The Psychology of Mothering

Re: # 157

Dr. Sahib,

This is how Scott Peck (I have no idea who the heck he is?) defines love:

"Love is to accept yourself and others exactly as you are and as you are not. It is the courage to contribute to yourself or to the other."

What are your thoughts on such a definition?

Massaddi Mian:

Did you ever watch "Lage Raho Munnabhai"?

Lage Raho Massaddi Mian, Lage Raho.

Re: # 154
dear bubba....you asked simple but profound question, people have written books about love. let me share my view in a few words.
for me healthy love between two human beings is a mixture of affection and respect in which both parties bring out the best in each other. in healthy romantic love friendship is the cake and romance the icing. for me in unhealthy love one exploits and manipulates and abuses the other. i share with couples that love that does not have genuine respect is suspicious...that is my humble opinion. sincerely sohail

Bubba asks the shrink "how do you define love"

Same as the Christian missionary would define it in a most hypocritical manner, God loved the world so much that he butchered his sinless son for them, so the white man has been butchering the innocent all over the globe because doing so is a profession of "love"- they profess love while they butcher entire countries from a distance....

social regularities and patterns irrespective of the so-called "unique" choices....(showing that somehow through some magic, the population as a whole (under study) is making the SAME "unique" choices....

Re: # 151 Posted by drsohail on April 17, 2008 11:10:32 am

Dr. Sohail Sahib,

How do you define love?

The shrink writes "and each person and family in 21st century makes unique choices. we are living in a changing world...."

More crap from the shrink. There are no unique choices even though you might feel yours to be unique when you live in a society that has constraints, rules and forces which produce social regularities and patters irrespective of the so-called "unique" choices- for most its moronic adaptation- waqt ke saazish that they follow thinking its their "unique" choice when their strings are being tugged and pulled in a thousand directions rendering them helpless in a social structure whose forces they do not understand and whose constraints they cannot see. Shut up with this love BS that is itself pushed for the purpose of distraction to a society that is blase, uncaring and numb to the pain of the others and tolerates carnage after carnage by their elite. Humans have not evolved in the West, the Barbarians worse in their barbarism than the cave man have overtaken the world and enforce their BS through window dressing and morally loaded master symbols for the purpose of deception- you are their jamadar....

anil writes " I recall my classes at HBS, the organizational psychology professor ...."

Mian they didn't teach you how to write a decent sentence in English at HBS (Harvard Business School) but taught you the 18 odd stages of human development? and gave you an email to prove that you had been to HBS?

BTW Hamid "came out different" because unlike the bureaucratized societies of the so called developed West where the personality is saturated by moronic rules and produce standardized morons, the traditions and rules based on social and not corporate precident allow a lot more freedom which this fool has misused and converted himself into the standardized slave that the West converts our kinds into....you on the other hand are exempt because you lack the skills to properly receive the message of the corporations, they are working hard on their Hindlish but so far haven't mastered your language, HBS or not.....

Re: # 149
dear anil...i am so impressed by your detailed letter. i agree that all normal human beings who are brought up in healthy families, communities and cultures have a feeling of empathy, caring and love for other human beings. that feeling of love needs an object or a person to share it with. it startes with loving your mother, father and siblings and extends to aunts, uncles and grandparents. and then to children. there was a time we lived in a tribe but the ...journey from tribe...to extended family...to nuclear family...to single parent family...to immigration and living away from your family is increasing all over the world. such changes are changing the basic nature of humanity and human beings...it is slow but it is there...so nature and nurture...personality and culture are in a new relationship and dilemma. more and more children are not receiving that love that they need and deserve and that experience is changing how they deliver love back to children. that is where gentics...psychology...and sociology cross paths....and each person and family in 21st century makes unique choices. we are living in a changing world. that was the focus of my article. as far as future is concerned your guess is as good as mine...thanks again for your thoughtful letter
..all the best...sohail

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Re: # 138

Khalid sahib:

"..i agree with you we all have instincts to care about our families. but our culture is redefining our families.....broadening it and it is part of evolution of our culture....."

