mother and child bond – Feminism and Religion

Two Poems by Alice Bullard, PhD

Dear FAR Community, These poems arise from feminist spiritual practice with syncretic dimensions. The Irish-American Catholicism of my family mixes with the popular American confessional-style that charts and embodies emerging spirit, yet this very American path of self-styling and narrative self-creation has been refined via the influence of Zen practices, originally via the influence of the Soto practictioners of Green Gulch in Marin and then later via the teachings of Vietnamese refugee and Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. The feminism here is deeply personal, political, and spiritual.

This post was inspired by one written my Janet Maika’i Rudolph about Alice Munro which you can read here.

About Alice Munro: I experienced the revelations of her daughter very personally … I’ve read Alice Munro since I was very young and used to read my parent’s copy of the New Yorker. Because we shared the name Alice and also shared the cold Midwestern prairie though she was further north and across the border, I had always felt some affinity for her but also I felt something I really didn’t get. To me her stories took inexplicable turns and now we know why. Her daughter’s experience is dreadful and probably much more common than anyone would care to admit. That Alice Munro was famous doesn’t make that type of negligent mothering something rare.

Arianrhod; Postnatal Trauma and the Rejecting of Patriarchy by Kelle BanDea

Mothers and sons. The stories that make up the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, a Welsh medieval collection of Celtic legends, are in large part about mothers and sons. Mostly about their separation. Mabon is stolen from Modron. Rhiannon’s son Pryderi is twice captured. Branwen’s baby is murdered. In Arianrhod’s tale, the Fourth Branch, it is she, the mother, who rejects her son.

The Safety of a Mother’s Arms by Gina Messina-Dysert

Earlier this year in May, I was honored to be a speaker at the American Mothers National Convention. While attending the conference I heard a young mom speak about her own experience of being held hostage as a child and the feeling of total security she felt when embraced in her mother’s arms for the first time following the terrifying ordeal. Listening to her led me to recall my own experience of feeling that security with my mother. When I was a child and needed to be comforted, there was no one else who made me feel safe the way my mom did. However, the safety of my mom’s arms did not end when I became a teenager or an adult. Up until the day my mom died, I still cuddled with her like a little girl. I felt spiritually connected to my mother, it was through her loving arms that I found security and felt truly connected to God.

There has been much exploration of the spiritual and emotional bond between mother and child. Becoming a mother to an adopted toddler, I wondered if my daughter and I would share the same bond that I shared with my mother. Baby S did not grow in my womb, we did not bond for nine months while she was in utero, and she had a history of multiple foster families before coming home to me and my husband. Continue reading “The Safety of a Mother’s Arms by Gina Messina-Dysert”