The Mother Trip

This book starts with a wonderful quote;
"one must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star" Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Here are some interesting excerpts from this book;
"Having children changes our lives dramatically. But children also come at times when we are looking for change. In her book, Summoning the Fates, the spiritual leader Z. Budapest notes that women often get married and have children at auspicious "fate dates"- predestined developmental or astrological ages: 19, 28, 33, 34, and 37 to 38."
"Here are some questions we can ask ourselves during times of transition in our lives:
Where am I feeling burdened, restricted and limited in my life?
What in my life makes me feel competent?
Where am I wasting time, energy, or money?
What do I enjoy?
What is my favorite time of day? Why?
Where is my passion?
In what areas of my life am I still living out someone else's "shoulds"?
Do I see motherhood as all-giving, or can I make room for learning to mother myself as well as others?
In what ways do I feel like a kid bull-shitting in a grown-up world?
In what ways do I feel as if I am juggling dissonant parts of my life?
Which of these balls can I set down? What am I afraid of in doing so?
What do I feel I have "sacrificed" for my current work/family/lifestyle?"
""But there is a difference betwen housework, which is thankless, and homecare. When we do homecare, it's because we want to, not because we have to. We take care of our living spaces so that they'll look wicked and feel like home. Sometimes the idea of home as the place where we are safe and cared for seems nostalgic or one-sided. It describes the husband's experience of being cared for by his housewife. But we can also create our own living spaces where we feel safe as women. In the age of the telephone, the television and the internet, the walls between our homes and the outside world are weakened. Distant wars take place in our living rooms. Stalkers need only know our log-in names to harass us. And because domestic violence is still so prevalent, statistically speaking, we are safer in dark alleys than we are in our own homes. If you have ever been in an abusive reltationship, then you know that housework is what you do to keep your partner happy and avoid an attack. Homecare is what you do when you sweep him out the door. Housework is what you do when you wash the television screen with windex even though you don't watch the thing yourself. Homecare is what you do when you designnate a certain time of day when the tv is always off- or better yet, throw it out into the middle of the street. We care for our homes by making them places where we can be ourselves. If this means we keep them in varying states of chaos, that is what we need. If this means our homes are tidy, but we can write our dreams on the walls, that is what we need. If we can only be ourselves inhomes that are spotless all of the time, then that is what we need. Caring for our spaces doesn't have to be drugery. If there is something you need done in your house that you can't stand to do yourself, please hire a neighborhood kid to come do it. A couple of hours a week isn't likely to break you. When we stop doing drudgery housework and start doing homecare, our homes become nurturing places where we and our family-folk can build strong selves capable of walking tall in the outside world."
" as far as I am concerned, there are only three things we have to do for our kids: NURTURE them in a child-friendly culture or subculture; give APPROPRIATE LIMITS and BOUNDARIES; and REFUSE TO ABANDON THEM. Will following these three rulse guarantee you ever-happy, problem-free children? NO. There is no such thing as an ever-happy, problem-free person. If there were, she would probably die of boredom."
"Once, while in the process of hiring a family law attorney, I noticed an "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" poster on the lawyer's office wall. "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" Alice was asking>
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to", said the Cat.
"I don't much care where-" said Alice
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go", said the Cat.
"-so long as I get somewhere", Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that", said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough".
I smiled when I read this and thought it somewhat apropos. I didn't notice the poster again until I had spent ten thousand dollars in legal fees and two and a half years in court following my smiling lawyer through a labyrinth of official incompetence. I had ignored her poster and imagined three simple tests, eight steps, a happy ending. But none of the tests were simple, none of the outcomes predictable. I got somewhere all right. But nowhere near my intended destination."
"Can someone please explain to me why it's more socially acceptable to be a twenty-something slacker with no kid than it is to be a stay at home mom? No, wait. I want that same person to expalin to me why it is more socially acceptable to be the Air Force hack who drops cluster bombs on small countries than it is to be a mom who has a paying job."
"it breaks my heart when mothers tell me they do not have the time to take care of themselves, do not have the energy to find support, or do not have the freedom to drop everything once in awhile and do something for themselves. But I watch these mothers. I know them. They are the same women who always have the time to help a first grader with her homework, who always conjure up the energy to feed a hungry infant in the middle of the night, and who are always available to drop everything on a moments notice and rush to a schoolyard where their toddler has fallen off a paly structure or skinned his knee. We don't have a lot of time or energy to spare, but we are masters of making time, of conjuring energy, of demanding accommodation when our children need us. We have to be."
"I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am the mother and the daughter..
For I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and boldness.
I am shameless; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear..
I am the one who has been hated everywhere
and who has been loved everywhere....
You honor me..and you whisper against me.. For I am the one who alone exists, and I have no one who will judge me.
Attributed to Eve/Lilith, The Gnosis Archive"