Why children feel safer with their mother

Across cultures and through the ages, children have had an innate desire to turn to their mothers in situations of fright, pain, and distress. From the scraped knee to the dark of night, the mother is often the source of security and comfort. While fathers and others may have their own special bonds with children, the early patterns of care and the conditioning of the emotions often make the mother the focal point of the child’s “secure base.” This sense of security is not necessarily innate and biological, but is the result of the repeated patterns of security and safety in the early years of the child’s development. Understanding the reasons why children feel more secure with their mothers can help to shed light on the concepts of attachment, the roles of the caregiver, and the development of the child’s emotions.


Early attachment and the role of the mother


In many families, the mother is the primary caregiver in the early years of the child’s development, providing the basic needs and care to the child. This is the early start to the development of the attachment patterns in the child’s brain. The child learns to associate pain and distress with the mother and the comfort and security she provides to alleviate the pain and distress. This is the early conditioning of the emotions and the development of the patterns in the child’s brain to seek the source of security and comfort in situations of pain and distress. This is not to say that the father or others may not have the same bonding and association with the child, but the early patterns of care and the conditioning of the emotions often make the mother the focal point of the child’s “secure base.”




Sensory and emotional familiarity

Safety is perceived through sensory familiarity, which includes voice tone, smell, touch, and body rhythm. Since mothers have spent considerable time with their children in close physical contact during infancy, the sense of safety is heightened. Even teenagers react to familiar safety stimuli like a familiar lullaby, the way they like to be hugged, or the soothing voice of their mothers. Neuroscientific studies have shown that familiar stimuli of safety have a calming effect on the brain. Hence, the instinctive search for the mother under distress is a conditioned response of safety rather than a rational choice.


Consistent emotional responsiveness


Safety is not necessarily perceived through the person who offers the care but through their consistent response to the person who is under distress. Since mothers have historically been the primary caregivers, they have often developed the habit of frequently responding to their children’s distress. Children have developed the habit of trusting mothers more than others to provide the necessary solace and care. When mothers have developed this habit of consistent emotional responsiveness, the children’s brain has associated this with safety, and the children instinctively go to the mothers under distress.


Cultural reinforcement of the role of mothers


Society often projects the role of the mothers to be the primary source of comfort and solace to their children. Children often learn from what they observe around them, and the media often project the role of the mothers to be the primary source of solace to their children. Children often learn from what they observe around them, and they often go to the mothers under distress. Hence, mothers have often been projected to be the source of solace to their children, and this has often been reflected through the children’s behavior of going to their mothers under distress.


Safe base for emotional vulnerability


Children tend to choose the caregiver they feel most comfortable showing vulnerability to. Since the mother is the primary caregiver, the child does not feel the need to show independence when they are with her. The child is able to express themselves as they choose, such as crying, clinging, or regression, without the fear of being judged. This gives the child the feeling of being safe. The same child who shows independence when they are with another caregiver may choose the mother when they are upset or distressed. The psychological meaning of safety is the freedom to express vulnerability.



Safety is built, not fixed


It is true that most children tend to choose the mother when they need comfort, but this is not the case all the time. The mother is not the only caregiver that the child chooses when they need comfort. The perception of the mother being the safest comes from the fact that any caregiver that the child has built a relationship with is able to provide the feeling of safety when the child is comforted by them. The fathers, as well as other caregivers, may also provide the comfort that the children need when they are upset or distressed, especially when they engage in soothing, caregiving, and emotional moments with the children. The research on attachment shows that the children may have multiple secure relationships with different caregivers, not limited to the mother. This shows that the mother is not the safest because of the nature of the relationship between the mother and the child; it is the fact that the mother is the primary caregiver that makes the child feel safe when they are comforted by the mother.