Category Archives: Motherhood

Who is Lilith?

Leave a reply

Lilith. An enigma.

We have heard so much about her.  But somehow, it seems like the more we hear, the less we know.

Who really is Lilith?

In order to understand who Lilith is, we have to go much further back than most people are willing to go.  To the very beginning.

Because as long as we try to understand Lilith through the very limited lens that most people use to try to understand her, we never will.

Lilith as Divine Mother

Lilith is the divine mother in embodiment.  That part of God that the world refuses to acknowledge.  The feminine part of God.  That’s Lilith. She has lived many lifetimes on earth and gone by many names – Isis, Semiramis, Queen of Sheba, Medusa, Jezebel, Cleopatra, and many other names lost in history.

Unless we look at Lilith through this lens, we will keep going round and round, never quite understanding who she is and why she faced so much hatred, fear and opposition.

Lilith is the mother of all life.  She is the creatrix, experiencing life within her creation.  She is God the Mother, consort to God the Father.  She is the foundation of all life. 

This is the reality about who Lilith is that has been hidden and denied by those who do not accept that God has a feminine side, those who only see God as masculine.  They have tried to demonise Lilith, tried to erase her, and tried to separate her from her children.

But still, she keeps rising.  The more they try to bury her, the more she rises.  In a world that tells us that we have a father but no mother, Lilith is gently calling us back to herself, back to her mother’s love. 

In Christianity, Lilith is the Holy Spirit.  That mysterious third person of God that everyone knows exists but can’t quite explain or understand?  That’s the divine mother.  That’s Lilith.

In a patriarchal world that refuses to acknowledge the divine mother and has tried to erase her from the collective consciousness, Lilith is hated and demonised.  But Lilith refuses to bow down to a patriarchal society that demands that women submit to men. She willingly gave up paradise rather than submit, and for that she was punished, hated and demonised.

All the lies we have heard about Lilith were invented by the patriarchy.  They called her a demon, a vampire, a witch, and a child killer.  In reality, it’s the patriarchy that has been killing her children. 

But she has never given up.  She refuses to go away, and, in the end, it is the patriarchy that must give way to her.  You cannot erase the creatrix.  You can tell lies about her so that people fear her and run away from her, but you cannot erase her.  She will always find a way to rise up.

And she is rising up today.  Women are starting to wake up, to reject the role that has been assigned to them by the patriarchy, and to realise that they have as much power and autonomy as Lilith did. 

Lilith as High Priestess

Proverbs 1:20-21

Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
    in the markets she raises her voice;
at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
    at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:

Lilith is Wisdom, the woman described in Proverbs chapter 1.  She is the voice crying out in the street and in the markets, and at the entrance of the city gates.  As the handmaiden of the goddess Ishtar, Lilith went out into the streets to invite men to the temple to worship the divine mother through sacred sexuality.  This is Lilith as high priestess of the divine mother.

One of the most demonised aspects of Lilith was her sexuality.  Because she refused to accept the patriarchy’s view of female sexuality, she was demonised by a patriarchy that fears female autonomy. 

In a world that feared female sexual autonomy, Lilith was known to be promiscuous and was said to have been a sacred prostitute in the temple of Ishtar.  In those days, sex was seen as sacred and a way to worship the divine.  But when the patriarchy took over, they turned sex into something evil, something to be suppressed, especially in women.

Today, many deny that sacred prostitution ever existed, because they cannot conceive of a reality where sex is seen not as evil or bad, but as a way to worship the divine.

Lilith, as high priestess, reminds us that sexuality is sacred and a form of worship.  She wants us to know that women are not objects made for men’s pleasure.  She reminds us to honour ourselves, each other and God through sacred sexuality.  By freeing sex from the false beliefs created by the patriarchy, we are honouring Lilith.

Lilith as Samael’s Wife

Lilith has always been described as Samael’s wife.  The truth is that Samael was the divine father in embodiment, and therefore Lilith’s divine consort.  Together, they worked to free humanity from the many lies created by the false gods and fallen angels.

Lilith and Samael were in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve were imprisoned in a false reality created by the false god.  Lilith and Samael were responsible for awakening Adam and Eve by telling them the truth about who they were.

The false God had kept them trapped in a false reality in which they were created to serve him.  But Lilith and Samael helped them understand their divine origins as children of the divine father and mother.  They gave them the knowledge that the false god never wanted them to have.

Unfortunately, in the biblical retelling of what happened in the Garden of Eden, the truth has been kept hidden, and instead, a story concocted about how the serpent deceived Eve, who then went on to convince Adam.  This was a clever way of blaming women for all the problems that face the earth, something that has continued to this day.  This was also a clever strategy for justifying the subjugation of women, on the grounds that it was the woman who caused the fall of man.

The truth is that Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden because they had gained knowledge that they were never meant to have.  They understood that they were not servants of God, created to serve him, but rather they had their origins in the divine itself.

