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Okay. So I took part in a very neat excersise the other night.
A group of us (who get together every dark-moon) decided to try something. We divided ourselves up into the categories of Maiden, Mother, and Crone.
There were seven of us all together. Two maidens, two mothers, three crones.
Some interesting things turned up.
The women who had put themselves in the 'mother' category found themselves fighting Random People who were, effectively, trying to dismis them as senior citizens. One woman described it as 'they were putting me on the Crone Shelf' -- not treating her as a respected elder, but treating her as someone who was Done Living, and was now in the stage of her life where she was supposed to Remenisce (sp) about what she had Lived.
I put myself (and was put -- I'm just shy of 20 years younger than the person closest to me in age, as such I was *clearly* The Maiden. ;-) -- but I put myself in 'Maiden' as well. Because I'm young, and because I just got married, but am not yet trying to get pregnant, and because I'm still working on my MA (I have never brought a thesis to birth, if you will).
That being said:
Emotionally, and mentally, I've been in the 'Mother' category since I was sixteen, if not younger.
At the same time, biology-wise, while I want to have actual physical, human children born from my own body, I don't want them right this minute. I want them in a couple of years. (20-30 months from now, lets say).
My husband, however, is 'okay' with waiting, but would be just as happy if I got pregnant two weeks from now.
(Personally, I think he's looking at parenthood through rather naive glasses, but that's just me. Fact of the matter is: He wouldn't be carrying the baby. I would. It would be me who has to deal with morning sickness, and back pain, and worse joint pain than I've already got, and then stretch marks, and healing, and pumps, and, and, and... Anyway.).
So, beyond the financial mess that would ensue if I got pregnant any time in the next six months (at least), I would also like the chance to... get on my own feet. I've never not been a student, and I'd like to be making Real Money at a Real Job (preferably with Real Parental Benefits to go along with it, but yeah right...) and also have the opportunity to... take Belly Dance and pottery and stuff like that there that I would have less chance to do (or more difficulty doing) were I carting an infant around with me. Likewise, it would be nice to be able to go on a vacation or two with Paul -- *just Paul* (seriously, the only trip we've taken together, just the two of us, was our honeymoon) before we have to start worrying about... no sex in the hotel room because I will freak out the baby, or Finding Activities for the Kids, or, or, or.
So I'm digging my heels in a bit on the biological front.
None the less, I find that I'm between the two. I'm already a mother, but not. I'm still a maiden, but not.
My co-maiden is a woman in her fourties. She has spent her life being referred-to as 'an old soul', a 'mother hen', a 'wise one', and she's sick of it. She chose to be in Maiden because she only found her feet as a woman on her own within the last ten years or so. She doesn't want to be a mother or a crone. Not yet, anyway, and (rather like the 'Crone Shelf') she doesn't want people to treat her 'like an old lady' before she's actually an old lady.
The women who put themselves in Crone, on the other, were quite happy to be there and, also, were mostly women who hadn't had children and hadn't wanted any. For them, being a Crone was rather like being a Maiden but with more money and self-confidence. (It kind of reminded me of the 'second-time bride' thing -- twenty years ago, *if* you got married after being divorced, you did *not* wear a huge, puffy, white dress and have a big to-do about it. Now women are saying 'what do you mean I can't do that??' and they're going all out. And the phrase that a lot of these women use when they're explaining why they're having a second Huge Wedding is that 'now I know what I want, and can pay for it myself').
For the women in Crone, there seemed to be both a freedom from children (or the social pressures to have children -- a phenomenon that the women in Mother found very annoying because they were still quite capable of getting pregnant, thank you very much), and also a financial freedom *to* go travelling, or otherwise 'galavant'.
It was interesting because, while the women in Crone were all post menopausal, they were also women who, for the most part, had avoided the 'Mother' stage/roll and missed out on the 'Maiden' stage/roll. One of them said that she couldn't wait to be fifty.
Now, I'm Interpreting here (which is not something I should be doing, but bear with me):
See. The whole idea of 'Mother', whether as part of the triple goddess, or as a metaphor on her/its own, is a pretty major concept within Goddess Spirituality.
I remember talking, years ago, to a woman who had become a mother somewhat against her better judgement, and how resentful she was of the comments she got from Pagans in general, but GS women in particular, about how 'you will feel *so* fulfilled when you have that baby' -- perhaps the resentment came from the fact that she didn't feel fulfilled at all. Dunno.
But... Along with the metaphorical motherhood stuff, there also seems to be a fair chunk of biological stuff being pushed at us as women, even from within our own religion (or not -- I need to look further into this).
So... women who don't *want* children (creative and nurturing and what-not as they may be) are faced with this... 30-year span of life where, symbolically(?) that's the option. Too old/married/etc to be assumed a Maiden, and too young to be assumed a Crone, they're left with a role that, symbolically, just doesn't fit them. So where do they go?
