The beauty of a mother’s love

I often wonder how we can solve the social upheaval we are seeing all over the world. As an individual I feel a sense of helplessness. Yet I see so many good things happening too driven by wonderful people based on love, compassion and sound values. These people seem well balanced emotionally and spiritually. So, how do we reconcile these with those who espouse hatred, who are emotionally volatile and violent ?

It appears that we have to go back to basics – ‘the mother - child connection’.

Intuitively, we all know the crucial role a mother plays in our life. Now, scientific discoveries about the brain are proving this further. The book, “A General Theory of Love ” (Lewis; Amini; Lannon) has beautifully depicted this.

Our limbic brain requires social interaction to grow healthy. It has been proven over and over again that a baby will not survive without the mother’s or another permanent care giver’s loving touch and care. There is a process of limbic nourishment and regulation that happens with the baby through proximity to a mother. This is called limbic resonance akin to a cell phone connection where two signals meet. Therefore, the mother also has to be in tune to read the baby’s needs and wants and respond accordingly.

Human beings are a combination of open and closed loop systems. As babies we are totally open loop and get all the emotional nourishment from the mother. The foundation a mother provides with her love and care shapes us into emotionally balanced adults. With time, the child will become independent, but close human relationships will continue to nourish the limbic brain throughout life.

This emotional nourishment gives us our self esteem and confidence while stabilizing our physiology too, so we stay mentally and physically healthy through our life.

It is easier to deal with the trials and tribulations of life when our emotional intelligence is high. This way, we manage our emotions better and help to regulate other people’s emotions through our own behavior. High self esteem gives us a certain confidence in ourselves and a trust in the world out there. When we are open and trusting towards others, we expect the best from them, the interaction is positive and appreciative. Fear does not enter the equation and the ego is controlled.

To understand all this better, we have to examine how our brain is wired.

How the Brain Works Science tells us that the human brain has formed in three stages as a part of the mammalian development process.

Reptilian is our primitive brain, to take care of basic functions such as breathing, eating when hungry, sleeping and keeping all our organs working.

Limbic brain is our emotional centre enabling us to skillfully manage them and the relationships with people and the world around us. We nurture and protect our young, form close knit relationships but also play mind games and manipulate relationships with other beings through our limbic brain. Our moral compass and values are also regulated here.

Neo-cortex is our rational brain which enables us to live our daily lives, based on the mostly sensory information we get. Science is yet to uncover the deep workings of this brain. So far we know that our ability to reason, speak, write, plan and strategize comes from the neo-cortex.

We also know that the neo-cortex works from the limbic base. So the basic imprint or the foundation of how we act comes from the limbic brain, based on our moral fabric and values. These get imprinted in us through a combination of the limbic nourishment we get from our mother and other loved ones complemented by the example of their behavior. Children as they grow are also influenced by the behavior of adults and the difference between their words and action. So, the neo-cortex is driven by our limbic conditioning.

The Modern World Yet the modern world has encouraged a distancing of the mother and the child. When a child is born in a hospital, she is plucked away from the mother where the institution takes over. Baby is brought in for feeding, some cuddling and cooing, but taken away again. Then mothers are encouraged not to breast feed for long and let the bottle take over. Then when the baby is brought home, it is a different room, so the quest for nurturing an independent being begins. Except that science is telling us that, this quest is ill informed and a child needs to be dependent to emotionally bloom until she is ready to move on.

The latest research on the mother and child relationship is prompting change in the health sector. Yet more needs to be done to educate people, whether its health administrators, educators, business leaders or policy makers in addition to parents so informed decisions are made when it comes to maternity and child care. The payoff to society comes from better emotionally balanced individuals.

Working Mothers Many developing countries, especially in South Asia get a significant foreign income from many rural women working in West Asia. Women opt to leave their young behind for economic and social reasons. Apart from the lure of money, they may be leaving a stifling village or a difficult marriage. Either way, these migrant mothers are creating an emotional vacuum in their families and communities which is leading to an epidemic of social misfits.

As I work in many rural schools in this region I hear more and more stories of apathy, low self esteem, depression and violence amongst the young. When I dig deeper, they tell me that most of these children come from motherless homes. This is no different to anywhere else in the world where for economic and other social reasons, mothers have difficulty in paying attention to their children.

As a society, we have to collectively see how we can help sort the deeper issues for this separation, whether it is social or economic.

As a first step education is important so people know the impact of the mother’s role on their children. Families may make more informed decisions about the choices they make in raising a family. I believe, our natural instincts are towards nurturing our children to be strong and emotionally balanced human beings. Our technology driven world has brainwashed us otherwise.

Lack of limbic conditioning makes us reptilian in our behavior. This is what we have to address. Otherwise, we can become like crocodiles - when we are hungry we eat what is near us, even our own. In way, when we see all the conflict and the environmental havoc around us, it is reptilian behavior in us that is causing it.

To reverse this, the mother’s important role needs recognition by people and institutions that rule the planet as the foundation for a humane and a compassionate world.

This article is dedicated to our late mother “Chandra Perera-Gunaratne” who balanced between motherhood and her profession as a Montessori teacher and entrepreneur – for her dedication to us, her courage and her generosity.