Mother’s Day Tales
May 11th, 2008 by Erich ViethIn the United States, the celebration of Mother’s Day is kept alive mostly by the advertising of merchants. No one with a real stake in motherhood would trivialize motherhood by designating that it be recognized only one day each year.
Today, a baby crow got blown out of a tree in front of my house. My neighbor, who was walking her dogs, stopped to help the baby bird. She picked up the baby crow and put it on her shoulder.
Her plan was to walk it to her house, feed it, and watch it fly away a few days later, after it learned how to fly. This first tale is a story of adoptive motherhood.
But this post is actually two stories of motherhood. The second story is represented by the constant cries of distress by the baby crow’s mother up in a nearby tree. Biological motherhood in action.
My neighbor knew that this was a baby crow (I didn’t), knew that its wings weren’t broken (I didn’t) and knew what to do with a healthy baby crow who fell out of a tree (I didn’t). She told me that she has helped baby crows like this before. In her experience, when she carries home a baby crow in distress, the parent follows her home, calling out the entire way home.
How many thousands of statues and monuments have we built to honor wars, soldiers and politicians in the U.S.? But is there a single prominent national monument to honor real life mothers in any prominent place in this country? Why not? And on a related note, why do we so readily fund wars, but we fail to make sure that mothers have all of the resources they need to do their critically important job?
May 13th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Mother Jones is buried outside Litchfield, Illinois in a private, union cemetery operated by the United Mine Workers. Mother Jones’ gravestone is a monument to the sacrifices made by so many for us all, like any mother would do for her children.
When I’m really depressed by the virulent corporate facism that masquerades as government in these United States, I pay a visit to Mother Jones and renew my promise to her and my family to make the world better for my having taken up so much space.