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.