So it’s hard, when my Facebook feed is lighting up with lovely tributes to moms and children, to confess what’s in my heart.
Especially when I too am so blessed—I have such a wonderful mother, such wonderful children!
But there is this stubborn knot, somewhere just above my heart, that will only be untangled if I take the risk of writing my truth.
So here goes.
As a mother, I AM SO ANGRY.
Not at my kids—lord, no.
I am angry at the prevailing culture that makes it so hard to be a mother these days.
I am angry at 12 weeks’ maternity leave being seen as generous.
I am angry at the incredible stupidity of Republicans who can imagine pregnancy as a “pre-existing condition.”
I am angry—no, FURIOUS—at the on-going, accelerating, totally suicidal destruction of our Mother Earth, Gaia, without whose generous beneficence none of us could live for even a moment.
I am angry at our president and first lady—the one an avowed pussy grabber, the other someone who clearly values money over a good relationship.
I am angry that still today, in 2017, women have to choose between career and motherhood—and if we choose motherhood, our earning potential is likely to be forever crippled.
I am angry that my 18-year-old son was forced to register with the US military in case of a draft. The Iroquois Confederacy had it right: no war without the permission of the WOMEN of the tribe.
I am angry that public schooling in America is still tied to the property tax, which means that kids in poor neighborhoods receive significantly poorer schooling than kids in wealthy neighborhoods. Are we not all Americans? Enough of this race/class discrimination!
I am angry that older women, who have put in their time as moms and grandmoms and foster moms and nurturers of all and sundry are at risk of being turned out to pasture without enough social support.
Oh shit! I am angry! And I know that it’s not cool for mothers to be angry. We are supposed to be endless earth-mamas, always nurturing, always forgiving, always sweet, kind and loving.
I am sorry to rain on the lovely parade of adoring mom-and-child social media posts.
But really, my friends, if we look beyond the personal to the political and planetary, can we afford to be complacent?
I want to see a world in which mothering, and parenting, is treated as the most important and well-rewarded job in the world.
I want to see our educational sector doing everything possible to foster creative thinking and self-confidence in our children.
I want to see a world in which people who choose to devote themselves to parenting, when their children are young, are REWARDED for this rather than penalized.
I want to see our steadfast support of GAIA, our beautiful earthly Mother, acknowledged as the most important political stance we could take.
I know this is possible because it is already happening in other countries.
It’s not a crazy idea!
I am sorry to be angry on Mother’s Day.
Please give me a like if you understand why ANGER is an important incubator for CHANGE.
Mothers: yeah, we’ll do anything for our children.
Will you—politicians, business leaders—do something for us?
John G Root Jr
/ May 16, 2017Hi Jennifer,
We need a guaranteed income based on a national dividend. The point that you make is that mothers, and women generally, but also men, do what they do out of their own nature and inspiration. Altruistically. This society is based on a lie, namely that we have to earn our living. This is what sets up the situations you are angry about. From a Maslow hierarchy of needs perspective we should all enjoy a secure life because we receive the money we need to live automatically rather than earning it. Then we could all do what we feel called to do, inspired to do, what we recognize would be good for our community. We need to stop justifying the means by the end, the Means Assures the End, . We need to recognize that when the end is peace, war is not a means that will bring it.
And yes, righteous anger is the way, I applaud your righteous anger.
Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D.
/ May 17, 2017I totally agree with you about a guaranteed minimum income, which should be enough to live well on. We also need more community-building, a return to a richer local life with our neighbors and relatives. The best wisdom on this seems to come from the Native peoples who have never lost this way of life, despite centuries of persecution for it…