Samael and Lilith were also known as the King and Queen of Hell, which is not actually a negative thing.  Humanity had been deceived into fearing death through the belief that they would receive eternal punishment for disobeying god.   Lilith and Samael helped humanity overcome the fear of death.  Death is simply a transition into a different place where beings go to heal and prepare for the next lifetime.

As King and Queen of Hell, Samael and Lilith acted as righteous judges who helped human beings evaluate their lives on earth and prepare for their next embodiment.

Lilith as Demon, Vampire and Witch

In early stories about Lilith, she was known as someone who helped women during childbirth.  When she refused to submit to the patriarchy, she was turned into a vampire who drank the blood of children.   This is how the myth of Lilith as a vampire and mother of all vampires began.  It was nothing more than patriarchal fear-mongering.

Lilith was also called a succubus, which is a sexual demon.  Men were forbidden from sleeping alone in case Lilith came at night to steal their sexual energy.   Men in those days lived with a lot of guilt due to their repressed sexuality, and who better to blame for their nightly emissions than a woman?  Apparently, women are to blame for everything, even men’s bodily functions.  This pattern of blaming women continues even today.

Lilith was also accused of being a witch, probably due to her understanding of natural healing that she used to help women during childbirth.  Women have always been accused of being witches for having abilities that men can’t control, such as natural healing, wisdom, knowledge, intuition and magical abilities through their connection with the divine.

Since men could not control these gifts, they termed them as witchcraft and burned such women at the stake.  Women were thus taught to repress their natural gifts, to keep their heads down and do what they were supposed to do. 

Although witch hunting is something that is supposed to have ended after the Dark Ages, it is still practised today in many parts of the world.  Violence against women has always been one of the most effective weapons the patriarchy wields against women, and it is what has allowed them to control women for so long.

Other forms of violence against women that are used to control and silence them include domestic violence, rape, femicide, female genital mutilation and public undressing of women.  What happened to Lilith is yet another example of how the patriarchy treats women who refuse to submit.

Another example of how the patriarchy demonises women is found in Queen Jezebel, who is today referred to as ‘the spirit of Jezebel’.  Her legacy has been transformed from a powerful queen and high priestess into a demon who is guilty of all manner of things.  She was accused of sexual immorality, even though there is no evidence that Jezebel was ever immoral.  Men in the church love to blame her for their inability to lead moral lives by claiming to have been influenced by ‘the spirit of Jezebel’.  How very convenient for men to have someone to blame instead of taking responsibility for their actions.

Lilith Today

Lilith is awakening.  The dark goddess, whom many tried to bury, is rising out of the ashes, like the proverbial phoenix.  She is calling on the world to remember.  To remember the divine mother, whom they erased and refuse to acknowledge.

We are seeing Lilith more and more in the entertainment industry, in movies and video games.  People are becoming curious and starting to ask: Who is Lilith?

Many of the answers we are getting are leaving us with more questions.  This is because we are not being told the real truth of who Lilith is.  Unless we acknowledge Lilith as the divine mother, we will have more questions than answers, and we will not be satisfied with the answers we receive.

The dark mother is arising, and she wants the world to know who she is, to dig back into their collective unconscious and remember their origins.  Because as long as we refuse to acknowledge the divine mother who is the source of all life, we cannot hope to move forward on our spiritual journey. 

Our healing will only begin when we start looking at the forgotten aspect of the divine and start the long journey towards remembering who She is.

Abortion: Beyond Pro-life and Pro-choice Narratives

Leave a reply

The pro-life and pro-choice narratives have been used to describe the very complex topic of abortion and it is time we started questioning this.  Any time you find a complex topic being narrowed down into two opposing narratives, you should immediately smell a rat because you can be sure that someone somewhere is taking advantage of the ensuing division.  In the case of abortion, the polarization has greatly benefitted politicians who take advantage of people’s almost cult-like belief in whichever side they happen to believe in.  In the US, abortion has been raised in status to almost the single most important issue during elections.  Many people there vote for candidates based on this one issue, with considerations such as integrity or other more important issues fading into the background. 

Abortion has been portrayed as a black or white issue with only two possible angles from which it can be viewed.  You are either for it or against it.  There is nothing in between.  There is no space for a nuanced view of such a complex topic.  This extremist view can only cause division while the real issues get lost somewhere therein.  It’s interesting to note the complete lack of compassion in the debate.  We might as well be talking about an inanimate object for all the compassion that is shown.  While the debate is supposed to be about the rights of women, the result has unfortunately been to reduce women to simple, uncomplicated beings who need to be told what to do with their bodies.  The debate has become about two opposing views fighting for supremacy and the woman who is supposedly being fought for has somehow faded into the background.  A woman’s fertility is not and never has been a political issue.  And yet it has been politicized and turned into a battleground that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with women anymore.  Are we still talking about helping women control reproduction?  If we are, why is abortion the only option on the table?   We have to focus our attention on women and ask ourselves what they want and what they need.  We also need to look at the false narratives and assumptions that are preventing us from holistically looking at this issue.  As long as the foundation on which we base our argument is wrong, we cannot expect to arrive at the right conclusions.

