Motherhood Styles and its Effects: An Analysis of Mari Okada’s Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms

Abstract

Motherhood is a commitment. It is not always a choice, nor is it something that can be taken lightly, however, it is something that many will experience. Particular Related Literature and Related Studies share a few similar intricacies, serving as a foundation for this study. The style of how the parent affects the development of a child, for better or for worse. Mari Okada’s Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms follows a very unique mother and child relationship, wherein the mother is an immortal who has never experienced motherly love, and a child who has lost his birth mother right after he was born. This study investigates the motherhood styles in Mari Okada’s Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms. As such, this research uses the characterization, plot, and dialogue present in the movie to correlate the different motherhood styles exhibited by Maquia and analyze the effects on the mother and the child. Consequently, this study uses discourse analysis method for qualitative data gathering. The data gathered are analyzed with the use of Diana Baumrind’s Parenting Style Theory and The Attachment Theory coined by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. The findings of the study indicate that regardless of which particular parenting style a mother uses to discipline her child, she is still subject to a variety of motherhood styles that may or may not compliment her style of parenting. Furthermore, the effects they have on a child largely depend on what particular motherhood styles was used throughout their childhood.