when thoughts turn to mothers...

my mother is on my mind a lot these days... i'm watching a once strong, feisty, vibrant, active womon become the womon she never saw in her future, never expected nor wanted to be... feeble, confused, depressed, unable to make solid decisions for herself, unable to find much joy in life anymore... it's a hard, painful, frustrating transition for her, and one she often tells me she wishes would end... her dream these days is to lay down, go to sleep, and never wake up... 

i understand that dream... she turned 85 last month and has just had enough... chronic, degenerative illnesses and age have robbed her of her spark, her confidence, much of her vision, and her mobility and short term memory are failing by rapidly rising degrees... what lies ahead for her is hard to think about, harder to deal with... she is fluctuating between coping and crumbling, sometimes telling me she doesn't think she can live independently and look after herself anymore, then fearing the next step, entering a care facility, deciding now is not the time to start making those plans yet... being a working class womon with no assets, no money apart from a government pension, limits any option of the type of facility she would be able to afford...

i am concerned for her, and fearful of what lies ahead too... i have no sanctuary to offer her, i have no assets myself and no way to make her safe... i never want to have to make the decision as to where she will go, having heard some of the horror stories of many of the government funded facilities due to under-staffing and under-funding... i hope her dream comes true...

i have my ups and downs, guilt visits occasionally, but depression is a friend and foe that regularly comes to stay these days as our roles are reversed in our mother/daughter relationship, the daughter now the mother, the decision maker, the mother now the daughter, seeking protection and guidance...

my mum (1951); with me (1958)

my friend sailor lily wrote a beautiful essay, letter - i'm not sure what to call it - and sent it to me on my birthday last month - she knows the rocky mother/daughter relationship judy and i have shared, has seen the weight of it over the last few years, knows my fear and concern, understands my desire for my mother's life journey to end with dignity in her own familiar surroundings, with her memories enveloping her... i thought now was an appropriate time to share her words...

"Hey Jude, don't make it bad

Take a sad song and make it better

Remember to let her into your heart

Then you can start to make it better

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain

Don't carry the world upon your shoulders

For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool

By making his world a little colder

Hey Judy! We’ve never met, but I’ve known your girl, your daughter, this amazing womon for well over a decade. Yeah not as long as you, hardly a moment in your life with her, just a blink really, or as long as a cigga takes.

But she’s hurting for you, Mother. She’s caring and crying for you Mother, and she’s doing it alone.  So Judy, so Mother, let’s have a Mum to Mum chat…

You have a river to cross, and you don’t have to swim hard or long. You don’t have to fight, and you won’t drown. Hey Judy, who I’ve never met: You’ve always been able to swim and keep people safe on your back, now is your time to float. When the burden is great know it is your time to float and be carried.

There is a great body of water, salty with life’s tears and spunk, with babies and friends and love, and its sole purpose, this river, is to take you a little downstream until you get to say “Yes, stop here, that’s my place.”

It will be your place. Not anyone else’s. In that place that you recognise you won’t be beholden. It’s just golden and dappled, or maybe a crazy club you once went to…Maybe a friend’s home.  Maybe a view you tasted when you were four.

No matter Judy - you will know it. You’ll be glad and grateful. When the time and the river take you there jump in with all the glee of a kid into the river. With all the happiness of a woman stepping forward into adventure or love, perhaps swept away in the currents, or perhaps quick to swim to the excitement of the other side, the embankment that beckons with green ferns and friends waving.

Hey Judy, be excited. This is it. Your time, your time at long-last.

And from me? By hook and by crook and default and error; you raised a child that became a girl that became a wonderful and powerful womon. Be proud! But when it’s time be nothing but that foot that carries you on, into the water, to take yourself back and forward and in and out to all the space and time of was and is and ever-ness."

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there are other mothers on my mind too... unlike my mother who has lived a long, full, mostly happy life and had the benefit of raising her children and watching them grow up, make their own decisions, choose their own paths and follow their journeys, there are many mothers who have never known that pleasure, never been allowed to nurture their babies and watch them grow, never known the wonder and joy of nuzzling, touching, sharing, only ever knowing pain, suffering, heartache and grief... these mothers deserve thought too - they deserve to be known and acknowledged - they deserve respect - they deserve the right to their own life and happy memories... all of us can do something for these mothers - one simple act can change their world, the world they have had no choice in... you have a choice - please, choose compassion, go vegan...

a mother's love...

the move is on this coming sunday, so i'm busy sorting, packing and discarding, etc. etc... i thought i'd just 'do' a quick post and share this article on a mother's love - as 'mother's day' was celebrated yesterday i think this is fitting...

"A Bovine Sophie's Choice by Holly Cheever, DVM and vice president of New York State Humane Association.