The debate has become about two opposing views fighting for supremacy and the woman who is supposedly being fought for has somehow faded into the background. 

Someone once said that if you want to keep people passive and obedient, all you need to do is strictly limit the parameters of acceptable opinion and then allow lively debate within these parameters.  This gives people the impression that there is freedom of speech while reinforcing the system that creates these limitations.  This is what has happened with the abortion “debate”.  The only thing we are allowed to talk about is whether we are pro-life or pro-choice.  These are the parameters that define almost every discussion on abortion.  The truth is that there are many different ways to look at this issue and the right conclusion can only be arrived at by considering all the angles rather than forcing people to choose a side.

False assumptions

The abortion debate is based on several false assumptions.  For example, the question of when life begins has been used to determine when it is acceptable to have an abortion and when it becomes unacceptable.  But the idea that life “begins” is itself a false assumption that immediately sends the debate in the wrong direction.  The reality is that life is an ongoing process that does not begin or end when one enters or exits the planet.  Once we understand that a person does not start existing at the point of birth and will not cease to exist at the point of death, then we can start looking at abortion with more rationality and without the hysteria.  Many of us have an inner knowing about the ongoingness of life, hence the concept of previous lifetimes.  The concept of reincarnation is held by many people although it is very much denied in the Christian religion.  If we could only be open to this idea, we would start seeing through the false assumptions that underline the abortion debate.   Once we understand that people are constantly coming into embodiment and leaving embodiment, then we will understand that life does not begin at conception or some point thereafter.  The person who is being born already existed before they entered into embodiment.  The answer, therefore, lies in looking at human beings as spiritual beings and life as an ongoing process of birth and rebirth that allows us to have different experiences that lead to our growth.

The abortion debate is based on a lack of understanding of what a human being is.  One of the central questions of the abortion debate is whether the foetus is a human being or a mass of cells.  This is the result of a materialistic way of looking at human beings.  If you think about it, this very mindset is the source of many of the problems on this planet, from racism to inequality.  When we look at human beings as if they are nothing more than the bodies in which they reside, we cannot help but treat them differently based on their outward, observable features.  But when we acknowledge that human beings are spiritual beings and the bodies we occupy are simply the vehicles that allow us to interact with the physical realm, we can then be ready to look at the abortion debate in a higher way.  If we consider the fact that “we are made in God’s image”, then we realize that God is not a physical being but a spiritual being.  This is the mystery behind the idea that we are made in God’s image.  We are spiritual beings like our creator and we do not have our beginning or end on this planet but we have an existence beyond this planet.  Therefore, the question of whether life begins at fertilization or after the cells start multiplying is a false narrative that is used to confuse people and trap them in a lower way of looking at things. 

It has been said that you cannot solve a problem at the same level of consciousness in which it was created.  You have to go to a higher level of consciousness to solve the problem.  People are obsessed with exactly when life begins.  Pro-life advocates insist that it is at fertilisation while pro-choice advocates insist that it is at birth.  None of these positions is correct.  As mentioned earlier, this argument comes from a lack of understanding of what a human being is.  A human being is not the body they inhabit, therefore asking when life begins is asking the wrong question.  Am I, therefore, saying that the body does not matter?  Of course not, the body matters because it is the vessel that enables us to exist in this world.  My purpose is to correct the foundation on which the abortion debate is based.   Once the foundation is correct, then you can hope to arrive at the right conclusion, not by looking at the issue simplistically as is currently being done but by considering all the assumptions that go into discussion.

The free will of the mother

Pro-life advocates and some governments insist that the foetus has a right to be born.  Once conception takes place, the woman has set herself on an unstoppable path and she has no choice but to bring the child into embodiment.  But if we look at the issue from the standpoint that the child already existed even before they were born, we realize that bringing the child into embodiment is something a woman takes upon herself as a loving act of service towards the child.  Bringing up a child is not a joke as I pointed out in my previous article.  Bringing a child into the world is a commitment you make to spending a large chunk of your life supporting the child in order to allow them to experience life on this planet.  This is not a small matter and therefore it cannot be forced upon anyone. If a woman falls pregnant by accident and for whatever reason feels that they are not ready to commit to bringing up the child, then no one can or should force them to do so.  The foetus does not have a right to be born by someone unwilling to do so.  If we lived in an ideal world, there would never be the question of anyone becoming pregnant against their will.  Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world and many people do get pregnant against their wish.  It is therefore an unfortunate fact of life that many women do need to get an abortion to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy.  This is the area we need to be focusing on: why is it that women are still unable to control reproduction today and still find themselves needing abortions?  We have to look at this issue in the long term and come up with better solutions for women.  But the underlying fact is that the foetus does not have a right to be born by a woman who in some way is unable or unwilling to take on the task.

