MOTHERING AND CAREGIVING.

Becoming more Human. 

Emotions are our essential guides, wrote Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence why it matters more than IQ,, any view of human nature that ignores that powers of emotions is sadly shortsighted”.

The language of mothering and caregiving is a language of the body. Spoken with the heart. So often believed to begin when a baby graces the world, mothering commences long before, at a time that is individually determined. From this moment, long before we feel we have arrived as ‘ mothers’ however we personally define this, our emotional worlds evolve and are enlivened, influenced by a biochemical cascade, a collusion between the nervous, immune, reproductive and hormonal systems to make us become more sensitised to our feelings, returning us to our senses. The realisation of creating children is instinctive.

The physiological changes of reproduction increasingly calm our thinking brain, and divert attention into our bodies. The force and the intensity to which we feel, and therefore behave during the cycles of reproduction can feel overwhelming. There is an acuteness to life giving, that like the beat of a heart can change moment to moment, despair and helplessness in one moment giving way to exuberance and elation the next. A tumultuous and awakening symphony. Like a note, each emotion whether deemed positive or negative, serves a greater purpose. It is the darker emotions so often obscured in our perceptions of reproduction and caregiving which may serve as a microcosm for the greater human experience, that give a weight and a depth to the experience of reproduction. These too, the distress and the despair, the at times feelings of helplessness and of anguish, deserve a validation. It is here that ‘mothering’ becomes more human.

27. Jan. 2025.

Image Kim Veredebo.