Mother A mother, mom, mum, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother’s social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally acceptable definition for the term. The male equivalent is a father. Social role Mothers have historically fulfilled the primary role in raising children, but since the late 20th century, the role of the father in child care has been given greater prominence and social acceptance in some Western countries.
The social role and experience of motherhood varies greatly depending upon location. The organization Save the Children has ranked the countries of the world, and found that Scandinavian countries are the safest places to give birth, whereas countries in sub-Saharan Africa are the least safe to give birth. This study argues a mother in the bottom ten ranked countries is over 750 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth, compared to a mother in the top ten ranked countries, and a mother in the bottom ten ranked countries is 28 times more likely to see her child die before reaching their first birthday. Mothers are more likely than fathers to encourage assimilative and communion-enhancing patterns in their children. Mothers are more likely than fathers to acknowledge their children’s contributions in conversation.
The way mothers speak to their children is better suited to support very young children in their efforts to understand speech (in context of the reference English) than fathers. Since the 1970s, in vitro fertilization has made pregnancy possible at ages well beyond “natural” limits, generating ethical controversy and forcing significant changes in the social meaning of motherhood. This is, however a position highly biased by Western world locality: outside the Western world, in-vitro fertilization has far less prominence, importance or.
