The end of parental guilt is nigh, report Robin McKie and Richard Thomas.

Do genes make a bad mother?

The Guradian/The Observer London, Sunday October 4, 1998

Clapham's mothers were getting angrier as their evening in the wine bar progressed. "It's just something else to make them feel even more guilty," said Sarah McLaughlin. "Nonsense, just nonsense," agreed Rhoda Dakar. "I just can't see the point of finding this stuff out," added Nina Smith.

Fortunately geneticist Azim Surani was in Cambridge - for he was the object of their ire after becoming the latest researcher to hang a human characteristic on a genetic hook - in this case maternal instinct.

Following the gay gene, fat gene, gloom gene, and ulcer gene, the 'motherhood' gene is the latest in the onward march of genetic determinism. Each week, it seems, another area of life is ascribed to the make-up of our DNA.

Not that Prof Surani is worried. "There is a certain genetic underpinning to our lives. To ignore this could be perilous. We cannot escape evolution - that is the human condition."

His research uncovered a gene in mice - dubbed MEST - which appeared to control how well mother mice cared for their young, a piece of DNA that, crucially, Surani also found in humans.

"So what do we do?" asks Smith, an NCT antenatal teacher who has helped more than 2,000 mothers-to-be. "Screen people before we allow them to have a baby?"

Her anxiety reflects a growing concern about research into behavioural characteristics and its implications for the way society is organised.

Some fear that 'gene guilt' might result from research like Surani's. Mothers lacking MEST might feel failures before they start.

Others worry that if it's "all in the genes", then guilt and shame will gradually be abolished. Genetics could breed a fatalism which erodes the ideals of self-improvement, self-discipline and morality.

A fortnight ago, researchers at the University of Bristol claimed a gene carried by one in seven people explains why some people act on impulse. The gene apparently inhibits the effect of serotonin, a neurochemical messenger.

As Steve Jones, a professor of genetics, warns, this kind of finding could undermine personal responsibility: "You'll find someone who has committed a crime saying: "It wasn't me that did it - it was my impulse gene"

Dr Eamonn Butler, director of the Adam Smith Institute and author of three books on IQ, warns: 'IQ is largely genetically determined. But that does not mean that it is fixed.

"People who lead active lives, and are curious, can boost their IQ. There is a real danger people see intelligence and other characterisistics as set in genetic concrete."

Similarly, the claims for a 'motherhood' gene might undermine moves to help people become better parents. Counselling, psychiatry and education are based on the presumption that our personalities, abilities and behaviour are pliable. So what can be their future if our behaviour is suddenly presented as being the result of all-but-unstoppable genetic forces?

A series of books, Darwinism Today, to be published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson later this month, emphasise the innate nature of much human behaviour and question social policies based on the view that our actions are the products of our nurture.

Kingsley Browne, in Divided Labours, states: "Men have a greater commitment than women to the labour market. Women place more importance on a high level of involvement with their children. The fact that these choices are influenced by biology does not make them choices any the less."

Other aspects of social policy to be attacked by the genetic determinists are those involved in childcare. In The Truth about Cinderella, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson point out that a child is one hundred times more likely to be abused or killed by a step-parent than by a genetic parent. Such a pattern is entirely consistent with Darwinian theory and quite at odds with official, orthodox policies concerning good parenting.

Now we have the possible existence of a 'motherhood' gene. It might mean that there is greater sympathy for mothers who are genetically predisposed to find it difficult to bond with their children.

On the other hand, it may give people an excuse simply to write people off as 'bad mothers', just as step-parents are written off by neo-Darwinists.

But there is no point trying to put the cat back in the bag, according to Surani. Society simply has to learn to live with the implications of more information about genetic pre-determination:

"We can't hide our head in our hands and say, we're not mice, and hope the problem goes away," he said.