The Cult of Motherhood
For the record, I am not a fan of the commercialization of any holidays and when I was single (and not particularly close to any family) was perfectly happy not celebrating any holidays. My husband needs to do nothing on Valentine’s and he is the one that insists on making anniversaries significant.
Ultimately, I am ambivalent about celebrating Mother’s day. Since I clearly believe that fathers are just as important to children as mothers I am continually frustrated that fathers on Father’s Day definably get second class citizenship compared to mothers. And even the President chooses Father’s Day to admonish dads (many of who cannot see their kids because they are stopped by their ex-es and the courts).
Here is a blog post about the mothers no one talks about.
“They believe the very common act of giving birth (dogs do it, cats do it, even rats do it) is an act of such cataclysmic importance that all humanity should bow down at their feet, let them use handicapped parking spaces (true story) and worship and give them special privileges and reverence just because they’ve reproduced. If only the physical act of giving birth could automatically make someone a good mother and a good person. Simply put, it doesn’t. In fact, becoming a mother can make a controlling, abusive, entitled, crazy woman even worse than she was pre-baby.”
I’ve seen many mothers act like they have special powers. And then of course there are the self-congratulating emails that I receive from female friends and family…I am pretty sure men don’t send email around saying how great they are.
Here is one of my emails (with my commentary in italics):
Time passes. Life happens.
Distance separates. Children grow up.
Jobs come and go. Love waxes and wanes.
Men don’t do what they’re supposed to do. [What are men "supposed' to do? Um, I don't always do what I am supposed to do. Why blame just men?]
Hearts break. Parents die.
Colleagues forget favors. Careers end.
BUT……..
Sisters are there, no matter how much time and how many miles are between you. [Really, no one has had a sister who wasn't there? Really, not one of you?]
A girl friend is never farther away than needing her can reach.
When you have to walk that lonesome valley and you have to walk it by yourself, the women in your life will be on the valley’s rim, cheering you on, praying for you, pulling for you, intervening on your behalf, and waiting with open arms at the valley’s end. [Not all the women I know are that helpful and I know some men that are. These qualities aren't based on genitalia or hormones.]
Sometimes, they will even break the rules and walk beside you..Or come in and carry you out.
Girlfriends, daughters, granddaughters,daughters-in-law, sisters, sisters-in-law, Mothers, Grandmothers, aunties, nieces, cousins, and extended family, all bless our life! [Some do, some don't, same with male versions.]
The world wouldn’t be the same without women, and neither would I. [The world wouldn't be the same without men either. Considering if we were missing either we wouldn't exist.] When we began this adventure called womanhood [How about the this adventure called "life"?], we had no idea of the incredible joys or sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each other.
Every day, we need each other still.[Yes, humans are interdependent.]
I also have a problem that as a society it as if no one can actually criticize any mother without being accused of misogyny. All the while being cool to dis dads. There are just as many bad moms as there are bad dads. But society and professionals who should be protecting children excuse and enable bad moms. The media so wants to excuse even child-killers if they are female (and find some man to blame). The judge in the Elaine Campione murder of her kids says:
He said, “It is more than disconcerting to think that if Campione had not been so abused, so used and discarded as a person, her two daughters could still be alive…” Judge Stong was determined that even if it is Campione that gets locked up, Canadians would know that the real villain, morally speaking, is Leo Campione, the father of the dead girls (even though his alleged abusiveness was entirely based on his wife’s allegations and never proved), and it is actually the “discarded” Elaine Campione who is the victim.
Judge Stong felt such personal animus against the grieving father that he wanted to deny Mr. Campione and his parents their opportunity to read a victim-impact statement, standard practice even with mandatory- sentencing cases. He only relented under strong pressure from the prosecutor, who reminded the judge that the murdered girls had been “an extremely important part of [Mr. Campione's] life.”
The more recent Lashanda Armstrong case where she drove into the Hudson River with her four kids in the car. The oldest was able to get free and lived.
But the headlong dash to find the children’s father responsible for their deaths is essentially identical. The children’s eyes had barely closed before news accounts breathlessly reported that Armstrong and Jean Pierre, father of the three dead children, but not of La’Shaun, had argued about his “cheating.”
Imagine, someone blaming the mother when a father kills his kids. That will never happen.
How many more children are killed because we worship mothers and can’t say anything bad about them? How many children are so damaged by their mother’s abuse (even though they had a perfectly fit father) that they grow up to be abusers? Of course, fathers can do damage in the same way but we don’t enable fathers…we punish them. We punish good dads because we are so afraid to question the divinity of the mother. Mothers commit the vast majority of parental murders.
By enabling abuse by mothers we get more it. Every time we do not punish an abusive mother, we create more abused kids. The Cult of Motherhood is even more divine than The Cult of Children (I’ll write another post on that).
I do hope all the good mothers had a good Mother’s Day.