It seems of all the species of mammals left living on the earth, modern-day humans are the only ones who do not truly honour motherhood. Wild animals choose their mates based on traits conducive to parenting. And it's not just a trait lost with wildness -- I've been looking into buying sheep, and so of course the sheep-owners are telling me how 'milky' their ewes are, what good mothers they've been, and how protective and gentle the fathers are.
Yesterday was Mother's Day. Quite the event, huh? Parades and medals given out, the front cover of all the papers splashed with mothers who are particularly 'milky' and gentle and patient with their young... Every year it blows me away to see how much the culture I live in honours mothers and mothering. Wow.
Not. Yet I felt honoured. My children cuddled in with me with handmade cards and kisses and professions of deep, true love. They erected a sundial in honour of the day down by the newly dug pond, and I felt honoured. But then we left the property. Big mistake. Dinner at my inlaws was wieners 'because it was easy'. The menfolk stood, beer in hand, watching the highlights of some golf tournament and then some hockey game while the women tended the children and got the food on the table. There was a sweet little "cheers to mums" before we ate, and then the men debated the price of gas and the state of the economy and whether or not real estate prices are going to recover and blah blah blah. I tuned out. I was thinking about the state of motherhood. We ate, we presented gifts to Grandma (mil) who loudly protested that she was not to be given any gifts or cards. And it hit me, that she was the one setting all this up. It was her idea to "keep it simple", her idea to keep the honour out of the day. Because she's never felt much honour in mothering, she can't allow us to either. She's always telling us how important the men's work is, that we shouldn't complain when they come home late, tired, drained, with nothing to offer us as women and mothers. They're working HARD! She's always glorifying what they do as SO important -- and the more money people make, the more she respects and admires them. Not just men. Women too. She's all for equal rights. We were regaled with a story of a young mum we all know whose husband didn't remember her birthday on May 1st. She and this mum's mother both agreed that she should not expect or even hope her husband remembers her birthday because he's an accountant! He's just come through a very important time -- what is her birthday really in the whole scheme of things? I felt sad. Sad for this mum. Sad for my mother-in-law. Sad for my children hearing this story. Sad for the whole world because we are so completely
f#@%ed up.
It's not just my mil. Somewhere along the way of gaining equal rights, we threw the baby out with the bathwater. Really. And I know it isn't like this everywhere. I know there are small pockets of human beings who are working hard to change this. I even know some of them and feel grateful to have their hopeful presence in my life. But for the most part, this is what we have come to expect. Mothering is a martyr job. It's hard, it takes everything out of us, it's joyous, it's the most incredible thing we'll ever do. But nobody truly deeply authentically honours the job but our own small children. {Some of us are coming around to it, including me. But we weren't raised that way. We weren't cultured that way. It's a struggle to really LIVE what we KNOW in our heads. To really feel in our hearts the honour that our jobs deserve, isn't it? When you're really honest about it?} As our own little adorers grow up they're cultured to hold it in disdain, to despise their mothers and everything they say and do and wear. A friend received a letter last weekend from her 14 year old daughter, thanking her for being her mum. She said she didn't feel she fit in at school or with any of her friends because they all hate their mothers and she couldn't relate. She thinks she's weird because she adores her mother. How many of you just read that and thought "she'll grow out of that soon enough"? We are cultured to hate our mothers. And we are cultured to think this is "normal".
It's not. It's just our screwed up culture. We are born in total worship of motherhood. Our first few years we think there is no one more important or incredible than mothers. For thousands of years this was our culture. From birth through to death. The birthing mother earth was our goddess, and women were revered. Children were cared for. That was the most important thing we could do.
But then through a series of very messy events, the economy replaced the goddess. So completely that we grow up knowing, now, that if we want to do something really important we'll get a high-flying career in law or accounting or medicine or business. Why? Because you make lots of money. Plain and simple. And the more land you clear and the more houses you build and the more roads you make and the fancier the cars you drive and the more stuff you can buy, well, the more important you obviously are. If you're an entrepreneur you get all sorts of tax breaks. As a mother? Not so much. You can't write off meals, you can't write off trips, you can't write off anything. Because you're not contributing to the economy. And if you're not contributing to the economy, then sorry, hon, but you're just not important in this culture.
