Chapter 5- Mother's Love: Death Without Weeping

Ana Ontaneda

April 23, 2009
ANT 1001/TV24A Gaunt

In our society, it is said that a mother’s love is priceless and meaningful and that her virtuous of kindness can hardly ever be repaid. However would we still be saying the same thing about a woman who wishes and anticipates her baby’s death? It is hard to believe that any woman would wish the worst for their children.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes depicts to us some information on Brazilian women in Alto de Cruzeiro, a hillside shantytown in Northeast Brazil. These places were nothing near luxurious. Women would go to their dollar-a-day job and often leave their babies safe and secure at home—unattended of course. According to the text, mothers were indifferent to a death of a baby. It's almost as if some babies were born "doomed to die" and some were not. It was an amazing privilege and blessing for a baby to live past the first couple of months. Of course, my etic perspective was that these mothers do not care for their babies. Thinking it carefully I realized that a mother's love can differ due to economic restrictions. We can’t assume that they are cold and emotionless. What if these women were taught to react this way? What if they were forced to give up their nurturing nature? As stated in the text, “everything is mobilized as to prevent maternal overattachment and, therefore, grief at death.” (Scheper 52)

It’s sad that countries like this small town in Brazil are living in these extreme poverties. I understand that there may not be enough resources and money to feed these babies and give them the luxuries parents give their babies here but it’s startling to hear that the mothers in Alto de Cruzeiro usually do not visit the graves. If more babies were dying, there would be less maternal attachment and this in turn would cause mothers to be more careless and indifferent.

Bibliography
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. “Mother's Love: Death without Weeping”. Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, 12 ed. Spradley and McCurdy, 2008, 45-54.