Attachment is a positive emotional bond shared between a child and a specific individual, usually one’s parents or primary caregiver. Without this positive attachment a major delay in a child’s cognitive and social development can arise. For many, this pivotal attachment is made between the child and mother or father. To further examine how this attachment evolves throughout a child’s developmental stages three participants were asked various questions on the level of attachment and dependency that exists between them and their mother. A child is capable of forming an attachment to both mother and father, but the attachment that is formed between mother and child varies from that of a father and child. According to Robert S. Feldman, author of Development across the lifespan, “when [infants] are in unusually stressful circumstances, most infants prefer to be soothed by their mother rather than by their father. One reason for qualitative differences in attachment involves the differences in what fathers and mothers do with their children. Mother’s spend a greater proportion of their time feeding and directly nurturing their children. In contrast, fathers spend more time proportionally, playing with infants (Feldman, 2011, p. 182). After consideration of the differences in rearing tendencies between mother and father, the relationship between mother and son is going to be explored by interviewing three men; one in adolescence, one in early adulthood and one in middle adulthood. In Raising Caine, the author illustrates the unique complexities between mother and son and how they must evolve in order to survive:
This is the fundamental pattern of the relationship between a boy and his mother. He is the explorer; she is the home-base. Emotionally as well as physically, throughout his childhood, as a boy explores, he carries the safety and familiarity of his