And we're just
starting to see (some of us, some of us not as was evident at the dinner table last night) that this worship of the economy is what has our planet headed for complete destruction. WHAT IF more people than not (tipping point) woke up this morning and could see that the most important thing we can do is raise our children to be hopeful, caring, happy, compassionate, earth-loving people? What if more people than not refused to work at anything another single day that wasn't supportive of the future of their children? Would more of us stay home with our children and grandchildren and take them for a walk in the woods? Would the malls be empty today? Would the manufacturing plants be too empty to grind out any more useless STUFf today? Would our economy grind to a screeching (GASP!) halt? The world as we know it would END! Wouldn't it?! All the doomsday cults would be RIGHT! The WORLD WOULD END. As we know it.
And then we could begin again. Would we take the time to show our children how to grow their own food and pick up some garbage and teach them how to share this planet with the animals and birds and plants and oceans? We could teach them how we must live in order to
survive! And then would we place more priority on actually THRIVING with them? Now? Instead of waiting until we have enough money that we can relax....
Why am I up at 5 this morning writing all this? Because my husband was flopping around in bed like a fish out of water. Why? Because he has an important day today. The BIG boss is coming. The one who actually OWNS everything. That's big stuff, no?
I think about all the women this morning who are getting ready for something important today. Who maybe weren't totally present over the weekend because their minds were still partly engrossed with work. And I don't wonder why more women don't choose to stay home with their small children. Why would they? It's not important in our culture! Oh! Sure! We SAY it is. We say (come on now, say it with me) "mothering is the most important job you could ever do". I hear that over and over when I tell people what I do for a living. We SAY it is, but our culture says it isn't. Mothering can be done in an hour or two a day, can't it? We pay someone to take care of our children. "They're kids! They grow up whether we're there or not. They'll be fine! Look at me! My mother didn't stay home with me and I'm fine!" Don't you read that in our culture all the time? On TV and in movies, and magazines and on the news and just everywhere? Daycare, that's what our Prime Minister talks about whenever we talk about children. We MUST get better funding for daycare. Not to mention that daycare workers are some of the least paid in our society. Nobody talks about changing that -- we just need MORE daycares.
It's not all doom and gloom, I know. My husband is actually really strongly bonded to our children. He rarely works on weekends. He's there to really BE with them most nights before they go to bed. We even have dinner together most evenings. He at least acknowledges that what he's doing right now isn't sustainable. He can't work this many hours, be this drained, be this all-consumed-by-work forever. At some point it will slow down and he will be more present with us. And at least we manage to get him truly grounded and present by the end of most weekends. And there are those holidays (is it 3 weeks a year now? maybe even 4. 4 out of 52, not bad, hey?) where he's so present that we at least all remember what it's like, AND that it really is possible. And hey! He makes lots of money AND his mother is proud of him! So someday we can retire and enjoy our children together. Or grandchildren as it will be.
Will my children grow up any differently? By the time we're all "ready" to be really present with each other and make each other a priority will they be off into the ratrace and have no time for us? Will Annika embrace motherhood and feel it's the most important thing she will ever do? Will Pedar feel that raising his children to be happy, hopeful, caring, compassionate people is the most important thing he could ever do? Will they LIVE that way?
I
wish I could answer that with a resounding YES! But I can't. I'm hopeful. I am. But our culture is so strong. And there's just me, their mother, in their lives who sees it all this way...
I remember one of my good friends telling me a story about a father who every Friday night gave a big talk to his children about how important their mother was (was it you J? or Tab? if it was someone reading this, could you type it into the comments? I really need to hear that story again). He'd say that what he had done all week paled in importance to what she'd done. Those kids grew up honouring motherhood. Living it. Not just thinking or say it, but LIVING it. And I'll bet that man had one of the best lives of anyone alive. That mother would've felt validated and really SEEN, filled up and able and willing to pour back into him her gratitude.
What about you? Are you LIVING that motherhood is honourable? Are there any speeches at your table on Friday nights to help put the screwey ideas of our culture into perspective for your children? What is the state of motherhood in your world?
Fresh caught trout, new potatoes (not from my garden) with lots of fresh dill, asparagus (last of the season?), greens from our garden topped with grilled fresh goat cheese (an idea from another book that I loved, "A Pig in Provence") and homemade bread just out of the oven... and then cinnamon buns for dessert.
The kids and I were at Briteland, recently, and they had a bag of ladybugs on the counter for sale. Annika was SO distraught to see her favourite little creatures "trapped" inside the plastic. I explained to her that they were fine, they had food, that they would be bought by someone and released for pest control, but she couldn't get the image of these little creatures inside plastic out of her head. So she decided to buy them and release them herself. What a delight! Now when she sees ladybugs around the yard she's quite sure they're one of her "rescued" ones.
