what will it mean to you if we lose the word "mother"

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

I am incandescent about the moves to make "mother" a gender neutral term, or to remove it entirely from documentation (see Nancy Kelly's comments on WH about Scottish Government)

My motherhood is not my identity or role - it grew INTO me like that fungus that grows on plant roots, which isn't a beautiful analogy.

My children grew in me, but, they also grew through me, like that fungus makes tiny roots that trail along the plant's in symbiosis - which is why when they were tiny my body responded to their needs before I did: my breasts leaked because my body heard their cry; I'd be aware of their sharp intake of breath and be sprinting to them before their scream.

It seems that this means I will forevermore only ever be as happy as my least happy child.

They left cells behind like a weird echo of when they were gestating, I am not aware of those cells but I do rather like that I have some tiny Y chromosomes floating around in my system because I have sons.

Before they were born I learned which was energetic, which was chill and which had terrible issues with hiccups - I "knew" their nature before anyone else could.

My kids are grown now and I STILL note "baby's kicking" before I realise it's a fart.

I loved them in a way that was different and animal. They are grown now and I miss them dreadfully. My job was to make them not need me and that is a painful success. They know they have a safe place to fall, that is what I have given them, it did not happen by accident, and that is really all any child needs, no matter how old they are.

Being their mother means I am loved in return - in a way that is never replicable by any other person.

I understand that some women do not wish children and some women are devastated to not have children. Me having mine is unremarkable and ordinary - at the same time as being personally spectacular and extraordinary.

Being a mother has become a short cut to building a relationship with other women who have children, or who would have loved to have children, or who have lost children. We understand something about each other that is above age, culture, language.

"Mother" is not a word, it's not an identity, it cannot be stolen and I will not allow it to be taken from me.

I fucking earned it.

Stonewall has dropped guidance advising groups on its workplace schemes to remove the word “mother” from their policies.
The Times yesterday

Thank you for the lovely post that helps articulate many of our feelings on this at least 15000yr old word! I have no knowledge of history so I am not sure how much older than that the concept of mother is!! Fortunately my lack of general knowledge does not matter too much to my children who adore me and will also never give up calling me their mum. They are strong girls who I very much hope will fight this with me, if they still have to. I am working my way through the Nolan podcast which is frankly wonderful. So affirming to have all the shit you knew to be terrifying, articulated back in such a clear way.

OP, your description of motherhood is beautiful and so heartfelt. Thank you

Loved your post and found it very moving, thank you OP. We have a lot to fight for, and we're just doing it to stand still

Wow. Your post is beautiful. Even if they try to erase the word we still have the feeling, the knowledge and the emotion just as you've described. Nobody can take that from us.

Hilarious notion upthread that the word 'mother' was being written out of govt. and health documents because it was 'politically incorrect'.
It's a fully inclusive term, 'gender' neutral but (obviously, when used in reference to someone who had given birth) necessarily sex specific.

And, as we've seen in the last few days, the head of stonewall also personally values the word mother and they're backtracking on their ludicrous advice.

It won't be lost because we will continue to use the word mother, in the correct way.

The same for the words women and girl and female.

If the users of the words continue to use them then they won't be lost.

I agree 100% with your beautifully expressed post, OP.
(I may need to copy and paste that in to my notes on my phone, to read at happy/tricky/sad times.)

It is the erasure of women in any and all aspects of society that I find disturbing.

Every living creature has a mother. Every single human who has ever existed was birthed by a woman.

The blatant disrespect of motherhood is in a way blasphemous. To erase and scrub out the very reason you exist is in itself so obscene and horrendous that I can only imagine that the end goal is to place women into an even lower category. “The unnecessary and unnamed “.

In history the enemies of the current ruler would sometimes be wiped from all records of history.

The only woman pharaoh of Egypt for example. Hatshepsut was erased from history.. a Damnatio memoriae was carried out against her. And the same is happening for women.

If you are unnamed and unnecessary then any and everything can be done to you. You don’t matter. If we think the abuse women and girls suffer is bad now, well you haven’t seen anything yet ladies!

It cannot and should not be allowed to happen.

“No one is actually stopping you using the word”

Of course this is right, it will be perfectly fine in the privacy of our own homes, behind closed doors and not in front of the children.

I agree that policy and official documents should use mother not birthing parent etc and that certainly should be campaigned for.

But I don't think there's any danger of losing mother in everyday language.

Eg my brother says he's non binary but no one in my family (apart from my almost as ridiculous younger brother) refers to him as they/them when he comes up in family news/ conversation etc.

I don't think the average person on the street will even know this is going on.

Again, I'm not saying it shouldn't be challenged in official language but I honestly don't think it will be going anywhere soon

@Prater

I agree that policy and official documents should use mother not birthing parent etc and that certainly should be campaigned for.

But I don't think there's any danger of losing mother in everyday language.

Eg my brother says he's non binary but no one in my family (apart from my almost as ridiculous younger brother) refers to him as they/them when he comes up in family news/ conversation etc.

I don't think the average person on the street will even know this is going on.

Again, I'm not saying it shouldn't be challenged in official language but I honestly don't think it will be going anywhere soon

I think you're wrong. If the word mother stops being used in official documentation, then I think it will eventually fall out of use among the population.

We used to say people with AIDS, now we say HIV. We used to say cripples, now we say physically disabled. I'm not saying these weren't good changes but I'm just pointing out how easily (and how quickly) terminology can fall out of fashion.

Wr have a post on here asking women to support a March for Midwives. The post mentions the word mother only twice - and always in conjunction with birthing people.

When it talks about women's issues in childbirth, it says: "Parents that are damaged by either too much medical intervention or, conversely, falling through the cracks and not receiving the medical care they need."

