I apologise in advance for this huge post.
I'm a huge fan of both characters (Scott and Jean) and I'm often disappointed in how the writers approach Jean's motherhood. In particular, when it comes to Nathan.
This is how I see it: if you're going to write an aspect of a character, you check the first instance in which this aspect appears and see how it was set. And then you keep reading and check if there was ever an in-story reason for this aspect to have changed. For Jean's motherhood, the first instance Louise Simonson's X-Factor run.
Jean comes from a loving family and from the moment Scott shows her a picture of Madelyne and Chris (= Nathan) we get to know for sure she would have liked to be a mother, because she tells him, on panel, that she'd always thought they would have a daughter together.
Later, when they go to the orphanage in Nebraska, this dialogue happens:
- Scott: My son's in here. It's been so long. He's just a baby. How will I find him? How will I know that he's mine?
- Jean: I'll know. He's what I'm feeling, Scott. He's not calling out... not projecting. Just
being. But I still
feel him. There are
dozens of babies in here. Why can I feel just
him? Here he is. I sense... Oh... He's adorable.
She barely has any telepathic power at that point, mind you. And Inferno hasn't happened yet, so it's not like it's Madelyine's memories are affecting her behaviour either. Yet she feels an immediate bond with the baby.
Now, like I said on the other post, Scott isn't really Nathan's father at that point. He's his genetic donor, as much as Jean. They become Nathan's parents there, together. And, after Inferno, they raise that baby together. I don't want to deny Madelyne's motherhood, but Jean is also Nathan's mother.
And there was never an in-story reason for it to have changed. Yet, after Louise, Jean's motherhood is just put on the background. When Scott sends Nathan to the future, it's his decision, his pain. Jean even celebrates defeating Apocalypse! That's how much she is robbed of her motherhood.
The x-writers tend to give much more importance to Scott's fatherhood than her motherhood and it really bothers me. I don't want them to downplay Scott's fatherhood at all ('cause I love it). I just wish they remembered that Jean is Nathan's mother too.
But apart from that X-Factor run - while Simonson was still writing - and, to an extent, The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, they just ignore that aspect of the character.
And I mean, especially in this weirdly different society, you don't need to put Jean in the role of a mother, right? But if you're going to do so, can we maybe see her being a mother in more than cooking dinner? Honestly, I can't imagine a female writer ignoring that if they had to write Jean in this role...
So, that's why - from the perspective of the writers - I don't really see the fact that she's not very present as a problem. X-writers in general don't give her proper interactions with her children. It's like they're saying: "hey, she's seen cooking dinner 3 times already. What else do you need? She's being a mother, okay?"