Rachel’s love of the outdoors had about it the fresh delight of discovery. Her mother’s companionship as teacher and partner brought with it an obligation to help others see and to share in the wonder.

Linda Lear

 

… I can remember no time when I wasn’t interested in the out-of-doors and the whole world of nature. Those interests, I know, I inherited from my mother and have always shared with her.

Rachel Carson

Maria Frazier (McLean) Carson (1869 – 1958) was Carson’s mother. She taught Carson to appreciate the natural environment, which she would later express in her writing and her works.

From the time Rachel was one year old, she and her mother spent increasing amounts of time outdoors, walking the woods and orchards, exploring the springs, and naming flowers, birds, and insects… They talked about what they saw in the woods and particularly watched for birds. The distinctive quality of their experience in the outdoors was shared delight. From the first Rachel responded emotionally to her mother’s love of nature. Her acuity of observation and her eye for detail were shaped on these childhood outings.

This set a foundation for the young Carson’s motivations to love nature and do something to save the environment later in life. When Carson was studying in the Pennsylvania College for women in 1925, her mother visited nearly every weekend, often with “a basket of homemade acne potions”. Later in life, Carson “acquiesced to her mother’s desire to never be apart” and set up a household together, and allowed her mother to control her social interactions. Whether or not she was smothering,  Carson clearly loved her mother, persevering through hardships and considering giving up certain ambitions so that she could support her aging mother financially as a young student. She was also to be credited for contributing to Carson’s passion for nature and being a large influence in her life, her character and later on, her actions that would go on to impact the world.

Carson credited her mother with bequeathing her a love for nature. As someone closely entwined with Carson’s life especially as a child, she may be credited with the development of Carson’s environmental values and foundation for character growth. It can be safely assumed that a positive mother-child relationship has a positive influence on the child’s later growth.

As someone who has been with Carson for most of her life, especially in her younger years she would probably have been a source of emotional support and companionship for Carson, and provided validation support in their common interests in nature. Later on in life she controlled Carson’s social interactions because she was jealous of Carson’s fondness for others. Though she may have been a source of pressure because of this, she was of some instrumental support as she helped Carson manage her household as they lived together until the mother’s death in 1958, allowing Carson to concentrate on her writing.