We get "motherhood" all wrong. It isn't really a thing.

Human history...pre-history: As best we can tell, as it is all a guessing game, humans are about 200k yrs old. And the vast, vast majority of that time was spent living in smallish hunter gatherer tribes. Civilization began about 10k yrs ago, probably, but that varied by place. Of course some people's still live in those small tribes. So we can look to what happens there to form ideas about our instincts. In those tribes "motherhood" isn't a thing like it is in our world. I've read a number of studies on this one, it's fascinating! One study showed that a new born baby is held on average by 14 different people a day. Mothers take a few weeks to recover, and they stay very close to their baby nursing, etc, but they really don't do much "mothering". Small children are cared for communally and once they are old enough to run around, they join their local kids play group. The mothers stay physically close to their kids, but are engaged in their own crafts for most of the day while conversing with other adults. This is what our instincts are build for.

Having been through this myself, I can't tell you wave of relief that hit me when I learned this, it was an "O, that's why it was so hard. I was never meant to do it that way!" The way we do "motherhood" now, with one woman alone in a house with multiple kids all day playing patty cake is unnatural to the point of being really destructive.

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“It takes a village” came from what nurturing used to be.

I think every parent in the world is doing their best 🫂

No judgement ever 💜

That’s fascinating, and it makes perfect sense. It’s why the whole idea of “trad” culture I see regurgitated ad nauseum never made much sense to me. Those aren’t traditions, they’re relatively recent constructs.

Our so-called modern society also isolates and destroys its grandparents in a similar unnatural way.

The idea of the nuclear family was created by government as a way to break down the community and give the state more power over individuals.

It's totally unnatural.

It's why people in our society are so lonely and isolated.

I'm not sure it was intentional, but no doubt it's unnatural.

You should read the book 'Hold on to your kids - why parents need to matter more than peers' by Neufeld.

What do you like about this book?

It goes into the concept of the 'attachment village' and I think it aligns well with some of your intuitive feelings. It's an excellent parenting resource and works through some good tactics for parenting in the digital age too.