The Measure of My Days (excerpt) - by Florida Scott-Maxwell 1
"A mother's love for her children, even her inability to let them be, is because she is under a painful law that the life that passed through her must be brought to fruition. Even when she swallows it whole she is only acting like any frightened mother cat eating its young to keep it safe. It is not easy to give closeness and freedom, safety plus danger.
"No matter how old a mother is she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. It could not be otherwise for she is impelled to know that the seeds of value sown in her have been winnowed. She never outgrows the burden of love, and to the end she carries the weight of hope for those she bore. Oddly, very oddly, she is forever surprised and even faintly wronged that her sons and daughters are just people. for many mothers hope and half expect that their new-born child will make the world better, will somehow be a redeemer. Perhaps they are right, and they can believe that the rare quality they glimpsed in the child is active in the burdened adult."
Florida Scott-Maxwell wrote, "A mother's love never ends... because she is under a painful law that the life that passed through her must be brought to fruition." She meant not merely that children should grow to maturity. But many mothers hope and half expect that their children make of themselves something good, something special... that their child "will somehow be a redeemer." I would hasten to add that even if a mother has not given physical birth to a child, through her love and nurture, she gives her child a spiritual birth. The soul of a child can only blossom with such love. I would also hasten to add (for I know some men here would object if I left them out) that a father can be as loving and nurturing as a mother. It's just rarer, I think, which makes me admire those fathers even more for bucking convention.
In thinking about what parenting means, I am reminded of the reading in our hymnal by Sophia Lyon Fahs which is often read at Christmas.
"Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Fathers and mothers-sitting beside their children's cribs
feel glory in the sight of a new life beginning.
They ask, "Where and how will this new life end?
Or will it ever end?"
Each night a child is born is a holy night-
A time for singing,
A time for wondering,
A time for worshipping.
We all have such hopes for our children, wondering at birth what they will turn out to be.
Those who know me know I'm a feminist. I have been so since college. I believe that women (and girls) deserve a fair shake, an even break. We deserve equal respect. We have a right to an equal education, and a right to be judged on our talent, our character and our contributions to the world. And when I was younger ... before marriage and the birth of my daughter... I thought that parenting should be shared equally between the partners. And that in a fair and equal world, that men would be liberated, too, and that men and women would feel absolutely the same about their children.
Actual motherhood, life experience and age, perhaps, have tempered the idealism of my early twenties. I now longer believe in absolute equality as a realistic goal in parenting. I no longer believe that men and women as a rule feel exactly the same way about their children. Not that fathers don't love their children just as much as mothers. Not that they can't care for them when they're sick or drive them to activities or listen to them when they have a problem. There are men in this congregation who I know do this. Bless them! It's just that... let's face it... men and women are different.
I think that mothers worry more about their children, worry about how they'll turn out, and worry about what the world will be like when they are grown. Maybe I'm wrong and am making gross (and faulty) generalizations. And you can argue with me about that. But humor me on this Mother's Day when I say that there is a special, indescribable bond between mothers and children.
Maybe that bond is so strong that mothers can sometimes drive their children a little crazy. I love that line from our reading this morning, "Even when she swallows it whole she is only acting like any frightened mother cat eating its young to keep it safe." It's so easy to be over-protective. We know that "It is not easy to give closeness and freedom, safety plus danger." I think it's especially hard for mothers and daughters. And many books and articles have been written about the complex mother-daughter relationship. I know that from personal experience, having been both a rebellious daughter with a domineering mother and a mother to a lovely, smart but sometimes stubborn daughter.
Many of us celebrate Mother's Day with a degree of ambivalence. Parenthood is not easy. But neither is childhood. No parent-child relationship is ever pure bliss... from either perspective... at least as far as I've observed. Maybe this is a day to acknowledge this all-to-human ambivalence, to reconcile the feelings and to ask for forgiveness. Or maybe this is a day to simply forget all that... to give the store bought card, the box of candy and/or the bouquet of flowers with hugs and kisses. And to receive these loving gifts with a smile of appreciation... as Queen for a Day.
Maybe that sounds a little cynical. Don't get me wrong. I really like Mother's Day, especially as a mother. It's darn nice getting the cards, the flowers, and a dinner out. It's nice to finally get some recognition for the hard work and the heartache. Even the sappy sentiment on greeting cards can make my eyes well up with tears. I'm a sucker for these things.
But what would our foremothers say about Mother's Day? How would they look at this quaint domestic celebration... where little children gave homemade cards, writing "I love you, Mommy" with bright crayon in block letters? And where bigger children give store-bought cards and where husbands buy roses for their wives? And where Mom gets a meal at her favorite restaurant? This was never the intention of the original Mother's Days.
