A Mother’s Dream
I can say without reservation that the birth of my daughter changed me for good and made things possible that would never otherwise have been. Words cannot capture that kind of magic any more than ropes can tie up smoke, but if I had to put one word to it, it would have to be simple gratitude for the fresh start and new eyes she brought me.
Native American elder and scholar, Manitonquat (aka Medicine Story) expressed this phenomena best: “Since all adults have been heavily conditioned by their culture, we can only see what we may call our natural humanness in very young children before the ways of the world have begun to twist and distort their responses to life.” If we wish to understand who we might have been or still become, “We must observe little babies and tiny infants as they arrive newborn and fresh from creation.”(OI, p.21)
I had long dreamed of writing, having learned from experience the power of a few well-chosen words, and how a book in one’s lap can change the very color of the world around me. But I only began to take myself seriously, in this and many things, after my daughter was born and reminded me of what I wanted to say. Until then, I had craved higher purposes, as many do, but had not yet found that thing that needs doing, that I could do, and that wouldn’t get done if I didn’t do it. Probably many could have written this book, in fact, but since no one had over all these centuries, it was a good bet that no one else would…not, at least, before it would be too late to do any good. So fulfilling that dream came to seem a responsibility.
Having had an idyllic early childhood, followed by a decade of crippling poverty (when my father’s uninsured cancer wiped us out), I desperately wanted to provide a good life for her, one filled with the happy memories that had been my own sanctuary during the hard times. But little did I realize the challenging path I’d chosen for us. I had thought I’d found the love and security we all long for when I married a man whose great grandfather had been a founder and first president of IBM. I did not yet know the demons that accompany unearned wealth.
I did know though that writing soothed the ache in my soul that I now recognize as post-partum depression. But the healing power of words flowing from my pencil onto a clean white pages of my journal seemed truly medicinal to me (and for this reason, I still recommend journaling to students and clients). But as it turned out, I had unwittingly subjected her to the same character challenges and class corruption that had hardened of so many she would grow up under the influence of – at once the wealthiest and the most unhappy people I had ever met.
It’s easy enough to create the mere appearance of happiness, come to find, more difficult and something of an art to achieve the real thing. It was hard to blame them though since I could see first hand how and why excessive privilege can be blinding. And the thing about not knowing something is that you also don’t know that you don’t know it. But having seen the world through other eyes, my cognitive dissonance was relentless. And it was painfully ironic that the world around us – my own family of origin – envied my condition, while I cried every time I nursed my baby girl, all too aware of those African mothers whose infants were dying at their breasts to increase our Nestles portfolio.
I can say without reservation that the birth of my daughter changed me for good and made things possible that would never otherwise have been. Words cannot capture that kind of magic any more than ropes can tie up smoke, but if I had to put one word to it, it would have to be simple gratitude for the fresh start and new eyes she brought me.
Native American elder and scholar, Manitonquat (aka Medicine Story) expressed this phenomena best: “Since all adults have been heavily conditioned by their culture, we can only see what we may call our natural humanness in very young children before the ways of the world have begun to twist and distort their responses to life.” If we wish to understand who we might have been or still become, “We must observe little babies and tiny infants as they arrive newborn and fresh from creation.”(OI, p.21)
I had long dreamed of writing, having learned from experience the power of a few well-chosen words, and how a book in one’s lap can change the very color of the world around me. But I only began to take myself seriously, in this and many things, after my daughter was born and reminded me of what I wanted to say. Until then, I had craved higher purposes, as many do, but had not yet found that thing that needs doing, that I could do, and that wouldn’t get done if I didn’t do it. Probably many could have written this book, in fact, but since no one had over all these centuries, it was a good bet that no one else would…not, at least, before it would be too late to do any good. So fulfilling that dream came to seem a responsibility.
Having had an idyllic early childhood, followed by a decade of crippling poverty (when my father’s uninsured cancer wiped us out), I desperately wanted to provide a good life for her, one filled with the happy memories that had been my own sanctuary during the hard times. But little did I realize the challenging path I’d chosen for us. I had thought I’d found the love and security we all long for when I married a man whose great grandfather had been a founder and first president of IBM. I did not yet know the demons that accompany unearned wealth.
I did know though that writing soothed the ache in my soul that I now recognize as post-partum depression. But the healing power of words flowing from my pencil onto a clean white pages of my journal seemed truly medicinal to me (and for this reason, I still recommend journaling to students and clients). But as it turned out, I had unwittingly subjected her to the same character challenges and class corruption that had hardened of so many she would grow up under the influence of – at once the wealthiest and the most unhappy people I had ever met.
It’s easy enough to create the mere appearance of happiness, come to find, more difficult and something of an art to achieve the real thing. It was hard to blame them though since I could see first hand how and why excessive privilege can be blinding. And the thing about not knowing something is that you also don’t know that you don’t know it. But having seen the world through other eyes, my cognitive dissonance was relentless. And it was painfully ironic that the world around us – my own family of origin – envied my condition, while I cried every time I nursed my baby girl, all too aware of those African mothers whose infants were dying at their breasts to increase our Nestles portfolio.