Right to choose?

Pro-choice advocates often talk about a woman’s right to choose.  A woman indeed has a right to choose, but this should not be confused with a woman’s right to an abortion.  These are two completely different things.  A woman’s right to choose is often portrayed as the same thing as a woman’s right to an abortion but they are not the same thing.  Abortion is just one means by which we enable a woman to control reproduction, but it is not the only way or even the best way.  We need to separate these two issues in our minds.  Those who supposedly fight for a woman’s right to choose are not giving her much choice.  They present abortion as the only option while glossing over any other options that might make abortion unnecessary.  It is almost as if abortion has developed a life of its own and become an end in itself, not a means to an end.  Have we forgotten that the real goal is to help a woman choose when and how many children she wants to have?  What other options exist for women?  What about birth control?  Why aren’t we out there fighting for free, safe, government-provided birth control if we are serious about a woman’s right to choose?  Why do we have tunnel vision that leads to abortion as the only thing that guarantees a woman’s right to choose?  I don’t think any woman sets out purposefully to have an abortion.  Women look for abortions only because they find themselves cornered with a pregnancy they do not want.  How can we help women not end up in this position in the first place?  Our role should be to support women in controlling reproduction as painlessly and efficiently as possible.  The focus on abortion to the exclusion of everything else is a distraction from what the real focus should be. 

Is abortion right or wrong?

Whether abortion is right or wrong is not the point.  When we focus too much on this, we lose sight of the bigger question which is: why do women seek abortion in the first place?  Why would a woman want to terminate a pregnancy?  The reason women seek abortions is not because they want to have a painful procedure (physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually) just for the fun of it.  It is because they find themselves in an untenable situation.  The reasons are many and varied including:  too young to be a mother, do not want more children, birth control failure, unstable relationship, wrong timing, change of mind, ashamed, cannot afford a child, rape, incest, the relationship ended, etc.  We cannot know all the reasons women want the procedure.  Trying to moralize is not going to help them out of the situation.  The rightness or wrongness of abortion should not be the focus but rather how to help women solve the problem and how to ensure that going forward, women are not finding themselves in this situation.  Should we accept that women should continue experiencing the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual toll of abortion or should we find ways of helping women control reproduction in ways that ensure they never find themselves cornered into seeking abortions?  How do we ensure no one ever has to get to the point where they need an abortion by equipping women with the tools necessary to control their fertility?   When we treat abortion as a religious issue or a legal issue or a women’s rights issue, we miss the bigger picture and come up with bad, myopic solutions.   If we could only put ourselves in the shoes of women seeking abortions, we would understand that it is not something anyone would do willingly. 

Women are unfortunately used to being talked down to and being told what is and isn’t right for them.  People always feel the need to tell women what is and isn’t right, rather than giving them solutions that work and are healthy for them.  Our bodies are seen as are objects that people feel entitled to control and make rules for.  This is something that continuously works against women because we end up with solutions that are not in our best interest.  It is as if our bodies are the battlefield for forces that do not care about us or our well-being but only care about power and control.   The abortion debate is not really about our well-being but about who gets to control us and profit from us.  If it was about us, then we would not be having discussions that centre around legislating our bodies.  Those who are against abortion want to make rules about what we can and can’t do with our bodies.  Those who are for abortion seem to be fighting for our right to have a harmful procedure instead of effectively equipping us to not need to have one in the first place.  The discussion seems to be based on the assumption that someone needs to make laws concerning women’s reproduction.  Why is it that in the 21st century when all other areas of life have advanced so much, we still have not managed to control reproduction and have to rely on crude methods to manage it?  It is because women are not a priority on this planet.  It is because it is acceptable for women to experience what would be unacceptable for men.  I’m quite certain that if it was men who carried pregnancies, we would not be discussing whether or not to allow abortions because technologies would be in place to ensure no one experienced unwanted pregnancies in the first place.  We continue blaming women for their fertility instead of enabling them to control it.  We need to get past this acceptance of bad solutions for women. 

Our bodies are seen as objects that people feel entitled to control and make rules for.  This is something that continuously works against women because we end up with solutions that are not in our best interest.  It is as if our bodies are the battlefield for forces that do not care about us or our well-being but only care about power and control. 

