Sunday, June 18, 2006
Eleemosynary
I took my dh to a chick play last night and it was great. It was a 3 woman play with very minimilist costuming and set design. Basically it addresses 3 generations of women, their love, their frustrations with what they can't have, and how they deal with it. The grandma wanted to go to college, but was forced to marry and bear children instead. The mom wanted to have a baby (at 18), but was forced to abort and go to school instead. The daughter wanted to be with her mother, but because of the mother's anger at grandma, is left to be raised by grandma. It was really well done and I think it really reflects many women's lives to some degree or another.
Mothering is often not done by the mother. I think of my grandmothers. I didn't know one because she died when I was young, but she had 8 kids and most were distributed among relatives to live with for most of their lives. This was not because she was uncaring but because of Chinese custom and the circumstances of World War II. The other grandmother was widowed in her 30s with 3 kids and went to work, also distributing the kids to various relatives. I have heard that she never remarried because she felt that the kids were a burden. I cannot judge them, they did what they had to do to survive. Both their situations produced children, my parents who when they 1st married, made a conscious decision not to have children. When they did want to have children, they made a conscious decision to be parents who would be the main adults in their lives and not go through what they had to go through.
I cried during the play at the parts when the mother leaves her daughter, when she talked about leaving her daughter, and tried to push her away repeatedly. I am sure it is the part of me that knows my own child is such a gift and blessing and that I could not bear to be away from her, in an emotional sense.
Mothering is often not done by the mother. I think of my grandmothers. I didn't know one because she died when I was young, but she had 8 kids and most were distributed among relatives to live with for most of their lives. This was not because she was uncaring but because of Chinese custom and the circumstances of World War II. The other grandmother was widowed in her 30s with 3 kids and went to work, also distributing the kids to various relatives. I have heard that she never remarried because she felt that the kids were a burden. I cannot judge them, they did what they had to do to survive. Both their situations produced children, my parents who when they 1st married, made a conscious decision not to have children. When they did want to have children, they made a conscious decision to be parents who would be the main adults in their lives and not go through what they had to go through.
I cried during the play at the parts when the mother leaves her daughter, when she talked about leaving her daughter, and tried to push her away repeatedly. I am sure it is the part of me that knows my own child is such a gift and blessing and that I could not bear to be away from her, in an emotional sense.
