On Motherhood

This Mother’s Day both mothers and their children may have gotten a bit more of one another than either bargained for. Too much contact, too many frayed nerves, too much taken for granted. We ask a lot of mothers all year round, but we invariably ask more of them during times of uncertainty.

While the notion of pausing and considering mothers may have ancient origins in Greek cults like that of Cybele or Rhea, or in festivals like the Roman Hilaria, our modern version of Mother’s Day came to us from Anna Jarvis, who, in West Virginia in 1908 held a memorial service for her own mother and chose the white carnation as the flower of motherhood. In defending this image, she wrote, “Its whiteness to symbolize the truth, purity and broad-charity of mother love; its fragrance, her memory, and her prayer. The carnation does not drop its petals, but hugs them to its heart as it dies, and so, too, mothers hug their children to their hearts, their mother love never dying.” 

While Jarvis captured much of the potency of maternal love, she regretted what the holiday became in later years; namely, its cheapening commercialization. She lamented, “A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment.” Today, Mother’s Day is another event that is of interest to many merely for its economic relevance. The National Retail Federation reported in 2019 that the holiday would result in approximately $25 billion in sales. The days of the printed card and a box of candy have been eclipsed by electronics and much more expensive items; and the materialism, if not the sentiment, that Jarvis bewailed has steadily intensified. 

There are those who would contend that it is too easy to complain about materialism, that spending is important for a flourishing economy, and that the changes between 1908 and 2020 have more to do with the improved economic standing of the average person and the increased discretionary spending of all people. This largely misses Jarvis’ point, which was less about what was bought or gifted, and instead the authenticity of the sentiment underlying it. Were genuine thoughts expressed? Was real effort made to express appreciation? Were the sacrifices inherent in motherhood acknowledged? Were feelings felt and articulated? Were the gifts given more than obligational?

It is easy to be cynical and dismissive about helicopter parents and mother bears; too easy to be casual about maternal preferment and the defensiveness, protectiveness, and sometimes zany ideas mothers have about their own children. In order to give us life, they have given up some aspects of their own that might have been. This is not, incidentally, to claim that their lives are less for their being mothers; on the contrary, they are likely more rewarding in many respects, but motherhood (like parenthood) changes us and some opportunities are sacrificed. In trying to care for their children, mothers are sick more often, worried more often, and sleep less often. They wipe tears and butts, they mend scratches and scrapes, fuss over dinner and playmates, buy the best they can afford, hold us to our lessons, pray that we will be our best selves, give us liberty to be a mess and then teach us how to clean up. They are our foremost cheerleaders: they celebrate our successes, commiserate with us over our defeats, help us to buck up and get on with it, and publicly advocate for us even when they privately admonish us. A mother’s love is the closest humans get to showing another something truly emulative of divine love.  

For a feeling, attentive, and grateful person who has been blessed with a good mother, there is much to be sentimental about. Such are some of the fine feelings expressed in a well-known poem by William Ross Wallace in 1865.

BLESSINGS on the hand of women! 
Angels guard its strength and grace. 
In the palace, cottage, hovel, 
Oh, no matter where the place; 
Would that never storms assailed it, 
Rainbows ever gently curled, 
For the hand that rocks the cradle 
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy's the tender fountain, 
Power may with beauty flow, 
Mothers first to guide the streamlets, 
From them souls unresting grow— 
Grow on for the good or evil, 
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled, 
For the hand that rocks the cradle 
Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission, 
Here upon our natal sod; 
Keep—oh, keep the young heart open 
Always to the breath of God! 
All true trophies of the ages 
Are from mother-love impearled, 
For the hand that rocks the cradle 
Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women! 
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry, 
And the sacred song is mingled 
With the worship in the sky— 
Mingles where no tempest darkens, 
Rainbows evermore are hurled; 
For the hand that rocks the cradle 
Is the hand that rules the world.

Put another way: “A mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom,” as Henry Ward Beecher wrote. Whatever the mood of the world, despairing or aspiring, inquisitive or apathetic, prone to awe or dumb to beauty, a mother’s words and actions are almost determinative. What a heavy and unique burden to bear; one that, if done well, forges links of gratitude for generations on. The Irish poet, Samuel Lover (1797-1868) wrote touchingly on the memories of our mothers that carry us into adulthood and beyond.

There was a place in childhood
That I remember well,
And there a voice of sweetest tone
Bright fairy tales did tell,
And gentle words and fond embrace
Were given, with joy, to me,
When I was in that happy place
Upon my mother’s knee.

When fairy tales were ended,
“Good night,” she softly said,
And kissed and laid me down to sleep
Within my tiny bed;
And Holy words she taught me there –
Methinks I yet can see,
Her angel eyes, as close I knelt
Beside my mother’s knee.

In the sickness of my childhood,
The perils of my prime,
The sorrows of my riper years,
The cares of every time…
When doubt and danger weighed me down –
Then pleading, all for me,
It was a fervent prayer to Heaven
That bent my mother’s knee.

And can I this remember,
And e’er forget to prove
The glow of holy gratitude –
The fullness of my love?
When thou art feeble, mother,
Come rest thy arm on me.
And let thy cherished child
Support the aged mother’s knee.

The power of good mothering is doubtlessly intense, but the contrary, unfortunately, is equally intense. When motherhood goes right, it is memorialized in the way Jarvis, Wallace, and Lover have done, but when it goes badly, even when it falls short of outright abuse, and there are many kinds of abuse, the story resembles something more like Mrs. Fidget from C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves. Mrs. Fidget is Lewis’ example of someone whose need to be loved masquerades as gift-love. Mrs. Fidget exemplifies, “the ravenous need to be needed [that] will gratify itself either by keeping its objects needy or by inventing for them imaginary needs.”

A part of the reason that good mothers deserve our gratitude, our consideration, and even our sentimentality is that without these things, it is often such a tragic undertaking. As Lewis wrote, “…the proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift. We feed children in order that they may soon be able to feed themselves; we teach them in order that they may soon not need our teaching. Thus a heavy task is laid upon this Gift-love. It must work towards its own abdication.”

What we can give back is some measure of contemplation and a modicum of appreciation for the gifts we have received. The more heartfelt, the more genuine. For all of the mothers who have trusted us with the education of their children, we hope that even in these challenging and frustrating times, your children will pause for a moment and make a fuss over you. That you are fêted with gifts is a good thing, but that you know something of the depth of their feeling is better. We wish all of our incredible mothers a Happy Mother’s Day.

D. Anderson, Principal