Violence against women

It says quite a lot about our state of evolution that we still cannot control reproduction and have to rely on crude methods to get rid of pregnancies.  Reproduction seems to have been left behind in the dark ages when we used to perform crude operations on the human body.  All other aspects of medicine have developed to the technologically advanced practices we have today.  Meanwhile, we continue to rip babies out of mothers’ wombs as a form of birth control.  Is this really what we deserve as women or can we demand a better level of care?  Our bodies have always been the objects of violence.  Why is it acceptable that women should experience yet more violence under the guise of controlling reproduction?  Because it doesn’t matter what anyone says, abortion is a form of violence against women in that a child has to be forced out of the womb.  It is not a gentle procedure by any stretch of the imagination.  I understand very well that it is all women have at the moment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look at its merits and demerits.  By politicizing the issue, we are forced to hide the fact that abortion is not a pleasant experience and only look at it as something to legislate.  Why is it acceptable that women should routinely have unpleasant procedures?  Why can’t we demand better for ourselves?  Is this the best we can come up with?  We always hear about the sanctity of the unborn child, but what about the sanctity of the mother?  As much as I support a woman’s right to choose, I find it hard to accept that abortion is the best we can come up with.  If we put our minds to it, we can come up with a much better, universal method of birth control that ensures that no woman ever has to suffer through an unwanted pregnancy or abortion.  That truly is something worth fighting for. 

The shame surrounding women’s bodies

Women are taught from a very young age to feel ashamed of their bodies.  We are taught to hide and be secretive about our bodies because our bodily processes are supposed to be shameful.  We feel shame when our bodies start changing and we suddenly become subject to the male gaze.  We feel shame when we start menstruating.  We feel shame when we become pregnant, especially young women who become pregnant before their time.  We feel shame during childbirth when strangers peer at our private parts.  We feel shame when we go through menopause with the cliched portrayal of menopausal women as angry and somehow repulsive.  Women carry a lot of shame and it is this shame that surrounds the topic of abortion.  Why do some people fight so hard to stop abortion?  It is because of the desire to punish women by forcing them to bear the consequences of their secret misdeeds.  Female reproduction is not taken as a natural part of the human experience.  It is considered a shameful experience and it has been used to keep women down.  There is usually a lot of disgust directed towards women’s reproduction.  We express disgust towards women who have more children than they can take care of, especially poor women in developing countries.  We express disgust towards young women who get unwanted pregnancies.  We express disgust towards women who experience their sexuality in ways we do not approve of.  We express disgust towards women seeking abortions as if a woman wanting to get rid of an unwanted, unplanned pregnancy is something we cannot comprehend.  Is this really what women deserve for their God-given ability to bear children? 

Way forward

In my opinion, the first thing we need to do is educate people on how to manage reproduction.  Let us stop approaching reproduction as something shameful that needs to be controlled through legislation.  We need to educate both boys and girls about how to prevent pregnancy from the time they reach childbearing age.  Let us openly teach about birth control methods in school so that everyone is equipped with knowledge on how to control their bodies.  This should not be approached as something to be ashamed of, as if pregnancy is something unnatural.  Today, parents have to keep their fingers crossed when their children become teenagers hoping that they make it through this period without getting pregnant.  We need to stop crossing our fingers and take practical, common sense measures. Secondly, we need our governments to provide safe, long-term, preferably non-hormonal birth control to all women from the time they reach childbearing age.  We don’t need to wait for girls to become pregnant and then punish them or wring our hands in despair.  We need to approach female reproduction as a natural part of life that should be dealt with realistically.  Mothers should be empowered to lovingly introduce their daughters to birth control as soon as they reach childbearing age, with no shame attached to this.  Governments should facilitate this process by providing free birth control. This is how much we need to normalize birth control and teach girls to take charge of their fertility, just the same way we teach them to take charge of other aspects of their bodies.  Last but not least, abortion should be a last resort when all else fails.  It should not be presented as the only way or even the best method of controlling reproduction.  We have to openly acknowledge the shortcomings of abortion, even as we accept that it is all we have at present to deal with unwanted pregnancies.  We need to focus more on prevention rather than cure.  After all, pregnancy is not a surprising or unexpected phenomenon.  With education and the provision of free birth control, we can control reproduction such that no one ever has to experience an unwanted pregnancy or abortion. 

Hatred of the Mother

Leave a reply

When my eldest daughter was around four years old, I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up.  She replied that she wanted to be a mother…of a hundred children.  At such a tender age, she was able to observe the mother flame or energy in action and knew it was something she wanted to become one day.  Most women know from a very young age that they want to become mothers one day.  It is almost an inborn thing.  No one needs to tell you that motherhood is something you should want.  It’s a desire we are born with.  All that love, energy and attention we have within us need somewhere to be channelled to.  All the wisdom we acquire and life lessons we learn need someone to whom we can pass them on.  Motherhood is a beautiful, wondrous thing and despite how difficult it can get, it is the fulfilment of a deep longing within us.  The planet itself would not exist without that loving, nurturing, birthing mother energy that ensures the survival of the species. It is something that should be honoured, celebrated and embraced by all. 

Sadly, the mother energy is one of the most hated energies on this planet, second only perhaps to the feminine energy.  It beats all logic why this energy should be so despised given the fact that we would not survive as a species without it.  As soon as one gives birth, they suddenly come face to face with this intense hatred directed at motherhood that one would never have imagined existed before they had children.  The problem is that we have co-existed with it for so long that we almost don’t see it at all.  But it is all around us and it hits one like a ton of bricks as soon as the initial joy of giving birth starts subsiding.   Those who don’t have children may wonder what I am talking about while those who do have children may not be aware of just how intense this hatred is because we have lived with it for so long that it became the only way we know how to exist.  But I can assure you that whether you sense it or not, there is intense hatred of the mother energy on this planet and it is something we need to become aware of if we are to rise above it.

