Let’s break down and contextualize the key arguments, evidence, and implications.

### 1. **The Origin of the Myth**

- **Not Biological, But Socially Engineered:**  

  The notion that all mothers are biologically wired to love their children is not a scientific fact, but a cultural construction. While Charles Darwin discussed parental care as an adaptive behavior, he never claimed it was a universal, unbreakable instinct. Over time, his ideas were distorted—biological tendencies were recast as moral imperatives, and maternal love became a requirement, not a possibility.

- **Historical Forces:**  

  As historian Jacques Jalis and others have shown, the sanctification of motherhood was a tool of statecraft and social control, especially in industrializing Europe. Motherhood became a patriotic duty, a way to stabilize populations and reinforce gender roles. The state, church, and medical establishment all played roles in turning women’s reproductive capacity into a resource for national and social projects.

### 2. **The Reality: Variability and Ambivalence**

- **Not All Mothers Love Instantly (or Ever):**  

  Scientific studies, such as Brockington et al. (2006), reveal that up to 26% of mothers experience some form of maternal rejection or disconnection—not just postpartum depression, but a persistent lack of emotional attachment. Animal studies show even greater variability: some mothers nurture obsessively, others neglect or even harm their offspring.

- **Silence, Shame, and Violence:**  

  Because the myth is so deeply ingrained, women who don’t feel the expected love are often shamed into silence. This can lead to internalized violence (depression, self-harm, suicide) or externalized violence (neglect, infanticide). The myth thus has a “body count”—it creates suffering that is hidden, pathologized, or criminalized rather than understood or supported.

### 3. **Motherhood as Control, Not Care**

- **Institutionalization of Motherhood:**  

  The transformation of motherhood into a political and moral institution stripped women of agency. Motherhood ceased to be a personal experience and became a public duty, enforced by law, religion, and medicine. Women who deviated were punished, erased, or pathologized.

- **The “Good Mother” Trap:**  

  The ideal of the selfless, all-giving mother is used to justify the exploitation and erasure of women’s needs, desires, and identities. As Adrienne Rich wrote, “The institution of motherhood has nothing to do with the love of children and everything to do with the control of women.”

### 4. **The Cost: Psychological and Social Harm**

- **Mental Health Crisis:**  

  Nearly 40% of mothers with young children report clinical levels of psychological distress (Lancet, 2021). Yet suffering is romanticized, expected, and rarely supported. Postpartum depression, rage, regret, and ambivalence are widespread but stigmatized.

- **Weaponizing Love:**  

  When maternal love is demanded, not chosen, it becomes a tool of coercion. Women are expected to disappear into their role, and any assertion of selfhood is labeled selfish or unnatural.

### 5. **Towards Honesty and Freedom**

- **Love Must Be a Choice:**  

  True care and love can only exist where there is freedom to choose. The most radical act is not rage or rejection, but the assertion of agency: the right to say no, to set limits, to define motherhood on one’s own terms.

- **Reclaiming Motherhood:**  

  As Adrienne Rich and other feminist thinkers argue, only when motherhood is stripped of guilt, fear, and expectation can it become something real, chosen, and transformative. This means acknowledging the full spectrum of maternal experience—including ambivalence, regret, and refusal.

## Conclusion: Breaking the Silence

Your text is not just a critique; it’s a call to honesty and compassion. By exposing the myth, we can begin to support mothers as people, not as roles—allowing for complexity, imperfection, and choice. Only then can care be genuine, not coerced.

**If you or someone you know is struggling with the pressures of motherhood, know that you are not alone. Your feelings are valid. Support, understanding, and freedom—not shame—are what mothers (and children) truly need.**

### Further Reading & Resources

- Adrienne Rich, *Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution*

- Elisabeth Badinter, *The Myth of Motherhood*

- Diana Lynn Barnes, *The Journey to Recovery: Understanding and Treating Postpartum Depression*

- [Postpartum Support International](https://www.postpartum.net/)

**Share this conversation. Break the silence. The myth only survives if we refuse to speak.**