What The Wild Robot Tells Us About Motherhood
The good, the not-so-good, and why movies about motherhood need to do better
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The Wild Robot is a movie that poses a few interesting philosophical questions. One of the big ones is, “can nature and technology integrate in a way that is positive instead of destructive.” Another question the story asks is, “can technology, specifically robots, evolve to become more human, allowing them to integrate with the world in a way that enhances our collective humanity rather than destroying it? And further, can robots have a soul?”
These are really big questions and the way the film attempts to answer both, is through the lens of motherhood.
As motherhood becomes the vehicle through which both the story is told and the questions answered, the movie forms a philosophy about motherhood. Specifically, what it means to be a good mom.
The first part of this good mom philosophy is the idea that motherhood is innate, even if you struggle with it. That women (Roz is coded as female) have the ability to tap into a deeper wisdom that guides us through motherhood, particularly when we think we can’t do it.
One of the other animal moms in the movie even says this to her. Pinktail, the opossum mom of 7, says that being a mother isn’t a task. It’s a feeling that comes from within. Further, she can’t rely on her programming alone to raise and parent Brightbill; she has to trust her instincts.
It’s a comforting statement, coming from the opossum mom in the movie who feels so relatable. The mom who loves her kids but also finds them to sometimes be a hassle. The mom who is a bit of a harried hot mess but also seems wise and kind.
I think often when this is given as advice – that you have everything you need within you to be a good mom and to trust your gut – is meant to empower and encourage moms to do hard things.
And maybe it works in a positive way for some moms.
Then again, it’s not as comforting if you’re struggling with postpartum depression. The idea that you can rely on a deeper wisdom within when you’re having trouble connecting to your baby after giving birth and life feels dark, is only going to make you feel like you’re even more broken.
But in Wild Robot, Roz is sentient tech. She might be having trouble connecting with the baby that has chosen her as mom, but once she identifies that caring for Brightbill is a task she needs to complete (more on that later), she digs in and figures it out.
If we look at this through the lens of PPD, it’s not a great view. This suggests that if you just try harder you can overcome those dark feelings and care for your child with love. But that’s not actually how PPD works. You can’t muscle your way through it. I mean, I guess you can, but it’s not ideal. Or healthy.
I think it’s also worth noting that while the idea that mothering is natural is presented to women as fact, the same idea but gender-swapped – that fathering is natural for men– isn’t addressed in this movie.
In fact, I have never heard anyone in any form of media suggest that fatherhood is innate for men and that they have inner dad wisdom that helps them through the rough patches of fatherhood. Not in the same way it’s presented to women.
In the movie, Roz essentially co-parents with Fink, the fox. But he gets to be dad and buddy. He isn’t saddled with any of the “fatherhood is a feeling” stuff.
Why does Roz get burdened with it?
Anyway, once the movie has identified the idea that motherhood is a feeling and everyone can be a good mom, it establishes the 2 main qualities of being a good mom.
The first is that a good mom asks for help.
I love this because it’s so counter to the messages that moms frequently receive and it flies in the face of the “moms have everything they need within to be a good mom” ideology that is initially presented in the conversation between Pinktail and Roz.
In fact, after Roz tries to teach Brightbill all of the things she is supposed to teach him so he can survive as a goose in the wild, she realizes SHE DOESN’T have everything she needs within herself to parent Brightbill.
So she asks for help. She looks to experts.
Someone who can teach Brightbill how to swim and fly.
And she also simply looks for additional support. People — well, animals — who can be with her through it all.
Honestly, this is so hard for moms – humans who are notoriously bad at asking for help.
We don’t want to impose or be difficult or be too needy.
We don’t want to seem incapable for fear of being punished, either socially or legally.
It’s also drilled into us, through the “motherhood is part of your deeper self” ideology, that we should be able to do it all ourselves.
All of that is what often leads to motherhood being so isolating and hard.
