Motherly & Fatherly Love

 

In psychologist Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving, he posits what he calls a "motherly" and "fatherly" conscience, which are the two types of positive influence we attain from nurturing by each parent. The "motherly" aspect of conscience is grounded in unconditional love, care, and acceptance. It reflects the nurturing, protective, and compassionate nature traditionally associated with motherhood. The "fatherly" conscience complements the motherly aspect by emphasising responsibility, discipline, and the development of independence. It is often associated with the rational, guiding, and boundary-setting side of love. These two types of conscience represent different but complementary ways of navigating our way through life.

Fromm’s theory is that true love and personal growth arise optimally from balancing these two types of conscience. They enable us to love in a mature and fulfilling way, because we harness the care and compassion required in love, while fostering growth, independence, and personal strength. This balance allows us to love others genuinely while helping them develop their full potential, much like a good parent who both nurtures and challenges their child. These combined consciences are essential for the cultivation of mature love - with the harmony of care and discipline, acceptance and responsibility – where, in marriage, two beloveds are joined to become 1, yet each pursuing their connected journey towards individual self-fulfilment. Naturally, for adults, any prior parental experience that departed from this ideal diminishes the positive effect, but awareness of the qualities of each conscience can help an individual learn to cultivate the qualities through a period of gradual maturation, where they compensate for the absent parent with mindfulness, self-awareness, intentional personal growth and meaningful relationships.

Fromm also connects the development of a motherly and fatherly conscience to the concepts of mental health, where the right balance of these consciences enhances good mental health and mitigating the risk of poor mental health. A lack of motherly love can lead to feelings of unworthiness, insecurity, and loneliness, whereas an overemphasis on the motherly conscience can lead to overprotection, resulting in dependency and a lack of independence. A lack of the fatherly conscience can lead to an absence of healthy boundaries and discipline, resulting in increased disorder, irresponsibility, and an inability to manage one’s emotions and actions effectively, whereas if the fatherly conscience is overly strict or authoritarian, it can engender feelings of fear, inadequacy, and rebellion, inhibiting emotional expression and creating an environment where individuals feel judged or unworthy, which further impacts mental health.

In politics
Not only is it healthy for a mind to be equipped with the mental and emotional artillery of both perspectives, it’s also helpful to be apprised of how this distinction plays out more broadly in the country in which you live. For example, the interplay of fatherly and motherly qualities in the context of UK society can be observed through the lens of wider cultural and societal influences, particularly the contrast between left-wing and right-wing politics. Left-wing principles like social equality, community, welfare, and compassion, echo the nurturing qualities associated with the motherly conscience. And the increased influence of women in the workplace, in leadership roles and in decision-making processes outside of the home have brought these values to the forefront, which have many positive influences around the wider distribution of emotional intelligence and relational dynamics. But virtually all good qualities become unwelcome distortions in excess, and that has certainly happened to the UK in the past 20-30 years, where important qualities related to the fatherly conscience – like reason, discipline, personal responsibility, liberty, tradition, strength of character and bottom up self-determination – have been sidelined in favour of an overemphasis on top-down control, big state over-regulation, censorship, political correctness, identity politics, wokeism, cancel culture, that stifle genuine discourse and create divisions rather than promote unity, and marginalise the very nature of truth, facts and rational discourse.  

These values of the fatherly conscience are crucial for maintaining social order and encouraging individual initiative, and are sorely lacking in a country that has been overrun with excessive left-wing policies that have created a culture of dependency, entitlement, fear and the gradual destruction of a structured societal framework. A balanced society that respects individual freedoms and promotes social responsibility can draw on the strengths of both the fatherly and motherly consciences, while fostering a more holistic understanding of complex individual and societal needs. But we have a very imbalanced society these days, where the nurturing qualities of the motherly conscience have been perverted by the creation of over-dependence on the state, a struggling economy, overprotection, infantilisation, and an aversion to personal accountability.

In religious faith
Finally, in religious faith, as we know from the Bible, we see the perfect expression of the fatherly and motherly consciences in God. God’s Fatherly love embodies a protective, authoritative figure who offers guidance, structure, and discipline. He provides commandments and principles that encourage Christians to pursue a life of responsibility, integrity, and service to others, reflecting God's own commitment to justice and righteousness. And in the person of Christ, we see all those things still, but also the fulfilment of the motherly conscience too. With His compassionate and nurturing spirit, He offers unconditional love, deep empathy and acceptance where, in the Incarnation, He demonstrated God’s nurturing love by healing the sick, caring for the poor, comforting of the downtrodden, healing division, challenging religious and political authoritarianism, and welcoming the marginalised. Just as the harmony of the fatherly and motherly consciences engenders the best combination for a thriving personal mental well-being, the Christian journey facilitates a healthy balance between these fatherly and motherly qualities, in reflecting God's commandments and the unconditional love of Christ.