Retaining Sovereignty within the Confines of Modern Motherhood
Trista Hendren
Maintaining sovereignty as a mother seems to be an impossible task for many women in capitalist patriarchal societies. I saw a quote on Facebook recently from Mamá Kaur that said, “It’s not motherhood that’s exhausting. What’s exhausting is to nurture in a world that doesn’t care for and support its mothers.” That rang true for me.
When I was a single mother especially, the last thing I felt was sovereign. As I wrote in Single Mothers Speak on Patriarchy, “It’s hard to feel like a Goddess when you’re worried sick about how you are going to feed your kids. You can do all the affirmations and self-help work you want, but it is a rare woman who feels empowered living in poverty.”52
Under patriarchy, there is no value in raising children and we are expected to martyr ourselves going at it alone. Glennon Doyle recently wrote, “I burned the memo presenting responsible motherhood as martyrdom. I decided that the call of motherhood is to become a model, not a martyr. I unbecame a mother slowly dying in her children’s name and became a responsible mother: one who shows her children how to be fully alive. A broken family is a family in which any member must break herself into pieces to fit in. A whole family is one in which each member can bring her full self to the table knowing that she will always be both held and free.”53 Like many women, I must continue to break the mold that has been handed down for generations in my family. No more broken women. No more broken families.
Once I had my 2nd child, I found it impossible to work full-time in the US. The system is set up to fail mothers and children.54When my children were young, I had very little help from their father. I soon became a single mother, which left me financially destitute, albeit (mostly) free from his relentless tyranny. Were it not for the help of my mother, I am not sure I would have made it through those years.
Five years ago, I moved with my children to Norway to live with my current husband. Living here has given me a glimpse of some ways women can retain sovereignty in Western cultures with structural support. I will also share what I perceive to be some limitations of the Norwegian system.
I do not believe motherhood was ever meant to be a solitary affair. Being here with my current partner, who does more than his share of the housework, makes me wish I had a different experience when my children were young.
My husband had paternity leave with both of his boys. You can see today the effect this has had on their relationship, even as they have grown into men. This is increasingly common here—and it is mostly paid—split between parents however it works best for their family. In contrast, I did not have any maternity leave after giving birth to my son—and paid into a 6-week (very expensive) insurance plan when I had my daughter.
In Norway, men are expected to be full and equal partners. The first birthday party my 9-year-old daughter attended here caught me completely off guard. The father of her friend was a successful CEO. What was he doing when we returned to pick her up? Vacuuming and (cheerfully) cleaning up after 30 girls! I can’t recall ever seeing that in the United States.
A few months later, I had arranged for a play date with another girl for my daughter. The father answered the door. I inquired about the whereabouts of the mother, and was told she was out with friends! He was there taking care of the children and house on his own. Quite frankly, this was so odd to me that I almost did not leave my daughter there. My husband assured me this was quite normal, and after talking with him for a while, I felt at ease.
Today, I often take for granted how much my husband does around the house and with the children. However, I still vividly remember our first parent-teacher conference. My husband went without being asked and fully participated in the hour-long discussion. As we walked out, I started crying. For years, I had only seen other mothers at these meetings at our American schools.
There are also extensive structural support systems in place in Norway. One of which is (almost) free daycare for all from the get-go—as well as generous sick days.
I do not believe that the early childcare is ideal for the overall development of children—although it does free up many things for parents here. Norway also does not have a close extended family network. That said, I think Scandinavia is about as good as it gets for parents in the Western world.
I would also like to point to my (adopted) family in Lebanon as another way forward. I believe the village community-based parenting would have really benefited all of us when my kids were young. The children belong to everyone. Families get together for extended late lunches where they share cooking tasks. I suppose it depends on the family, but I have never experienced a family anywhere were there is more support, joy and sense of belonging—despite Lebanon’s decades of war and economic hardship.55
That said, there is almost no structural support in Lebanon for mothers, so if you marry into the wrong family, things can be quite disastrous. My friend Nohad Nassif wrote a brilliant book addressing this.56 She believes Universal Basic Income is the answer to this—and I agree with her. Sovereignty in motherhood should include all women.
