My mother’s abuse left me functionally infertile. Like all victims of abuse, I often wonder Why? And as scientist, I seriously wonder Why? Because from an evolutionary standpoint this makes no sense. Genes must be passed on into the future generation. That is the game. I looked into the research hoping to find the Why. Sadly, of cause the answer is pending. But I did find that even though there isn’t a good explanation yet, my mother did follow the same patten as other like her.
There was nothing in the literature that I could find about mothers abusing their children until they are infertile. Therefore, looking for motive I turned to analyzes of mothers who murdered their children. Because from an evolutionary point of view it ends up the same. The child’s genes don’t make it into the next generation and consequently neither do the mothers genes.
Evolution making sense
Mothers that murdered their children are categorized into two groups. Mothers killing newborns or older children. A mother killing a newborn is often young, without partner and in a financially unstable situation. From the evolutionary perspective, she has no resources. It sounds dispassionate but evolution says chances of survival are low. Save your resources for future offspring. Possibly the more primitive parts of the brain are involved here.
These killings are often nonviolent (suffocation or drowning) and the body usually gets hidden. And then the women get on with their lives.
Evolution making no sense
Now where it become senseless, is with mothers that kill their children when they are older. They have already invested recourses into the child. And the mothers are also older at the time of the incident. Therefore, the likelihood of them reproducing again is lower. Analysis has shown that the motive here is often impulsiveness and intense anger. Therefore, the killings were often violent (shaking or throwing). The offending mothers often had a history of depression and self-directed violence.
I would swap violence with self-directed deprivation. But impulsiveness with spells of intense anger is definitive how I would describe my mother. Her anger was more often released by humiliating me or simply neglect, rather then violence. Although I remember she told me multiple time with intense gaze and pressed lips that you are not allowed to shake babies because it kills them. Who knows if she read it somewhere and had to internalize is to stop herself. Or maybe a physician had to educate her after an incident. It truly wouldn’t ever had been my natural response when prompted to care for a baby. But well, people are different.
All this still doesn’t give me an answer to the big question. Why? But it does show me that there is a pattern. Which means my mother’s abuse leaving me infertile was nothing personal. And my mother though bad beyond redemption is not pure evil. Instead, she chose to follow a path that arises for some mothers that don’t seek treatment for their mental illnesses. This will sound dire to most people. But to me it is a relief.
Motives for maternal filicide: Results from a study with female forensic patients (2007) M. K. Krischer, M. H. Stone, K. Sevecke, E. M. Steinmeyer
