Mother's Day

The reference for that last quotation and any that may follow in this post is:

Duncan, Sara Jeannette. The Pool in the Desert. Ed. Gillian Siddall. Peterborough: Broadview,
2001.


Since it is Mother's Day, I will reflect on how this story portrays the transition to motherhood and then I'll talk about my own.

We never do get the first name of the narrator in the story. She's known only as Mrs. Farnham, but that name is not used in relation to her in the text. She uses it to describe her husband's mother, who she describes, along with her daughters, as "subdued, smiling, unimaginatively dressed women on a small definite income that you meet at every rectory garden-party in the country, a little snobbish, a little priggish, wholly conventional, but apart from these weaknesses, sound and simple and dignified, manager witheir two small servants with a disply of the most exact traditions, and keeping a somewhat vauge and belated but constant eye upon the doings of their country as chronicled in a biweekly paper" (57).

The narrator's transition to motherhood is understated: "When the expectation of Cecily came to us we made out to be delighted, knowing that the whole station pitied us, and when Cecily came herself, with a swamping burst of expense, we kept up the pretense splendidly" (55).

When asked about her sense of sympathy for her daughter by a friend, Dacres, later in the story, she says, "My dear boy, I have seen her just twice in twenty-one years! You see, I've alway stuck to John" (66). Later, she adds, "Men are very slow in changing their philosophy about women. I fancy their idea of the maternal relation is firmest fixed of all" (66).

What I find interesting and to my mind, monstrous, is the idea that a mother can be so emotionally disconnected from her child and so wholly devoted to her husband (and his sword). I remember before my daughter was even conceived, talking about love with her father. I opined that the greatest, most enduring love was that between a mother and child, because it could not be severed the way that romantic love can be. "You can't divorce your mother," I may have said.
Or your child. But the point is, I suppose, that people can, in one way or another. I find this a most ironic memory now, of course, because A's father seems to have made it his life's goal to sever that bond between me and my beloved daughter.

The maternal bond isn't inherent though, I'd argue. My relationship to my own mother is evidence of that. I always attributed her emotional distance towards me to her own devotion to my father. I still think that women who put their partner's interests over those of their children are somewhat daft. I remember talking to a mother in the park about my own situation, which I'm sure broke down because my ex-husband couldn't tolerate being displaced by his infant daughter, and this woman leaned into me and whispered, "We all know we love our children more than our husbands." I think it comes down to a choice of allegiances.

When I met E, one of the things he told me is that he had everything he wanted in his life, but he didn't have a partner. He realized that loving his children and his work and his home and his friends wasn't enough. He wanted to love and be loved by a woman. Recently, he said, "I don't even think about that any more. I have it."

I don't think I'm nearly as easily satisfied. I find love and loving far more complicated. Becoming a mother meant that I experienced a far more profound love than ever before. Having my motherhood challenged, now, is almost disabling. My love for any partner I've ever known has never been as potent. While sexual/romantic love is still important to me, I think it may always be simply an echo of the more essential primary connection of mother and child.