… I can assure you that whether you sense it or not, there is intense hatred of the mother energy on this planet and it is something we need to become aware of if we are to rise above it.

Let’s start with what a woman is faced with once she becomes a mother.  In our African context, once you become a mother you are considered damaged goods.  In other words, it becomes very hard for someone to want you as a wife if you already have children.  It’s almost as if the children soil you in some way.  What a shameful attitude.  How is it possible that going through the most beautiful, life-giving experience somehow makes you damaged goods?  And yet this is an attitude that is prevalent in Africa and other parts of the world.  We have grown so accustomed to this attitude that we don’t even question it.  The more children you have, the less valuable you become.  A lot of men here say that they could maybe accept a woman with one child but not more than that.  And they consider themselves heroes for the fact that they can accept a woman with one child.  This is something you hear stated all the time, but do we ever stop to ask ourselves where this attitude, this intense hatred of the mother energy comes from?  Why do we accept it as if it was the most normal attitude for a person to have?  How comes we don’t have the same attitude towards fathers?   Men who have children do not have a corresponding hatred directed towards them.  Why would we hate the very energy that nurtures us and brings forth life on the planet?  It beats all logic.  The message this sends to women is that motherhood makes them less desirable, less valuable and less attractive.  You can imagine the cognitive dissonance this causes women.  On the one hand, you look forward to becoming a mother but on the other hand, you know that once you become a mother you are quite literally “damaged”.

There are many other ways mothers are devalued and we have become so accustomed to it that we don’t even stop to question it.  Bringing up a child is no joke; it is hard work especially in the early days.  But mothers have to do this alone unless they happen to have a supportive husband which is rare.  This is why some women end up getting postpartum depression and society just acts as if there is something wrong with them for getting depressed after giving birth.  But the miracle I think is that not all women end up depressed after giving birth.  It’s worse in the modern age because the extended family structure has been broken. This is especially true in the west where people are brainwashed into thinking that it is a sin to live with your extended family.  We are supposed to be “independent”. Everyone is supposed to move out of their parents’ houses as quickly as possible and any delay in doing so is judged harshly by society.  Older parents are quickly sent to expensive care homes, which makes no sense because the extended family structure is the very one that would offer support, especially to mothers.  Why is it that we work so hard to arrange society in the most inconvenient way possible?  It just beats all logic.

We need to question some of these beliefs we hold so dearly and ask ourselves where they came from.  Who benefits when society is broken up and support structures dismantled?  Think about it.  Without support structures, people need to work non-stop looking for food, rent, clothing and other basic needs.  We literally have to work to live, all so that we can work some more.  We do not have the luxury to stop running the treadmill.  Who benefits the most from this?  Well, just follow the money as they say.  The ones who make money off of everyone remaining on the treadmill are the ones who benefit the most from the break up of the extended family structure.  Plain and simple, it’s the elites.  The industrialists, the factory owners, the business owners.  They’re the ones who brainwashed us into believing that we need to be independent, we need to be on our own.  This ensures we get trapped in the nine to five routine that benefits them while hurting us.  Have you ever wondered why babies have to be trained from birth to be independent by leaving them alone in their rooms to cry it out?  It’s because independence is a very unnatural thing that goes counter to how we are created as human beings.  We are created to be close to each other and live in oneness with each other.   The only way this instinct can be broken is by brutally training a child from birth to learn that there is no one coming, they are on their own and they have to learn to survive on their own. 

Another way we see this hatred of the mother energy is in the way women are treated at the workplace once they have children.  I remember when I interviewed for my first job, one of the questions I was asked was whether I intended to get children.  Naturally, I said yes and although this didn’t stop me from getting the job, it just exposed the negative attitude employers have towards motherhood.  It is an inconvenience, an unwelcome interruption for the organisation.  When I was expecting my third child, my boss called me aside for a pep-talk.  Had I considered a more effective form of birth control?  Could my husband maybe consider getting the snip?  I wish I was making this up but I’m not.  This was an actual conversation I had with my boss.  As you can imagine, motherhood was anything but celebrated at my workplace even though they made a few token efforts to show their support of motherhood such as introducing a creche for new mothers.  But the underlying attitude was one of irritation at having to make the necessary adjustments to accommodate a pregnant worker.  I don’t blame my former employer because this attitude is merely representative of the attitude in the wider community.  The negative attitude towards mothers needs to be changed at the wider community level.  No amount of superficial “benefits” by employers can disguise the underlying hatred of the mother energy that is present in society.