The only thing it tells me is that we do not live in isolation.

Allow me to present my thought process that family is evolving more because "life moves on...". Surroundings is the universe for this family. The family must live in this universe.

As a baby grows into a child, its behavior evolves. At this stage babies universe is limited and needs are limited. Parents bring "cultural / religious" influence. Baby could not care about these "cultural / religious" inputs, even though in his / her life he / she could become a father / mother. The same applies at other stages in evolution. Life keeps moving - universe becomes larger new things are added, and eventually this person may also become a father/mother. I think even if this person behavior is now entirely due to culutural or religious influence, yet the desire to become father / mother is primal, and invoke primal instintcs.

Due to evolution, his basic primal instincts may look very remote, yet they are analyzed when this person does extraordinary things, why?

I recall my classes at HBS, the organizational psychology professor handed out a sheet that defined life into 18 stages. Each stage with very distinct behaviors. I kept this handout with me for a very long time, and refered to it many times.

Experiences durin evolution at, and through each stage in life impacts us more than "culture" etc. Experience is internal and "culture" etc. is external. It is for this experience, Hamidm sahib came out so differently from Massaddi Mian despite being immersed in the same culture and religion.

Just see todays news, FLDS families. Polygomous families versus monogomous families that you, Hamidm Sahib and I have lived. What separates us our experiences and choices we made to evolve through each stage.

Yet there is a primal instinct these polygomous mothers were crying for their children too. I wish they would show what was happening to their fathers, I bet they too were crying and hurting.

How do you explain a bond that remains unaffected?

I wonder if the mother and father of the murderer who is being put to death, feel for their murderer offspring. My answer would be that they do feel for offspring too.

I have given these extreme examples to define the "space" in-between, where "normals" live. Can you see a continum in this space that I see and call it primal instinct of mothering (by extension Hamidm sahib may call it fathering also).

We all have it for as long as we live. We may taint it with culture, religion, or hide it underneath layers of emotions. There always comes a time when it shows. That is why I am certain that eyes of the mother of a muderer would well up too, when her son is being put to death.

Something is very primal about it. We may internally fight to conquer it or bury it underneath other layers.

Don't you think it is always with us? Although, I do wonder, if Hitler when blowing his brains off had it at that instant.

Re: # 147

tahmed,

.... you are right, masadi is the lowest of the low ....... he is even lower than the the scum on the bottom of the pond (not the stuff floating on the top) ....... he is even lower than mirzaees !

#145 hamidm: even i would never go so low as to compare you with masadi.

as for the austrian, far from being a hero in psychiatry today he is seen as having put back real progress by half a century by sending off everyone on a wild goose chase (i.e. having patients talk out their childhood issues). Psychiatry was revolutionized in the 1950's by pure accident - when they discovered lithium fixed bipolar disease.

And stop trying to win lota-points with the good Dr Sohail by bad mouthing me while saying "i do respect your opinions". Unlike the scoundrel musharraf, Dr. Sohail is not flattered by lotas.

mad masadi,

"People like this miserable fool should be horsewhipped, put on a goddamned donkey and jeered all through Lahore town as kids cane his ass with slippers"

..... you know that could be said for half the people on chowk - i don't know if we can find enough donkeys or slippers ....

Re: # 138

sohail sahib,

..... i might disagree with you but unlike masadi's nonsense and tahmed's wet dreams, i do respect your opinions ...... some of my best friends are shrinks and if it makes you feel any better i also believe that dermatologists are quacks who have one cure for every ailment - steroid lotion .... and if that doesn't work, steroid injection......... so keep it up - you never know, that austrian quack might have been right about oedipus and electra .....

.... but you have to agree with me that this love shove business is a quaint concept made popular by st valentine but it is highly overrated ........ men are not monogamous by nature, or to quote mrs hamidm, " they are pigs!" ..... no ?

nb #136 I am sure there are exceptions, so this story must be a true one.