And yet, motherhood is best when it’s done in community, which is another idea this movie explores. Community care is a big part of the lesson of this movie. We are better and the world is better, when we make the choice to care for one another as part of a collective. The question of whether or not kindness is a survival skill is also addressed and answered over the course of the film.
Even though Roz raises Brightbill largely on her own, with some co-parenting help from Fink and flying skills support from the elderly goose and the peregrine falcon, she actually cares for and tends to the entire community – saving their lives during an epic winter storm by bringing them into the warmth and safety of the shelter (modeled after the beaver’s lodge) that she built for herself and Brightbill.
With “all” of the islands’ animals contained in a relatively small space, chaos ensues. Some of them are predators, while others are prey.
With no energy left from rescuing all of the animals during a blizzard, Roz begs Fink to help them. He gives a big speech about how yes, they all hate one another but if they leave the safety of the shekter OR continue to fight inside the shelter, they’re doomed. Figuring out how to coexist is their own chance for survival. He credits Roz for making this chance for survival possible, chastising them in the process for how they treated her.
Just before she shuts down, Roz speaks to the animals one more time, saying, “I know you all have instincts that keep you alive. But sometimes, to survive, we must become more than we were programmed to be. Before I shut down, I need you to promise me one thing: a truce, just while we’re in here.”
Setting aside the fact that in the natural/animal world, this kind of collective care is a bit unrealistic, what they create together is beautiful and powerful. The animals curl up together and hibernate safely riding out the storm, then all of winter together.
Later in the movie, even after winter is over, they come together again and again, as a family. Protecting Roz, protecting their island, and caring for one another as a collective.
They discover they all need one another to survive, both within the material reality of the ecosystem they all inhabit, as well as the emotional connections they created in that brutal, deadly storm.
If there is any motherhood message I want moms to take away from the movie, it’s this: ask for help not just when you need it, but when someone else can make your life a little easier and enhance your kids lives. It takes a village to raise all of our kids. That kindness is in fact a survival skill. And that we are stronger together.
But there is one more big part of the good mother puzzle that this story is trying to piece together and it’s probably my least favorite.
And that’s the idea that being a good mom involves an enormous amount of self-sacrifice.
In the movie, as Roz evolves within her motherhood journey, she learns that Brightbill’s needs will always come before her own. Part of this is due to the narrative function of her identity as a Rozzum. The Rozzum robots are service robots. Their entire purpose is to identify a task and solve that task.
Early in the movie, just after Brightbill imprints on Roz, she encounters Pinktail and her kids. Pinktail explains that Roz is Brightbill’s mother now and as a result, his survival is her responsibility.
They have this conversation:
“I do not have the programming to be a mother,“ Roz insists.
Pinktail replies, “No one does. We just make it up.”
Roz explains that, “Without an assigned task, my next priority is to return to the factory.”
Pink Tail answers, “Taking care of him is your task now.”
Roz stops in her tracks. Pinktail has said the magic work: TASK
“Task acquired. Return mode delayed. A Rozzum always completes its task.”
Because raising Brightbill is now her task, with the primary objectives being to teach him to find food, to swim, and to fly, her own needs take a backseat.
There is nothing that screams modern motherhood more than the idea that motherhood inherently requires sacrifice. And that by sacrificing our own needs in order to give our kids the best life possible, we are better moms as a result.
But while self-sacrifice is praised, it’s ultimately unhealthy for moms.
We see an extreme, but entirely realistic version of this in the movie. At one point, the lower part of Roz’s right leg is damaged. The beaver helpfully creates a replacement stump for her, which functions decently. But it’s not the same. Roz continues to push herself to help Brightbill learn to fly in time for him to migrate with the other geese, despite the fact that she’s literally leaking fluid.
Even Fink can tell she’s not operating at optimal levels but she ignores him, ignores the leaking, ignores all of the signs of imminent destruction and gets her goose flying.
Eventually, all of this pushing beyond her limits – her constant sacrifice in service of her task – actually shuts her down.
Is that really the message moms need to see and hear in a movie expressly created with exploring motherhood in mind?
