Becoming a mother taught me a lot about myself and my childhood. Also it got me thinking, of course, about my own mother and her mother. I think the mother topic is very sensitive for many people and I know why. It is such an important role in the lives of every human being, even in the animal kingdom we see mothers as being vital to the survival of certain species, not only as breeders but as caretakers of the first weeks/months/years of life of their offspring. I think in the case of human beings, the vital role of the mother at the beginning of our existence is obvious, what becomes less obvious is in the following stages of growing up. Our societies, and I’m talking mainly about the one I know in the western hemisphere, almost regardless of religious influences, the mother is very important and becomes a great influence during childhood and the teenage years because of the way the family cell has been created and maintained through centuries.

I started watching the new show in Netflix Mind Hunters and when the FBI agents start finding out that the mothers of the serial killers have such a great influence on the behaviour of their sons, they are actually surprised. We know that not everybody that has had a bad, or vicious, mother becomes necessarily a killer, but the fact that the characters are surprised by the important role of the mother in the killer’s mind is interesting, for lack of a better word. Yes, mothers are very influential. Yes, mothers can ruin lives –they probably have or had a ruined life themselves. Yes, mothers can be one of the most destructive forces of nature inside the household. Of course, mothers can also be the greatest force behind their kids achievements and growth. Usually, these second ones are nothing like the first ones. I can tell because I have witnessed cases very close to myself –a grandmother and mother– and some of my friends’ mothers were something else. On the other hand I was lucky to have great mentors and strong women in my l ife that are an inspiration and incredible human beings. I love a song by Stromae that says, they teach us how to make kids but not how to be parents (fathers, in the song). This is a big truth: after we have kids –ready or not– we are left to ourselves to figure out how to feed and provide for them. But that’s not all of it, we also have to teach them how to become functional adults in society either if we know what that means or not, or if we are functional adults or not. I guess religion used to play a big part in this in the past, for better or worse. It is certainly not the case anymore. And our institutions have a long way to come to become real resources for the families.

I think it’s time we rethink what a “family” is and what in that social unit is still useful and what is not. From my perspective I think nowadays we have the freedom (not in every society, unfortunately) to rethink what our family should look like and let me tell you, in many cases it would not look like the one that is imposed on us. If a parent is not a good influence for his kids, he or she should distance herself from them, for example. I’m sure that if we could reimagine our families we would have a lot less domestic violence against women, but also against the weakest ones –believe me sometimes it’s not the woman, or the girl in the family. Also, we would see a lot more of acceptance of diversity than we see today, for sure. Of course, I’m talking about deep changes in our vision of what a human being is but it shouldn’t scare us to think about it because that is how we grow and advance. Technology might be making big leaps and discoveries, but our humanity is still stuck in the dark ages in many aspects and not considering the possibility to question and imagine alternative ways of being better humans in every level will be our end as a civilization. What you can see in the show Mind Hunters is how two FBI agents start changing a whole mentality towards criminality and how to solve crimes. Let me tell you it starts by breaking the rules and imagining the unimaginable: they talk to the killers. What are we waiting for?