Maternal love demands unreciprocated generosity whereas mystification inflates all mothers as exemplary

Evidence

Like the woman in love, the mother is delighted to feel needed; she is justified by the demands she responds to; but what makes maternal love difficult and great is that it implies no reciprocity; the woman is not before a man, a hero, a demigod, but a little stammering consciousness, lost in a fragile and contingent body; the infant possesses no value, and he can bestow none; the woman remains alone before him; she expects no compensation in exchange for her gifts, she justifies them with her own freedom. This generosity deserves the praise that men forever bestow on her; but mystification begins when the religion of Motherhood proclaims that all mothers are exemplary. For maternal devotion can be experienced in perfect authenticity; but in fact, this is rarely the case. Ordinarily, maternity is a strange compromise of narcissism, altruism, dream, sincerity, bad faith, devotion, and cynicism. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1514

Categorization

• DEFINE: Her key analytical distinction: authentic maternal devotion vs. the mystifying ‘religion of Motherhood’.
• XREF: Continues her ‘woman in love’ analysis from earlier chapters — same structure of unreciprocated giving. — connects to: Fromm saw love as maternal in origin and independent of sexuality — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 336; Motherhood converts the erotic breast into a sacred one — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1449; A child’s autonomy depends on parental love given without reciprocation — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 658

Broader Connections

• A child’s autonomy depends on parental love given without reciprocation #expands (0.72) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 658