It isn't parents who are damaged. It's women. It's mother's. It's only women because only women can be mothers.

Language matters.

I think you're wrong. If the word mother stops being used in official documentation, then I think it will eventually fall out of use among the population.

Of course language matters

But I don't think mother compares to the other words and terms you mentioned

It's too ingrained and deep in all of us.

I absolutely abhor the way mother is being erased in official language, it's hurtful and damaging , I just don't agree that it will fall out of use beyond that.

I don't share your optimism.

It's already been banned by stonewall (and yes I know they've done a reverse ferret because Kelley denied it) and midwives and doulas are picking up on that.

When it becomes politically incorrect to use a term, people who are keen to show they're up with common parlance will stop using it.

@Clymene

I don't share your optimism.

It's already been banned by stonewall (and yes I know they've done a reverse ferret because Kelley denied it) and midwives and doulas are picking up on that.

When it becomes politically incorrect to use a term, people who are keen to show they're up with common parlance will stop using it.

But I think mother is far too potent.

I will have to agree to disagree with you on this, I just don't have the same fear that it will disappear from everyday language.

That doesn't mean I won't continue to object that it's not being used in other language and I will still be raising it and writing to organisations.

I am a daughter and a mother. Everyone on the planet has a mother.
We may make accomodations to language to change with society but I really don't think this one will go away.
I for one will not stop using it.

We all come from our mothers. It's why mother is an enduring word through time, culture and loss. I'm hopeful it won't go away, but it would be losing thousands and thousands of years of a shared language and understanding.

Here's a better image.

@MarshmallowSwede

It is the erasure of women in any and all aspects of society that I find disturbing.

Every living creature has a mother. Every single human who has ever existed was birthed by a woman.

The blatant disrespect of motherhood is in a way blasphemous. To erase and scrub out the very reason you exist is in itself so obscene and horrendous that I can only imagine that the end goal is to place women into an even lower category. “The unnecessary and unnamed “.

In history the enemies of the current ruler would sometimes be wiped from all records of history.

The only woman pharaoh of Egypt for example. Hatshepsut was erased from history.. a Damnatio memoriae was carried out against her. And the same is happening for women.

If you are unnamed and unnecessary then any and everything can be done to you. You don’t matter. If we think the abuse women and girls suffer is bad now, well you haven’t seen anything yet ladies!

It cannot and should not be allowed to happen.

"mother is God in the hearts and minds of little children"

Man has been up to this nonsense since man created in their minds a male creator. A male god. It is indeed blasphemous to eradicate mother. To eradicate a word is to eradicate the concept, and in our idealistic backwards and modernist philosophy to then eradicate the physical or scientific proof of such a thing. Language matters.

I say this modern philosophy (post modernist clap trap) is backwards because its anti scientific. It creates in mind a desired object or outcome and brings into being phantom things that seem to eradicate facts.

The term 'mother' matters hugely to me, and I have no words this early in the morning for how much I despise Stonewall for promulgating its eradication, and then lying about it.

Stonewall's influence, documents and edicts are still out there, embedded in so many policies and 'workplace index' submissions it'll take a long time to unpick it. Scotland seems lost.

As for the people in workplaces who've gone along with this vile crap - what were they thinking? It's been like one big Stanford experiment, with its de-individualising aims for all parties.

Lovely words OP. Apologies I haven't rtft.

I can't speak for every woman but when I yearned for a baby there was a physical ache in my ovaries. I actually referred to my ovary ache when joking with DH.

I have one surviving daughter and one daughter born too early whom we lost.

I felt them both kick.

I still get ovary ache occasionally, but at 46 that ship has sailed. I don't know how it feels for men, but can't believe that any physical ache is present, given their lack of ovaries.

I am a mother. I have earned my title and I will help to defend it. Please let this madness pass.

@flyingbuttress43

Beautifully put OP.

Once you are a mother you will be a mother forever.
And you will never be free from fear again.

Why will I never be free from fear again?

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

I've just re-read your opening post. It truly is a work of wonder and beauty.

You have managed to encompass the spectrum of experience in a way that I've never read before.

Without cliche or sentiment, your own, incredibly personal and highly subjective experience has echoed and reverberated with everyone else's. That's a gift.

And if they want to erase the word mother, they'll have to get through us lot first.

Well, it's certainly nice to have so many compliments about my off-the-cuff post, so I wish I'd spent longer on the grammar!

Agree with PPs, for the majority there is something visceral about motherhood.

I cannot speak to those of use who were bereaved of their babies without getting a lump in my throat - no matter whether the loss happened before the baby was born, or when mum is in her 90s and her baby was 75. The pain is universal and I think that is why, yes, once you are a mother you live with fear.

The fear of them meeting someone who harms them in any way, or of bad luck, or of their own naivety or stupidity causing a life changing incident certainly feels very real now they are navigating life as young adults.

I think that is why this erosion of "mother" in midwifery, health and legislation is bothering me so much. Most of the people who are trying to make "mother" gender neutral are not mothers or are not female, and so they don't understand why this word is fundamental to people like me.

My body never got back to my pre-baby body. How could it? It wasn't just my rib cage or feet that got bigger, my heart did too - it instantly developed infinite love. I am not the same as I was before I became a mother and I never will be. And I want that status because it is mine and became my identity. I am happy to respect other people's identity, which, to my mind, is rather easier to come by then mine as a mother which took quite a lot of effort, thank you.

I will fight, actually cause civil unrest outside Holyrood, if this nonsense progresses.

So, "no one is taking the word away from you" - yes, you are damn right about that. They won't be.