After seeing Roz give and give and give until she literally has nothing left, trying to do the best she could for her kid and for the entire island, I was left wondering what was best for her.
Are we, as moms, only measured by how much we do for others?
Because if that’s the case, Roz gets high marks.
But what about what’s best for her?
I get that the movie isn’t about that. But maybe it should be. It’s a movie that uses motherhood as a vehicle to explore all sorts of interesting philosophical questions. Couldn’t that also include the question of whether our children’s needs really are more important than our own or is there a better balance there?
Thinking about this same idea through the perspective of tech, AI, and how those might evolve: when robots become more human, do they ever do anything pleasurable for themselves? Or is everything they do in service of others or in accordance with their programming?
This got me thinking about other representations of sentient robots in tv and film – whether any of them pursue pleasure as they become more human. And immediately my mind went to Data from Star Trek: TNG, because I am a Star Trek nerd.
Data is more than a robot; he’s an android. But for our purposes here, I won’t get into the scientific differences. More importantly, Data was deeply curious about humanity, often seeking to become more human himself.
Roz isn’t necessarily trying to become more human but she is trying to become a good mom to Brightbill. Her goodness measured by her ability to help him survive. On the other hand, Data’s goodness is measured by so much more than how he helps others. There’s even an entire episode debating whether he is Starfleet property or an autonomous being allowed to make decisions for himself (it’s called “Measure of a Man and it’s excellent).
So while Data pursues hobbies like playing the violin, joining poker games with friends, and even ha sex with a fellow officer aboard the enterprise, Roz pursues motherhood.
She doesn’t seem to do anything for herself outside of raising Brightbill. Unlike Data, who has a job on the Enterprise, Roz’s job is service. Her mission, even before landing on the island, was task completion. Not her own tasks, but helping others complete theirs. So once she adopts the task of motherhood, there is nothing else for her to do.
That is uncomfortable to watch because it feels so real and not in a good way.
It’s so easy to get lost in the “task” of motherhood. I can think of multiple times over the past 12 years when motherhood swallowed me up almost entirely. I’ve also watched it happen to other moms. Motherhood can be all consuming.
It also doesn’t help that there are some very loud voices right now who believe that this version of motherhood — one that swallows you up and strips you of your identity outside of “mom” — is the ideal one.
I’m not saying that this movie reinforces that idea entirely. I’m betting most folks watching this movie didn’t get quite as critical about the message it might be sending to moms. I recognize that I’m the weirdo here, digging through the story like a raccoon looking for something tasty in the trash.
And to be clear, The Wild Robot isn’t trash. I enjoyed the movie. I’ve cried every time I’ve watched it, particularly in the tender moments between Roz and Brightbill. Or when Fink admits he needs her. Or when Roz helps Brightbill take off with the flock of geese and watches him fly away from her — and then when she can no longer see him, she slumps down at the edge of the precipice she’s standing on and stays there, in her joy and grief. Proud of him and missing him.
There are beautiful moments in this movie. Ones that clearly touched me and struck a chord.
And also, there are some parts of the story that is told about motherhood that rub me the wrong way and I can’t unsee them.
I’m guessing that the intent was to showcase moms as superheroes — honestly a trope I’d really love to see die. Moms don’t need to be seen as superheroes, they need support. They don’t need to be praised for their incredible capacity for sacrifice; they need better systems within the world they live in that actually make motherhood easier, less stressful, and less isolated.
But in terms of how it answers the questions of nature vs tech and whether robots can evolve to become more human in a positive way, I think their conclusion is mixed and also, linked.
The story suggests that yes, robots can evolve to become more human. They can, as Roz discovers, have a place within themselves that is untouchable. A soul, perhaps. And for those who can create this deeper sense of self, their impact on the world around them is likely to be more positive, more protective, more compassionate.
The question they did not ask or answer is whether we can collectively stop viewing mothers as superheroes and martyrs. Instead, can we see moms as whole humans, worthy of support, care, and an identity beyond being “a good mom?”
*****
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Brilliant and thought-provoking, as always!