What about the hit mothers take to their careers once they start getting children?  If we lived in a society that supported motherhood this would not be the case.  Employers would willingly make the adjustments necessary to support motherhood, from flexitime to working from home to part-time work to job sharing without punishing mothers by withholding promotions or making them feel like they are not fully committed to the job because they have other responsibilities to attend to.  This expectation employers have that people should be one hundred per cent committed to their jobs is simply ridiculous and it’s unclear why we tolerate it.  Employers do not expect employees to even hint at having other things in life apart from their jobs.  You do whatever is expected of you, you come in early and leave late and work over weekends if you have to.  It is almost as if we were put on this earth solely to be employees and nothing else matters.  It is considered a sin to even look like you have other priorities in life apart from your employer.  It is completely unreasonable what employers expect of their employees.  Even taking a sick child to the hospital is considered a waste of precious employer time.  HOW DID WE GET HERE?!

This expectation employers have that people should be one hundred per cent committed to their jobs is simply ridiculous and it’s unclear why we tolerate it. 

Another form of hatred of the mother energy is the hatred that is directed towards our mother earth.  If you consider that the planet is our mother because it nurtures us and provides for our needs, then you’ll realize that many among us have an intense hatred towards the earth.   There are people whose attitude towards the earth is one of wanting to loot and plunder and mine and extract until everything is finished and the land is laid bare.  They have no love for the earth, no desire to preserve or protect and no remorse for their destructive activities.  Left to their own devices, these people would continue mindlessly robbing the planet of all that is good until we have no planet left to live in.  These people cut down forests and release toxic gases into the air which mess up the environment and cause the climate change we are all panicking about.  They release waste products into the oceans with no concern for the damage they cause.  They mindlessly pursue profit over everything and will continue doing so unless they are stopped by those who care for the planet.  They produce more and more nuclear weapons with no regard for how this endangers us all.  They have no conscience and will not stop until everything on the planet is destroyed.  What is this attitude if not hatred of the mother energy?  How do you destroy that which nurtures you and is the only home we have?

We need to wake up and become conscious of the intense mother hatred that is present on this planet and refuse to continue existing in such a toxic, self-defeating environment.  We need to protect mothers, honour them, support them and surround them with love as they undertake this very important role of bringing forth life.  We need to reject all forms of mother hatred including hatred of the planet because without it we will not have a home.

The Agony of Being a Mother in a Hostile Planet

3 Replies

As soon as I started writing this article, something interesting happened.  When I wrote down the word mother in the heading, the auto-correct function immediately kicked in and underlined the word.  When I checked to see what the error was, I was surprised to find that auto-correct didn’t want me to capitalize the word mother.  Apparently, it’s supposed to be in small letters, even in the heading.  The same rule doesn’t apply to the word father, I was surprised to note.  So, it’s okay to capitalize the word father but not the word mother.  That alone tells me exactly how mothers are regarded on this planet.  They are less.  They don’t even deserve the honour of being capitalized in an article in which they are the main topic.  Need I say more, or should I just rest my case on this bleak note?

The coronavirus pandemic brought into sharp focus the agony of being a mother on this planet.  Suddenly, what has always been known but denied or simply ignored was pushed into the public consciousness in a way that was impossible to ignore.  We’ve always known what a raw deal it is to be a mother on this planet but it’s almost as if the universe had had enough of this state of affairs and was trying to tell us look, people!  There’s a serious problem here!  Sort it out! 

How mothers have been surviving going to work, taking care of their children, taking care of husbands, taking care of extended family, running their homes and remaining sane is a complete mystery.  When the pandemic started, mothers were expected to quietly take on additional roles while still working full-time from home or at the workplace for those who couldn’t work from home.  We were expected to become teachers to our children while gladly taking on the extra duties, not to mention the expense, that comes with having the family home all day.  All this while being shamed for wanting schools to reopen faster.  You don’t love your kids!  You’re spoilt!  You don’t want to take care of your children; you’d rather ship them off to school for someone else to care of.  It’s about time you experienced what it’s like to take care of your kids.  That was the narrative at the time.  If you wanted schools to reopen, it was because you couldn’t stand to be with your kids. 

How mothers have been surviving going to work, taking care of their children, taking care of husbands, taking care of extended family, running their homes and remaining sane is a complete mystery. 

Well, we all know how that turned out.  After a few months out of school, girls started getting pregnant, some of them after being defiled by relatives.  Some were married off as they were no longer in the protective environment provided by the school.  Children who used to get a meal in school were no longer getting that much-needed meal, which was a problem in both the developed and developing world, from America to India to Africa.  In some parts of the world, girls were circumcised, a practice that being in school protects them from.  Education systems that had been steadily progressing over decades were set back to levels last seen ages ago.  Will this decline be reversed?  What about the lives that were ruined, the children who will never go back to school once the pandemic is over, who cares about them?  What about what is happening in countries like Uganda where the education system came to a standstill, who cares about that?  But when mothers were crying for their children to go back to school, we were mocked and made to feel that we were being spoilt.  What a cruel, uncaring world we live in.

