2002-04-23 - 10:27 a.m.

Mothering

I have been a mother for 42 years. I have been a young mother, an old mother, a school mother, a work mother, a spiritual mother, a bad mother, a good mother, an inexperienced mother, an experienced mother, a gratified mother, a disappointed mother.

All in all, I think that gives me enough grist for the flour I have been grinding. The male is the giver of life. That is very evident not only from Your Word, but from scientific observance. But nurturing life usually is the province of the female. Even in the animals, motherhood involves providing very similar services to the young. Naturally there are exceptions, but among the higher orders of life, food, protection and training are given the young by their mother.

This often (almost always ) necessitates sacrifice on the part of the mother. The more helpless the young is, the more sacrifice is needed. I am sure that mother cats and dogs do not enjoy the process of keeping their young clean. But it is needful. Not only for the good of the young, but for the comfort of the nest. Thankfully we have diapers. Protection can involve any number of things from a fierce growl to OshKosh overalls. Training usually involves the continuation of the habits of the creature. Hunters teach hunting, gatherers teach gathering. And so on and so on. A failure to teach those things could mean extinction.

As a sentient mother who recognized the existence of a creator, when I read the manual that creator(You)wrote, I recognized the validity of the commands and suggestions for the well being of my young. Did I always follow that manual? Sadly, no. Did I always know the rightness of the manual? Sadly, yes.

As humans, we tend to train in the things we deem important. If social correctness is supreme in my life, that is what I will teach my young. If survival at any cost is important, that is what will be taught. I imagine even negative values are taught. A thief would probably teach the ways of thievery. A harlot, the ways of harlotry. A queen, the ways of rule.

All training of course is subject to the acceptance of the one being trained, but mothers are generally very sucessful at teaching what they know.

I have known exceptions to that observation. Too numerous to count in the human realm. Our calico Miss Jane was an excellent mother. She fulfilled all the teaching duties well. Cleanliness, care, hunting, all these were taught carefully to her batches of kittens. But the teaching sometimes didn't carry on in her children. I remember one of her female kittens delivered her first batch of kittens in a driving rainstorm, right out in the middle of the backyard in the mud and came back to the doorstep, looking for a handout. Not a motherly bone in that body. She wasn't even interested in them as we tried to keep them alive. A couple made it, a couple didn't. Another of Miss Jane's kittens, Sherbet was given away and was a very neglectful mother. One of her neglected kittens was given back to us a few years later, and became Tiffany, a splendid mother.

So apparently the line of good mothers is not always continuous. One of my favorite mother observations has been the coocoo bird mothers. They lay their eggs in other birds' nests, let the other birds rear the coocoo bird babies, and the babies fly off to do their coocoobird thing. I have known human coocoo bird mothers.

So what can observing mothers do? If no advice is asked for or wanted, nothing but cry out to You. You alone can change a heart.

EE's devotional

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