Anthropology Essay #4

Inayat Kaur
ANT 1001 TV24A/ Gaunt
2nd Year (Finance)

A mother's love is instinctual, unconditional and forever. Or so says a popular quote.
An Indian poet named Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 wrote a poem about his mother. It is as follows:

I Cannot Remember my Mother

I cannot remember my mother,
only sometime in the midst of my play
a tune seems to hover over my playthings,
the tune of some song that she used to
hum while rocking my cradle.

I cannot remember my mother
but when in the early autumn morning
the smell of the shiuli flowers floats in the air,
the scent of the morning service in the
temple comes to me as the scent of my mother.

I cannot remember my mother
only when from bedroom window
I send my eyes into the blue of the distant sky,
I feel that the stillness of my mother's gaze on my face
has spread all over the sky.

Paradoxically, in Alto do Cruzeiro in Brazil, mother's love is different, to say the least. The high rates of infant and child mortality have forced mothers to love their children only if they live beyond the first few years and show promise to survive. This might seem absurd to people living in developed nations, where infant mortality rates are very low and children receive the best medical to ensure their survival. And babies are named right after they are born.

Some of us might think that the mothers in this region are selfish. They don't love the babies because they dont want to get attached and be hurt when the baby dies. I think this is another kind of love. Selfless love! Mothers wait for the baby to give signs that it will survive. And only when the baby grows up and shows signs of good development, it is given a name and doted upon by the family.

Although, I strongly believe that starving the babies who are born weak is not the best approach. The author's insistence on breastfeeding the weak babies is a very good idea. And also, advancement in medicine will help the babies to survive. But, at the same, these women need to work and earn money to support themselves. I come from a developing country, where half the population is below the poverty line. And it's not uncommon to see older siblings bringing up the younger ones. But the mother works within the vicinity so she can feed the baby. I guess, these women in Brazil don't have that option.

We all fear something. My worst fear is being helpless. And I think these women in Alto do Cruzeira are very helpless. The community's social structure keeps the mothers from doing the best they can for the newborns to survive. While, this method works and spares the mothers a good deal of heartache, it doesn't change the fact that mothers are helpless. I guess a little bit of faith could help. Like Moody said, "Faith makes all things possible... love makes all things easy."