Let's go back about one hundred and 30 years ago. Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian, an abolitionist and a crusader for women's suffrage, began a Mother's Peace Day in Boston in 1872. During the Civil War, she and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, had fully supported the war's effort to free the slaves. But they also worked for the U.S. Sanitary Commission, whose purpose was to improve the medical treatment of sick and wounded soldiers and the general living conditions of the soldiers in the field. So Julia saw first hand the awful effects of war.
During the Franco-Prussian War which followed soon after, Julia wrote that she felt "the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest... a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed." She began a one-woman peace crusade that began with an impassioned "appeal to womanhood" to rise against war. Mother's Peace Days were observed in several American cities for a while, but the idea generally died after 10 years or so. I think that today Julia Ward Howe would feel more kinship the women who protest against the War in Iraq than she would with those people who promote the commercialized, sentimental Mother's Day. As a mother of five children herself, I imagine she would feel a special bond with those mothers who have lost their children to war such as Cindy Sheehan.
Who inspired Julia Ward Howe to begin Mother's Day? There was an amazing woman who was born in West Virginia, Anna Reeve Jarvis, who thought up the original idea. I don't mean a celebration of motherhood, as was practiced in many European countries from olden times, including England and Greece. I mean a Mother's Day that had in mind more political and social concerns.
So Anna Reeve Jarvis began the whole ball rolling in this country. She began Mother's Day as a way to promote worker health and safety. During the Civil War she organized women to tend to the needs of wounded soldiers on both sides. After the war, she wanted to start a Mother's Day that promoted the causes of pacifism and social activism. Needless to say, it was controversial and didn't catch on as a big holiday.
Anna Reeve Jarvis had a daughter, whose name was Anna Marie Jarvis. After her mother's death, the daughter pledged to carry on the fight to get more recognition for the holiday. She was successful in lobbying Congress and Mother's Day became a national holiday in 1914. Jarvis also thought that mothers should receive a single white carnation during a church service and this flower became the symbol for the holiday.
But in the next few years, the holiday became too successful. Not in reforming anything, but as a way for florists and greeting card manufacturers to make money. It says in Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia, "By the 1920's, Jarvis became soured to the commercialization to the holiday. She incorporated herself as the Mother's Day International Association, claimed copyright on the second Sunday of May, and was once arrest for disturbing the peace. She and her sister Ellsinore spent their family inheritance campaigning against the holiday. Both died in poverty. Jarvis, says her New York Times obituary, became embittered because too many people sent their mothers a printed greeting card. She considered it "a poor excuse for the letter your are too lazy to write."
Today, she is recognized as the mother of the Mother's Day holiday in the United States, a distinction I'm sure she'd feel ambivalent about. It is a child that grew up to be, in her opinion, somewhat of a monster.
There has been in recent years a kind of grass roots protest against this traditional Mother's Day... a protest especially initiated by women. This year I noted two which are recapturing the original spirit and purpose of the founders. One is a Mother's Day 24 hour vigil for peace at the White House. This is a day to reclaim Mother's Day as a day to work for peace. Among the speakers, not surprisingly, are Cindy Sheehan and Susan Sarandon. It's sponsored by an organization called CodePink Women for Peace. It describes itself as "a grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the War in Iraq, stop new wars and redirect our resources into healthcare, education and other life affirming activities." I think Julia Ward How and the two Anna Jarvises (mother and daughter) would be pleased.
I also discovered a fairly new organization called MomsRising.org. It is based on the same concept which made Moveon.org so successful. That is using the internet as an organizing tool to build a massive, grassroots on-line resource. The goal of Moms Rising is to champion core motherhood and family issues in political, social and economic spheres. Currently it is running a petition campaign to demand that the national media, particularly television, stop promoting the "Mommy Wars." This is the false division between working mothers and stay at home mothers. Moms Rising asks the media to focus instead on the real issues of the needs of families. It wants the country to talk about real family values, such as supporting quality daycare, public education, and healthcare, as well as better working conditions for all women. Its obvious to me that our foremothers would be quite pleased with this effort as well.
I say that although a handwritten letter may be nicer and more personal, go ahead and buy those cards and flowers, jewelry and boxes of candy without guilt. Go ahead and take your mother or wife or grandmother out to dinner. I'm sure she deserves it for "a mother's love never ends." She will never stop being a mother and will never stop worrying about her children when they're grown. But also don't forget the other sort of Mother's Day... and please support the efforts of many mothers (and fathers, too) who are working for peace and progressive family values.
Bless them all. And bless you as well. And enjoy the rest of this special day.
Florida Scott-Maxwell, The Measure of My Days (excerpt) In Cries of the Spirit; A Celebration of Women's Spirituality, Marilyn Sewell, Ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), p.76.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Jarvis
Common Dreams News Center: www.commondreams.org/views03/0508-11.htm
CodePink, Women for Peace: www.codepinkalert.org/index.php
MomsRising.org: www.MomsRising.org