Motherly intelligence
For decades, the topic of maternity has stunned and beaten women, centering their lives in a childish world and relegating them to tedious and repetitive tasks. This is explained by Katherine Ellison, a successful investigative journalist awarded with the Pulitzer Prize and who considers that all these ideas come from clichés and trivializations that do not reflect reality.
In his book Motherly intelligence shows, from recent scientific research and from her own experience as a mother who, far from that old myth, motherhood helps to stimulate the intelligence of women, as they face new challenges and the need to solve new situations. His book, which has been a best seller worldwide, is full of anecdotes and stories about young mothers who say that motherhood is a general enrichment for women, accentuates their sensitivity and increases their skills thanks to what has begun to be called maternal intelligence
Many women are harassed by reticence that floats in the environment and pushes them to postpone the decision to father a child. In turn, they fear that, being mothers, they suffer a decline in their personal faculties. The topic of the overwhelmed and maudlin pregnant woman who cries for any nonsense, or that of the exhausted mother unable to think about anything except in the children's schedules and on the shopping list, is very present. The anguish generated by this image of motherhood has been increasing and is undoubtedly responsible for many women delaying pregnancies.
Katherine Ellison insists first on the enrichment of the emotional repertoire and the great experience that children bring. It also highlights the enormous natural strength of the bond between mother and child as a powerful source of values for the mother's own life. Contrary to what happens with friendship or professional dedication, or even with one's marriage, the care of a child implies a great capacity to face any challenge, however difficult it may be, and they are challenges that perhaps in another context they would make you throw in the towel, but now they are strengthened and enlarged as people.
Today we also know that the human brain, once considered petrified in adulthood, can develop throughout life in response to new stimuli.
A few years ago, everything seemed to indicate that we had to accept the sad destiny of losing mental resources with maturity, but now we know that we do not stop forming new neurons and new connections in response to new constraints. This means that, contrary to the classic image of the mother as a victim of stress, they are much better qualified to face it.
Is very surprising the inner natural force that is activated in parents so that the daily miracle of taking care of their children is fulfilled. What almost supernatural force impels them to invest such an amount of energy in attending to a living being, who in the first stages of its existence does little more than eat, cry and get dirty? The personal sense of comfort of parents is modified and old paradigms are replaced by new ones that lead them to turn to the concern for the welfare of another human being. This commitment is a key factor for the development of human issues as essential as the affection between people, education, the transmission of values, sociability and love.
The altruism that awakens and develops motherhood is one of the most powerful engines that bring our society forward every day. An altruism that usually includes the father too: the transformation experienced by a man perhaps selfish, who is suddenly exposed to close contact with young children, has starred in the argument of a surprising number of films produced by Hollywood in recent times. Caring for children is a great source of humanity that our time is beginning to value how it deserves.
