Earth
Mother Enterprises |
Our government tried to help children by supporting mothers who were not
supported by men, such as widows and unwed mothers. This gave the
message to men that they were not crucial to the well-being of their children,
that government could be the big daddy that took care of society's women
and children.
Just as husbands might do, the government, through the welfare system,
expressed its jealousy and possessiveness by sending social workers to
check that no man was living with its women. It defined the parameters
of acceptable spending and behavior for the women who were supported through
the dole.
As general mores in the society changed, and as the government grew tired
of its intimate connection to these women, the moral strictures softened.
The message that men were unnecessary in the lives of government-supported
children continued, however, as welfare mothers were serviced by a multiplicity
of social service professionals in agencies and schools.
While still deemed essential to the care of children, women were considered
mildly incompetent as decision makers. Every time poor children exhibited
certain problems, such as inadequate medical care, nutrition, or social
skills, new agencies were formed to instruct, monitor, and encourage mothers.
Meanwhile, mothers could still trust that the government viewed them as
caring and nurturant.
Gradually, this basic trust has eroded. Our government touted Headstart
as a superior means of preparing children for the rigors of kindergarten
than the less-organized interaction that culturally and instinctually has
been the mainstay of nature: companionship, shared tasks with mother, supplemental
contact with other adults, and play with older children and peers according
to the needs of each individual child.
Young motherhood is now viewed as such a national disaster, that school
personnel, social workers, and other representatives of the government
encourage teenage mothers to abort their babies. The distrust of
nature dominates so thoroughly, that the ability to conceive is rejected
as an indicator of a potential for maternal competence.
Since Roe v. Wade, professionals serve the government and betray pregnant
teenagers. Powerful authority figures usurp the roles of other possibly
supportive adults and entice young mothers to violently reject their maternal
mandate. This is the first official step in an ongoing denigration
of natural motherhood.
Often the initiation into a gang or cult requires an act of violence that
binds the initiate to the group. Through their complicity in abortion,
young mothers are recruited into a way of thinking that devalues their
deepest source of power and accomplishment.
By accepting this low valuation of the life taken and their role, they
abrogate any later claims on the society to be accommodated as a mother.
They pledge allegiance to the dictum that they must earn the right to be
a mother by satisfying societal expectations that were once held out only
to men to qualify for responsible fatherhood: minimal education in a middle-class
trade and commitment to typical employer standards of work outside the
home.
For those who insist on cooperating with nature and bringing their babies
to term, social pressures discourage them from bonding with the baby.
They must spend their pregnancy weighing their only options: deciding to
try to make it on their own with a baby in an environment that punishes
them for being a young mother, or giving their baby to someone else.
Some young mothers who want to raise their children, but are still legally
minors, enter foster care with their babies. They are not encouraged
to breast-feed their babies and be close to them, working with the natural
hormones that help them enjoy mothering. Instead, social workers,
doctors, and school personnel insist that being responsible to their babies
means going to school or working and earning money. That requires
them to give their babies over to the care of others, except for a few
hours in the rush of morning and in the exhaustion of evening.
In other words, mothers are encouraged to think that being a good mother
means doing what fathers used to do. Since fathers were already found
to be inessential, this demotes the idea of motherhood into the already
disrespected status of fatherhood.
Completing high school and going to work full time are considered signs
of superior responsibility toward children. Mothers who want to delay
their personal advancement and follow the call of nature to be with their
young (to provide safety, nurturance, guidance, and a deep sense of security)
are vilified as irresponsible, lazy, or selfish.
Children are increasingly viewed as expensive belongings with only external
needs, such as a fit body and fashionable apparel. Mothers are expected
to be able to afford them, not care for them directly.
Childcare to the government does not mean mothers. It means people
who are hired to care for other people's children in a group setting.
These caregivers are expected to be able to feed, clothe, and supervise
children. No one expects these low-paid transient workers to understand
subtleties of human expression, to foster creativity, to sensitively connect
to fledgling intellectual curiosity, to love a child enough to sacrifice
their own lives, or to make the knowing of a specific individual child
the central focus of their lives.
Why would the government follow a path that seems so contrary to what is
natural and best for the health and happiness of children? Several
reasons come to mind, but there may be others beyond my ken.
First, accepting a diverse populace is an easy ideal to espouse, but difficult
to embrace. From the instituting of compulsory public school education
and the legal monopoly of mainstream medicine, which began early in our
country's history, mothers have been forced to give their previously held
areas of expertise and rights over to government control.
The official justification was the protection of children from abuse and
neglect, but the outcome has been contrary. Literacy was higher before
compulsory public school was instituted. Schools are now places of
terror for countless children. Many countries have other systems
of medicine that are closer to the traditional means used by mothers, before
the development of present-day Western-style medicine, that are highly
effective in achieving child health and long life spans.
The sometimes unconscious, and other times devious, real reasons for government's
undermining of maternal confidence include: a patriarchal fear of the power
of mothers to shape the next generation; a desire by leaders for a homogeneous
and easily-led populace; and the desire by big business to have a society
that focuses on the production and consumption of goods.
The suffragettes and abolitionists, who comprise the pantheon of the first
women's movement, put quality motherhood at the center of the ideal of
a good and just society. Their activism highlighted EME's values.
They led a matriarchal rebellion.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of recent feminists have exemplified the
anti-mother focus of deeply misogynistic institutions. They have
accelerated the image of women as irrelevant in their female differentness,
as admirable only when they achieve the male model of a mobile, well-trained
servant of ambitious government and greedy business.
If we allow government, hand in glove with big business, to manage our
lives this way, then mothers become simply breeders (increasingly required
to produce able-bodied, intelligent, compliant workers) and men become
sperm donors.
EME derives its inspiration from the wild women and mothers of the first
women's movement and supports a true mothers' movement. We do not
pretend mothers can be independent of help from fathers and other adults,
but we believe that help should be given with reverential respect for the
primary place that mothers hold in the creation of new life and the sustaining
of civilization.
EME believes that mothers are inherently valuable as mothers before all
else and that they become mothers from the moment they conceive a life
inside of them. From that moment on their support and encouragement
to be the best possible mothers should be the primary focus of everyone
around them.
Fathers should again be seen as crucially important, as should grandparents
and other relatives. Government grew tired of playing husband to
abandoned women and grew greedy to play mother, to become the central fixture
in everyone's life. Men need to reassert their rights to be protectors
and providers, to take back from the government their rightful roles.
They should create a safe place for mothers to enjoyably do what comes
naturally.
Mothers would not then, as our feminist foremothers made clear, do nothing
but care for children. They would be guiders, contributors, and creators
in the wider culture, too. They would do so, however, in a way that
is inspired and emboldened by their experiences and perspectives as mothers.
Nonmothering women would be supportive of mothers, not, as is often the
case, denigrators of motherhood.