It’s ironic if you think about it, the pressure women experience to become mothers, almost as if it’s the most wonderful thing one could ever experience.  Before you become a mother, motherhood is packaged as something desirable, something to look forward to, a role you have been preparing for since you were born.  Any delays in starting to bear children once you reach marriageable and childbearing age is regarded with disapproval and outright hostility.  Why aren’t you having children yet, the world snarls at you?  Is there something wrong with you?  What are you still waiting for?  Your biological clock is ticking, get on with it.  And we comply, most of us do.   We joyfully and eagerly become mothers, little suspecting what awaits us on the other side.  Once we have children, the same world that passive-aggressively urged us to do so suddenly changes tact and starts sending subtle, unspoken messages about who we are now that we are mothers.  We are no longer desirable.  We are no longer attractive.  We are no longer marketable.  We are no longer competent.  We are no longer people but unpeople who should exist behind the scenes, seen but not heard.  We no longer deserve to take care of ourselves, dress well or spend money on ourselves but all our energy, attention and resources should now go to our children, our families.  We should fade into the background, disappear, accept that we no longer play a meaningful role in society as we have fulfilled our primary reason for existing which is to bear children.  We have done our duty and we are now dismissed.  

Anyone who is a mother knows what I’m talking about.  You know how you lose your identity and become mama so and so.  You know how you become unseen.  You know very well that feeling you get when you have to ask for permission at work for the hundredth time because your child is sick, your child is having a function at school, or the nanny just walked out on you and you can’t leave the children alone.  Why don’t you just get your act together?  Do you know what your priorities are?  Do you want to work or are you just playing around with your job?  Did you really take your child to the hospital or did you just want to give yourself a day off?  Did you need to spend the whole day with your sick child or could you have come to work after taking them to the hospital?  Oh, you want to be leaving work early to pick your kids from school?  Are you serious?  Oh, you want flexi-time that will allow you to come to work late so that you spend more time with your children?  Why don’t you just go ahead and say what you really want?  You don’t want to work, do you?  You want to be a stay-at-home mum, doing nothing all day, you lazy thing.  Oh, and you want a promotion!  You want more money!  Is that some sick joke? 

You know very well that feeling you get when you have to ask for permission at work for the hundredth time because your child is sick, your child is having a function at school, or the nanny just walked out on you and you can’t leave the children alone. 

The thing we need to ask ourselves is why the role of mothers isn’t acknowledged or appreciated.  What if in future no one wants to be a mother because our consciousness is raised to the point that we begin to ask ourselves, what I’m I doing this for?  Why do I need to give up my body as a conduit for the survival of the species only to be despised once I do so?  Why do I need this?  One day, women are just going to stop and ask themselves, who said I have to be a mother?  I don’t need this.  There is no support for me from the state, from society or anyone else for that matter.  And when no one wants to have babies anymore, maybe we will wake up to the important role mothers play and start treating them better.  Look at what’s happening in many European countries.  Nobody wants to give birth.  And why should they?  Look at China.  They spent decades making it a crime to be a mother, punishable by forced abortion.  Now suddenly they realize that their population won’t sustain itself and they turn around and want women to give birth.  They are still under the illusion that motherhood is a switch you can turn on and off at will, but it is proving to be much more complicated than they imagined.  How long before this becomes a planet-wide problem where nobody wants to give birth?  How short-sighted, to despise the very people upon which the survival of the species depends.

When you become a mother, you quickly realize that you’re on your own.  The state doesn’t care about you.  There is no help for you.  Woe unto you if you are poor and struggle to feed your children.  It’s your fault.  There is no acknowledgement that what you have just accomplished is an essential service to the country, to the planet.   How many women are abandoned by their partners to raise children on their own?  In the developed world, at least you have laws that force someone to support their child even if they are not married to the mother, but what about here in the undeveloped world?  How many fathers abandon their children with impunity especially when the mothers are too poor or uneducated to know what to do about it?  And beyond that, when are we ever as a species going to get to a point where raising children is the responsibility of the state and not the parents?  I believe this is the next step we need to take where motherhood is recognized as the essential service it is and thus something the state needs to be responsible for.  By this, I mean in terms of providing free education, free child care and a stipend for feeding, clothing and housing the children.  This is not an impossible or unreasonable dream.  Some of course will scream that this is an impossibility, but it is only because they are not able to see motherhood as a service to the planet that no one should have to be punished for. 

Many of us are starting to crack, so heavy has the burden of motherhood become.  We can’t do it anymore.  We can’t pretend to be superwomen anymore.  Many of us are leaving our jobs, not because we don’t need the income but because we can’t hack it anymore.  The weight that has been placed on us by an uncaring planet has become too much to bear and we are finally throwing up our hands and giving ourselves up to the universe to do with us as she wants.  Let the mothers now be mothered by someone else.