Hey, Junior_Crone, want to weigh-in on this? :-D
- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)
A group of us (who get together every dark-moon) decided to try something. We divided ourselves up into the categories of Maiden, Mother, and Crone.
There were seven of us all together. Two maidens, two mothers, three crones.
Some interesting things turned up.
The women who had put themselves in the 'mother' category found themselves fighting Random People who were, effectively, trying to dismis them as senior citizens. One woman described it as 'they were putting me on the Crone Shelf' -- not treating her as a respected elder, but treating her as someone who was Done Living, and was now in the stage of her life where she was supposed to Remenisce (sp) about what she had Lived.
I put myself (and was put -- I'm just shy of 20 years younger than the person closest to me in age, as such I was *clearly* The Maiden. ;-) -- but I put myself in 'Maiden' as well. Because I'm young, and because I just got married, but am not yet trying to get pregnant, and because I'm still working on my MA (I have never brought a thesis to birth, if you will).
That being said:
Emotionally, and mentally, I've been in the 'Mother' category since I was sixteen, if not younger.
At the same time, biology-wise, while I want to have actual physical, human children born from my own body, I don't want them right this minute. I want them in a couple of years. (20-30 months from now, lets say).
My husband, however, is 'okay' with waiting, but would be just as happy if I got pregnant two weeks from now.
(Personally, I think he's looking at parenthood through rather naive glasses, but that's just me. Fact of the matter is: He wouldn't be carrying the baby. I would. It would be me who has to deal with morning sickness, and back pain, and worse joint pain than I've already got, and then stretch marks, and healing, and pumps, and, and, and... Anyway.).
So, beyond the financial mess that would ensue if I got pregnant any time in the next six months (at least), I would also like the chance to... get on my own feet. I've never not been a student, and I'd like to be making Real Money at a Real Job (preferably with Real Parental Benefits to go along with it, but yeah right...) and also have the opportunity to... take Belly Dance and pottery and stuff like that there that I would have less chance to do (or more difficulty doing) were I carting an infant around with me. Likewise, it would be nice to be able to go on a vacation or two with Paul -- *just Paul* (seriously, the only trip we've taken together, just the two of us, was our honeymoon) before we have to start worrying about... no sex in the hotel room because I will freak out the baby, or Finding Activities for the Kids, or, or, or.
So I'm digging my heels in a bit on the biological front.
None the less, I find that I'm between the two. I'm already a mother, but not. I'm still a maiden, but not.
My co-maiden is a woman in her fourties. She has spent her life being referred-to as 'an old soul', a 'mother hen', a 'wise one', and she's sick of it. She chose to be in Maiden because she only found her feet as a woman on her own within the last ten years or so. She doesn't want to be a mother or a crone. Not yet, anyway, and (rather like the 'Crone Shelf') she doesn't want people to treat her 'like an old lady' before she's actually an old lady.
The women who put themselves in Crone, on the other, were quite happy to be there and, also, were mostly women who hadn't had children and hadn't wanted any. For them, being a Crone was rather like being a Maiden but with more money and self-confidence. (It kind of reminded me of the 'second-time bride' thing -- twenty years ago, *if* you got married after being divorced, you did *not* wear a huge, puffy, white dress and have a big to-do about it. Now women are saying 'what do you mean I can't do that??' and they're going all out. And the phrase that a lot of these women use when they're explaining why they're having a second Huge Wedding is that 'now I know what I want, and can pay for it myself').
For the women in Crone, there seemed to be both a freedom from children (or the social pressures to have children -- a phenomenon that the women in Mother found very annoying because they were still quite capable of getting pregnant, thank you very much), and also a financial freedom *to* go travelling, or otherwise 'galavant'.
It was interesting because, while the women in Crone were all post menopausal, they were also women who, for the most part, had avoided the 'Mother' stage/roll and missed out on the 'Maiden' stage/roll. One of them said that she couldn't wait to be fifty.
Now, I'm Interpreting here (which is not something I should be doing, but bear with me):
See. The whole idea of 'Mother', whether as part of the triple goddess, or as a metaphor on her/its own, is a pretty major concept within Goddess Spirituality.
I remember talking, years ago, to a woman who had become a mother somewhat against her better judgement, and how resentful she was of the comments she got from Pagans in general, but GS women in particular, about how 'you will feel *so* fulfilled when you have that baby' -- perhaps the resentment came from the fact that she didn't feel fulfilled at all. Dunno.
But... Along with the metaphorical motherhood stuff, there also seems to be a fair chunk of biological stuff being pushed at us as women, even from within our own religion (or not -- I need to look further into this).
So... women who don't *want* children (creative and nurturing and what-not as they may be) are faced with this... 30-year span of life where, symbolically(?) that's the option. Too old/married/etc to be assumed a Maiden, and too young to be assumed a Crone, they're left with a role that, symbolically, just doesn't fit them. So where do they go?
Hey, Junior_Crone, want to weigh-in on this? :-D
- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)
