Читать книгу Artemis - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 20

Mother bears are ferociously protective and extraordinarily nurturing. Good advice to people headed into the wilderness is never to get between a mother bear and her cubs! Mother bears have qualities that make them really good mothers. They are notably fierce in defense of their young; they are also good caretakers. Bear cubs are born in the winter months—usually in January and February, while the mother bear is in hibernation. Newborn bears are smaller than newborn human babies, weighing around ten ounces at birth. They can't open their eyes and are kept warm in their mother's fur and by her breath. They suckle instinctively and grow rapidly on the fat-rich milk, emerging only in early spring when they are big enough and strong enough to walk, run, and explore.

A mother bear sleeps only when her babies sleep. Initially, the cubs nurse every ten minutes. They are noisy, make humming noises when awake and suckling, and cry when they need something. The mother bear washes them often with her tongue, and puts them on a teat when they can't find one. Once the cubs leave the den, the mother will continue to suckle them until they are weaned. She then teaches them what berries they can eat, how to catch fish, and how to hunt. The cubs learn to climb trees for safety when there may be danger on the ground. They have little to fear when they are in their mother's sight—the biggest exception being the dangers posed by bad actors of their own species. Predatory male bears eat cubs.

When the cubs are able to take care of themselves, the mother bear makes them independent of her. She sends them up a tree, just as when she was teaching them to climb to safety, only this last time, she doesn't come back for them. They are old enough to be self-sufficient; now they must climb down and fend for themselves.

I am reminded here of a woman who described how she took animal mothers as role models for herself. On becoming pregnant, fearful that her own mother's unmaternal example may have rubbed off on her, she did the opposite and turned to the example of animal mothers—and particularly mother bears. I might add here that her own mother's behavior may have been caused by male “experts” on child-rearing who told young mothers to put babies on feeding schedules, to toilet train them early, and not to spoil them by giving in to their crying. This was also a time when it seemed that only foreigners and the poor nursed their children; middle- and upper-class women did not.

According to these “experts,” to be a competent modern mother was a matter of having a stronger will than the baby's. To comfort a fussy baby or to nurse on demand was frowned upon. This deprived both mother and child. The effect on young mothers was to suppress their bodies (drying up the milk) and to suppress the maternal instinct to respond to a crying baby. By doing what they were told, young mothers missed learning that they could instinctively distinguish levels of distress in their children, and could help and be comforting. Instead, a whole generation of American mothers got further lessons in hierarchy: Do what others tell you to do; believe what others say rather than what you feel yourself.

The pendulum eventually swung away from the “show the child who is boss” school of parenting to more permissive parenting, in which nothing must diminish the self-esteem of the child. In this version, a good mother and an indulgent one tended to become one and the same. While you can't spoil an infant by always responding to its distress or by providing whatever it needs, doing so long after infancy does spoil character. Shielding children from disappointments, not teaching them limits and limitations, and excessively praising them for every little thing prolongs childhood and isn't good preparation for responsible adolescence or adulthood. Time to call upon mother bear as a role model!