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A review by em_reads_books
Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species by Sarah Hrdy
4.0
No spoilers, just hiding this part b/c it's about bad things happening to babies, and I don't want to drop it in my friends' feed with no warning!
I came across this book after reading a fact from it cited in some tangentially related article, and having this conversation with myself:
BRAIN: Oh, that's interesting. It says here that something like 40% of infants in medieval Florence were abandoned by their parents, and 2/3 of those died in the foundling homes.
HEART: Oh, no, that is the saddest thing! Those poor parents, having to give up their babies and knowing they probably wouldn't survive.
BRAIN: Is it though? I mean, we're talking about tens of thousands of people over many years. They were probably making the best choice they could.
HEART: Of course it's the saddest thing. How could a mother go through that without being completely wrecked?
BRAIN: Okay, but we're pro-choice, we think abortion is a good thing when people need or want it, and we know women who choose that react with a whole range of emotions, including happiness and relief. So why wouldn't we believe that women with unwanted pregnancies in medieval Florence had the same range of emotions?
HEART: But...but...wouldn't carrying a child to term and giving birth make it impossibly awful to abandon it like that? Even if you knew you couldn't raise them? Even if half your neighbors were doing it?
BRAIN: I dunno. Want to read this book and find out?
HEART: [cringes] Are there going to be a lot of dead babies?
BRAIN: Probably. I'll take over when we get to those parts and you can cover your eyes.
(Brain was right about women practicing infanticide and abandonment throughout history; turns out they pretty much always have, and have constructed many religious and folklore beliefs that let them see it not as a criminal act or something they were directly responsible for, and considering it a monstrous criminal act is fairly recent. Heart was right about the number of bad things happening to small children in this book, though the tone of scientific detachment throughout the whole thing made it surprisingly painless to read about. At some point, talking about China's one child policy, the author says something like..."why subject such a stark matter to dispassionate analysis? Well, why wouldn't you?" And outside of excerpts from diaries or literature, that's pretty much what her writing sounds like.)
Anyway, this was fascinating all over, the kind of book I frequently felt compelled to share fun facts from. The author is rightfully skeptical of so much discourse about parenting that focuses on what mothers "naturally" ought to be doing, and it's refreshing to read instead about what they have always done, on every step of the evolutionary ladder from bees to monkeys to ancient humans to modern civilization. They've always worked on things besides childcare, sought out help from others, taken advantage of whatever level of "choice" they have, and taken care of themselves without being self-sacrificing - all things that make sense from an evolutionary perspective, at least if you weren't raised in Darwin's time and projected your Victorian values all over your observations.
This was hard for me to read sometimes as a more social science-y person - shutting off my "but what about---" reaction every time I saw a biological fact that definitely has some social/cultural factors was difficult! Plenty of things that I consider important are smoothed away in an effort to write about humans at the species level. I had to tell myself pretty often "she's not denying any of that stuff, it's just not what the book is about." So, big grain of salt needed for how much any of this applies to your own life or beliefs or politics, but overall it was fascinating and eye-opening.
BRAIN: Oh, that's interesting. It says here that something like 40% of infants in medieval Florence were abandoned by their parents, and 2/3 of those died in the foundling homes.
HEART: Oh, no, that is the saddest thing! Those poor parents, having to give up their babies and knowing they probably wouldn't survive.
BRAIN: Is it though? I mean, we're talking about tens of thousands of people over many years. They were probably making the best choice they could.
HEART: Of course it's the saddest thing. How could a mother go through that without being completely wrecked?
BRAIN: Okay, but we're pro-choice, we think abortion is a good thing when people need or want it, and we know women who choose that react with a whole range of emotions, including happiness and relief. So why wouldn't we believe that women with unwanted pregnancies in medieval Florence had the same range of emotions?
HEART: But...but...wouldn't carrying a child to term and giving birth make it impossibly awful to abandon it like that? Even if you knew you couldn't raise them? Even if half your neighbors were doing it?
BRAIN: I dunno. Want to read this book and find out?
HEART: [cringes] Are there going to be a lot of dead babies?
BRAIN: Probably. I'll take over when we get to those parts and you can cover your eyes.
(Brain was right about women practicing infanticide and abandonment throughout history; turns out they pretty much always have, and have constructed many religious and folklore beliefs that let them see it not as a criminal act or something they were directly responsible for, and considering it a monstrous criminal act is fairly recent. Heart was right about the number of bad things happening to small children in this book, though the tone of scientific detachment throughout the whole thing made it surprisingly painless to read about. At some point, talking about China's one child policy, the author says something like..."why subject such a stark matter to dispassionate analysis? Well, why wouldn't you?" And outside of excerpts from diaries or literature, that's pretty much what her writing sounds like.)
Anyway, this was fascinating all over, the kind of book I frequently felt compelled to share fun facts from. The author is rightfully skeptical of so much discourse about parenting that focuses on what mothers "naturally" ought to be doing, and it's refreshing to read instead about what they have always done, on every step of the evolutionary ladder from bees to monkeys to ancient humans to modern civilization. They've always worked on things besides childcare, sought out help from others, taken advantage of whatever level of "choice" they have, and taken care of themselves without being self-sacrificing - all things that make sense from an evolutionary perspective, at least if you weren't raised in Darwin's time and projected your Victorian values all over your observations.
This was hard for me to read sometimes as a more social science-y person - shutting off my "but what about---" reaction every time I saw a biological fact that definitely has some social/cultural factors was difficult! Plenty of things that I consider important are smoothed away in an effort to write about humans at the species level. I had to tell myself pretty often "she's not denying any of that stuff, it's just not what the book is about." So, big grain of salt needed for how much any of this applies to your own life or beliefs or politics, but overall it was fascinating and eye-opening.