From Locke's child common law wife mother who went institutional crazy after abandoning her child in the 1950s, to Claire's "Rousseau's Walk" into the dark side of the jungle, LOST's writers painted a real bleak picture of motherhood.
Almost a tortured representation of the divine gift of life.
Juliet was kidnapped so Ben and the Others could find an answer to why their pregnant women were dying in the third trimester. Why would the island, as the alleged place of "life, death and rebirth" continually kill expectant mothers and their unborn children?
Jacob and MIB's mother gave birth on the island, but she was killed by another crazy woman, whom we think was a smoke monster (by the aftermath of her wiping out the Roman camp). She had been alone so long that she was crazy. Crazy dangerous.
Rousseau also gave birth on the island, to Alex. They survived but were separated by the Others (who apparently could reproduce or keep children alive. Perhaps there was a social stigma against any woman except those worshipping Jacob.) Rousseau saw the violence of the smoke monster killing her shipmates, which led her to kill their reincarnated corpses in order to protect her unborn baby. For her honor, she was to live a lonely, hardscrabble life in the jungle - - - under constant threat of attack, real and imagined.
Even the surrogate mothers were crazy. Kate was no Ms. Housekeeping when she took charge of Aaron. Kate's background was a homicidal runaway. Eloise, Daniel's mother, thought nothing of throwing her son or step-daughter, Penny, to the flames of hell in order to maintain control over the island and its secrets.
There clearly is an undertone of anti-motherhood in the series.
There is no explanation for it. Yes, bad mothers could infuse psychotic traits in their children. But the vast majority of mothers who had children were crazy, alcoholics (Jack's mother) or totally out of the picture, strangers to their own children.
Was the undertone a subliminal message for mass contraception, zero population growth, or an oddity of male dominated showrunner excess?
