Maternal love is a conscious attitude, not an instinct linked to childbirth

Evidence

No “maternal instinct,” innate and mysterious, lies therein either. The little girl observes that child care falls to the mother, that is what she is taught; stories told, books read, all her little experience confirms it; she is encouraged to feel delight for these future riches, she is given dolls so she will already feel the tangible aspect of those riches. Her “vocation” is determined imperiously. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 693 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Such an obligation is not at all natural: nature could never dictate a moral choice; this implies an engagement. To have a child is to take on a commitment; if the mother shrinks from it, she commits an offense against human existence, against a freedom; but no one can impose it on her. The relation of parents to children, like that of spouses, must be freely chosen. And it is not even true that the child is a privileged accomplishment for a woman; it is often said that a woman is coquettish, or amorous, or lesbian, or ambitious as a result of “being childless”; her sexual life, her goals, and the values she pursues are deemed to be substitutes for the child. In fact, from the beginning there is indetermination: one can just as well say that lacking love, an occupation, or the power to satisfy her homosexual tendencies, a woman wants to have a child. A social and artificial morality hides behind this pseudo-naturalism. That the child is the ultimate end for woman is an affirmation worthy of an advertising slogan. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1533 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Fromm saw love as maternal in origin and independent of sexuality — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 336; Maternal behavior stems from situation and attitude, not instinct — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1503; The maternal obligation is a social construct, not a natural dictate — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1533 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Maternal vocation is socially imposed, not instinctually innate #corroborates (0.88) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 693
• The maternal obligation is a social construct, not a natural dictate #corroborates (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1533
• Motherhood is framed as a sacred obligation rather than a natural need #corroborates (0.82)
• True love requires conscious opposition, not spontaneity. #expands (0.78)
• Beliefs that childbirth pain awakens maternal instinct express male resistance to easing women’s burdens #complicates (0.75)