Dear Cali Chica:

“it is against human or animal natural instinct”- not so. In nature mothers do protect their children to an extent, but only to an extent. Not long ago a doe was standing by the fence in the front yard looking at her fawn  some distance away, close to the house/ to me (the threat). She waited for her fawn, somewhat distressed.. but not enough to go and  get to the fawn and lead it away from the threat.

Also, I’ve seen multiple times young fawns following their mothers- the fawns are 100% focused on the mother, eyes on the mother, following her. The mother on the other hand didn’t look back to see if the fawns were following her, didn’t check on them. She was looking straightforward, at what was in front of her.

In nature, the primary focus of the mother is to make it to the next birth, more offspring. She protect existing offspring some, but protects herself more (so  to give birth to more). On the other hand, the fawn focuses exclusively on her mother because without the mother, the fawn will die. There is no more of anything if the fawn loses her mother.

Now, looking at our mothers, projecting them into nature, it would be something like this: the fawn following the doe, the doe than turns around and bites the fawn, the fawn bleeding. Then the doe says: how dare you bleed, you ungrateful fawn, or some such thing.

Coming to think about it, mother rabbits when hungry do eat their young. Animals in captivity, such as in zoos and cages elsewhere do become aggressive while not so in nature.

“I often think about what it would have been like to be neglected, instead of over ‘obsessed over’ with feigned love”-

– it reminds me of the true life story of Joseph Mengele, Auschwitz’s famous doctor, doing all  kinds of inhumane and most cruel pseudo medical experiments with prisoners. A big group of prisoners were the Gypsies. Mengele got to really like  this gypsy boy, he brought him candy, dressed him in a beautiful suit and had him dance or perform however he did in front of his colleagues, being proud of the boy, seemingly liking him. One day, in a casual way, he led the boy to the gas chamber and went about his business as usual.

I don’t think he feigned his liking for the boy, he just didn’t value the boy as anything important. I bet for the boy that monster Mengele was Everything, his very survival. Not the other way around.

anita