I had occasion to swim in the moat of maternal/child experience with my mother.

I cannot pen the intimacies of umbilically challenged 49 year old with her mother.
I can just note the general theme.

--- I really think that Eve herself gave those Hansts,Bowen,Christie women their knowledge of child development. I don't agree with their tactics, most times, but it is a preservative to our culture to have had them in the world. I do respect the years of experience and the methods of passing those maternal observations to their children. They are like God's secure safe of mothering. Other families may have something like it, but if you learn the combination and can get past the hard exterior there is, seemingly, an infinite wealth of child rearing experience.

I hated them, growing up. I hated all of my business being fodder for the family table. Do you know what she did this week? Do you know what she said to me? Everybody knew everything. All my business? What business. When I was sassy, how I cut myself and almost cut myself... No privacy inside the home and none with the extended family. I didn't realize that I was the eldest grand, the guineapig.
Now, I miss the sense of extended family that I ran with diligence to get away from. Now, that I am trying to weave the maternal knowledge into my own potential maternal/child experts, I miss the contributions.


This time, my mom and I observed the connection of nursing and the nursing hormones with the child development. If grief and pain is passed on to the children, what is passed when we work outside of the home and are passing those anxieties to our children? We spoke about that among the other spiritual observations on how God uses pastured Mothers in the world around us. Is our job passe'? Does God want us to hermit ourselves and just pray for the kareening world around us? He plugs Mommies into the kareening world to slow the pace of disaster and inhumaneness and spotlight the importance of the little things that delight. The sparkle and gleam in the baby's eyes when they are full of baby milk. The importance of what you sensitize them to, in their early days. The baby that learns early not to bite mommy, has human sensitivities.
The greater distance between mommy and her baby is a recipe for hardening of our souls. What do we want in the next generation? Life-giving practices or life-taking practices?
Can a woman forget her own son? Yes they may, But God never forgets.