A Mother's Love

"The differences between men and women are also emotional and psychological. Without woman's innate maternal instinct, the human race would have died out centuries ago....The overriding psychological need of a woman is to love something alive. A baby fulfills this need in the lives of most women. If a baby is not available to fill that need, women search for a baby-substitute. This is the reason why women have traditionally gone into teaching and nursing careers. They are doing what comes naturally to the female psyche. The schoolchild or the patient of any age provides an outlet for a woman to express her natural maternal need. ...The Positive Woman finds somebody on whom she can lavish her maternal love so that it doesn't well up inside her and cause psychological frustrations. Surely no woman is so isolated by geography or insulated by spirit that she cannot find someone worthy of her maternal love...."
Power of the Positive Woman, Phyllis Schlafly

Recently, yesterday in fact, a friend of mine told me the following story. There was a girl, let's call her Lucy who had a pet snake. She absolutely adored this creature and would do everything with it, she even kept it in her bed so they could sleep together during the night. Now gradually, very gradually the snake got into what appeared to be a very sickly state. It refused to eat and became etremely thin. An anorexic state. So Lucy did what a good pet-owner would do, she brought the snake to the vet.
AS it turns out, the snake was starving itself so it could eat her.
Go figure.