Can it be stated that there is the maternal and paternal instinct or is it more of a cultural construction of roles? Instinct is defined as a natural, innate and unconscious impulse that is transmitted genetically and causes a specific response. Can it be said that the desire to be a mother or father is equally innate, universal and encoded in our DNA? The answer seems to be no.
There is no scientific evidence to support the existence of an instinctual drive to have children in all women. Different is what we understand by maternal behaviors, which are related to the hormone oxytocin and aimed at ensuring the survival of the newborn. Therefore, if there was an instinct, it would be more related to caring for the new being than to an innate desire to create life.
Do men and women have the same maternal instinct?
Surely you have participated in some conversation, with men and women, in which they talk about the maternal or paternal instinct. Women are taught to develop our “maternal instinct” from a young age, we play with dolls, they name us the familiar instinct, and as we reach our thirties we begin to feel (or not) the weight of the biological clock.
Many women feel a enormous social pressure to become mothers. There are those who feel guilt and frustration because this natural instinct does not appear in their lives.
Marisa Díaz, specialist in Clinical Psychology, sexologist and Master in Family and Systems Therapy already talks about the role that man plays as a father and how it has evolved. Today is considered a good father who takes care of the education, care, nutrition or health of the offspring, that 40 years ago was considered women's things. So there are experts who already relate the maternal instinct to man.
Is wanting to have a baby inherent in all women?
No, motherhood is a wish that it will take different forms in each woman and sometimes it may never happen. There is no need to feel guilty about it.
What we can have understood as maternal instinct refers to a very particular affective bond, different in every woman and every man. It is an impulse that pushes a mother to act for her baby, without reflecting, to always protect him and even to sacrifice herself for him. The hormonal mechanisms that are triggered in pregnancy has to do with it.
Although every woman comes by nature prepared to reproduce, motherhood has to be a personal decision, out of all imposition or social pressure. Beyond childbirth, motherhood is a experience that is built day by day. The bonds are created little by little, with the contact with the baby, and with the care and attention that we are going to provide.
Parental instinct or role change as a parent
It seems clear that men are biologically prepared to be fathers and that this natural preparation is written in the behavior of some of its hormones. This hormonal activity varies by presence of the pregnant woman during the process.
Future parents accompanying the gestation of their children present increased estradiol levels (a type of estrogen) and less testosterone that don't expect children, or stay away. These men experience hormonal changes that, in some extreme cases, lead to physical symptoms such as nausea and weight gain.
The latest psychobiological studies show that men who are more involved in the daily tasks of education, care, cleaning and feeding of their offspring offer lower levels of stress. Curiously, one of the population segments with the highest risk of suffering from depression is mothers with young children, while fathers show just the opposite trend.
Clearly those who benefit most from the presence of the father are the sons and daughters. All research shows that parents, regardless of their social, cultural or economic status, play a determining role in the development of their children.