I would like to tell you a story that is as true as it is heartbreaking. When I first graduated from Cornell’s School of Veterinary Medicine, I went into a busy dairy practice in Cortland County. I became a very popular practitioner due to my gentle handling of the dairy cows. One of my clients called me one day with a puzzling mystery: his Brown Swiss cow, having delivered her fifth calf naturally on pasture the night before, brought the new baby to the barn and was put into the milking line, while her calf was once again removed from her. Her udder, though, was completely empty, and remained so for several days. 

As a new mother, she would normally be producing close to one hundred pounds (12.5 gallons) of milk daily; yet, despite the fact that she was glowing with health, her udder remained empty. She went out to pasture every morning after the first milking, returned for milking in the evening, and again was let out to pasture for the night — this was back in the days when cattle were permitted a modicum of pleasure and natural behaviors in their lives — but never was her udder swollen with the large quantities of milk that are the hallmark of a recently-calved cow.

I was called to check this mystery cow two times during the first week after her delivery and could find no solution to this puzzle. Finally, on the eleventh day post calving, the farmer called me with the solution: he had followed the cow out to her pasture after her morning milking, and discovered the cause: she had delivered twins, and in a bovine’s “Sophie’s Choice,” she had brought one to the farmer and kept one hidden in the woods at the edge of her pasture, so that every day and every night, she stayed with her baby — the first she had been able to nurture FINALLY—and her calf nursed her dry with gusto. Though I pleaded for the farmer to keep her and her bull calf together, she lost this baby, too—off to the hell of the veal crate.

Think for a moment of the complex reasoning this mama exhibited: first, she had memory — memory of her four previous losses, in which bringing her new calf to the barn resulted in her never seeing him/her again (heartbreaking for any mammalian mother). Second, she could formulate and then execute a plan: if bringing a calf to the farmer meant that she would inevitably lose him/her, then she would keep her calf hidden, as deer do, by keeping her baby in the woods lying still till she returned. Third — and I do not know what to make of this myself — instead of hiding both, which would have aroused the farmer’s suspicion (pregnant cow leaves the barn in the evening, unpregnant cow comes back the next morning without offspring), she gave him one and kept one herself. I cannot tell you how she knew to do this—it would seem more likely that a desperate mother would hide both.

All I know is this: there is a lot more going on behind those beautiful eyes than we humans have ever given them credit for, and as a mother who was able to nurse all four of my babies and did not have to suffer the agonies of losing my beloved offspring, I feel her pain." from all-creatures.org

another article well worth a read from the same site is "On Mother's Day, Remember The Cows On Dairy Farms"

or there's this video from evolve campaigns - "The Dairy Cow: The Most Overworked Mother On The Planet" (the video doesn't contain live graphic brutality that is the 'dairy industry' - just plain old facts and truths!!!)

 

i've linked to vegan feminist agitator's post "the universal mother" previously and find it still worth recommending if you haven't read it before...

okay, it's time to get back to work, and by the time i post again i hope to be settled in and enjoying the new house...

motherhood doesn't define us...

I came across a couple of photos of me mum in the 1950s so I thought I’d share them… they seemed appropriate after my 50s post…





I was reading a friend’s blog recently, and she has an extremely poignant post on mother’s day and motherhood which prompted me to include my thoughts on the topic.

When I was growing up the prevailing attitude was that young women wouldn’t be in the workforce for long… it was expected they would get married young and have children (always plural!!) – so no need for a career – (the post-war years added more pressure on women with their POPULATE OR PERISH paranoia!!!)

"Denied economic independence, unable to control their fertility adequately, and always aware of the reprobation which awaits the rebel, none but a handful of Australian women has had the opportunity to do any more than submit to living out their lives as dutiful wives and bountiful mothers; and having no alternatives and wanting some share of human happiness, they have accepted and enjoyed this as best they could." Anne Summers, "Damned whores and gods police"

Women were encouraged to believe that motherhood defined them as women… hey, sounds like now!!!! – we still hear those questions from all quarters – for young women - “when are you having children”, for older women it’s “how many children do you have”… that assumption – you’re female, so you must have offspring - so frustrating having to explain yourself all the time… as though it’s ‘freakish’!!!!

No matter what you do, whatever your reasons for not having children – there’s still an attitude that “you can’t possibly be a whole woman without children… you’re not complete…” - guess I don’t need to tell you I disagree!!!!

Whether by choice, because of fertility problems, or due to loss, the ‘sisters’ I know without children are extremely fulfilled individuals – beautiful, amazing, whole women!!! When will the blinkered perceptions change – when will women be accepted for themselves, without the ‘extension’ of partner or child – that will always only be for some!!!

And let’s face it – there has to be a limit to human habitation and the consequent pressure put on ‘the mother’… ‘she’s’ not faring well with the population now, the damage and destruction that’s been caused already!!!!

“Mother’s day” appears to be about making money rather than celebrating women as mother’s – seems to me it’s one big advertising and profit-making free-for-all.

And really, shouldn’t women be respected all year round??? Crimes and atrocities are committed against women every day of the year – I’d love to be able to celebrate the end of violence against women!!!! But alas……