In classical Athens (5th/4th century BC), literary sources agree: a mother's affection for her child is inherent. However, visual media—especially Attic funerary reliefs and vase painting—depict a very different picture. The mother-child bond predominantly appears as a relationship characterized by emotional restraint. As children grow, the mother's role increasingly becomes shaped by a sense of familial duty and responsibility, thus understood as learned behavior. Viktoria Räuchle explores these seemingly diametrically opposed conceptions of norm and nature and illustrates maternal behavioral and emotional ideals through numerous images and textual references.