That said, I wonder what going further back can teach us.
Leslene della-Madre reminds us that, “Isis veneration spread as far east as Afghanistan, to the Black Sea, as well as to what is now western Europe in Portugal and as far north as England. It is Her legacy that has been inherited by christianity as revealed in the icons of the Black Madonnas found all over Europe; Isis and Her son Horus suckling at Her breast are most likely the prototypes for Mary and Jesus.”57
So what is the psychological impact over the last 2,000 years of changing the once-sovereign images of Isis suckling Horus to passive images of Mary with Jesus? As someone who breastfed my children for over four years, I can attest that this is a holy and sacred act. I still look in reverence when I see a woman breastfeeding her baby. But it also takes a lot out of you. I have never been so thin (or exhausted) as in my post-breastfeeding years. And we don’t live in a world that helps mothers rest and recover.
Mary Condren wrote, “We now have enough evidence to suggest that there have been radical consequences for women when the dominant cultural symbol systems are exclusively male, or feature women whose identity is entirely derivative or serving a patriarchal status quo, i.e., many representations of the Virgin Mary. The absence of empowering female images both reflects and affects the subordination of women. This very lack shapes and deforms the way our drives are constructed so that both body and soul are put in the service of the patriarchal social order.”58
Growing up in the church, I learned that my role in life was to be subservient to men. I saw my mother abide by all the rules. (Until she didn’t.) What would my mother’s experience have been if Isis/Auset were her archetype instead of the Catholic Mary she grew up with? Could she have attained sovereignty earlier in her life?
In contrast, Isis is said to have appeared at the sanctuary of Isis at Philae and said, “I am Nature, the universal Mother, mistress of all the elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead, queen also of the immortals, the single manifestation of all gods and goddesses that are.”59
In a paper by Marianna Delray discussing Isis and Mary, she explains, “Isis was worshipped as the saviour goddess, and it was believed that her divine milk gave protection and reviving power… Isis was accredited with numerous powers and even in later times she continued to be the goddess of immense importance in Egypt and beyond. Indeed, following Hellenisation, the cult of Isis spread throughout the Mediterranean, assimilating into the cults of other Mediterranean nursing deities… Lucius describes Isis as ‘holy and eternal saviouress of the human race, ever beneficent in cherishing mortals, who indeed bestowed the sweet affection of a mother upon the tribulations of the unfortunate.’ In the Metamorphoses, Isis speaks about herself as the ‘mother of the entire universe, mistress of all the elements and remarks that while she is one ‘divinity,’ she is worshipped by ‘ten thousand names’ throughout the world.”60
This sounds very different from what we know about Mother Mary. For those of us who grew up in the church, the idea of a savior GODDESS is quite a remarkable thealogy to behold.
Rev. Dr. Karen Tate wrote, “We’re allowed to have the Great Mother in our spiritual paradigm if she is docile and tame like Mary, or as the Goddess that saves women in childbirth or men from bombs and typhoons. But would patriarchy have us reclaim the full meaning of the Queen Mother of Compassion, or any Goddess, if it meant that embodying her might bring our world into balance and emulating her caused women to no longer serve the status quo?”61
Modern motherhood really needs to move beyond the status quo. There are very few places on earth that really provide a foundation where it works well—for women and children. In the interim, building our own ‘villages’ with like-minded sister-friends may provide better support.62
My children are teenagers now, so my mothering is much less time-consuming. It mostly consists of being present for them and guiding them to make good choices for their futures. I have tried to raise my children as sovereign beings since they were very small. While this was challenging at times, I am reaping the benefits now via a trusting and open relationship with my kids and their friends. My hope is that in reclaiming my own sovereignty, I will teach them to do the same.
Details of On the Wings of Isis are found here.