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.

It is a beautiful opening post OP. You should be proud to have written it

@Prater

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.

Did you ever imagine a time when sex offenders would claim they were women and be moved into woman’s prisons to share inescapable space with women who have been dreadfully abused their whole lives?

Did you ever think that men could insert themselves into woman’s sports and take their wins and accolades?

Did you ever imagine that a woman could be publicly threatened and drummed out of her employment at a university for holding views that only ten years ago we all agreed with and knew to be true?

Did you ever imagine we’d be giving medication to children that would leave them infertile and with no sexual function, who will never experience an orgasm?

This is one word. We will keep it alive as long as we are but as it is removed from official record and documentation the generations who come after will not see it as so important. In fifty years it will be gone.

Ok, all those things are wrong of course and shouldn't be happening.

But I STILL think saying mother will disappear from common language is overstating.

It won't, it's too powerful.

It shouldn't disappear from official language either and I will fight that.

I'm not disagreeing that language matters I'm just saying I don't think mother will disappear.

If you don't agree then fair enough but you won't convince me otherwise on this, my mind is made up.

It's an agree to disagree situation.

It's an agree to disagree situation.

In these days of “Any View That Differs From Mine Means You Are Evil!” I love an agree to disagree!

@LondonWolf

It's an agree to disagree situation.

In these days of “Any View That Differs From Mine Means You Are Evil!” I love an agree to disagree!

Me too, thank you

@Artichokeleaves

I won't be losing it. I and many others will just not enable this. It will take full participation to permit it, it takes agreement and co operation.

There has been a lot, people have been very generous about being willing to bend to pronoun choices and all sorts of new language and care to try and help people in this situation. We've now hit the point where good will is beginning to run out, there is no reciprocation, and it is very clear that some people get to say 'my language choices really matter to me' but others get told to shut up, put up and no one cares how their language choices matter.

That is not inclusion. It's not a reciprocal or even basically equal relationship. And sadly once people get tired of the take take take without give and equal interest in other people's feelings and needs and inclusion, the answer will start to be no.

This raid on this word is silly. It's not going to happen, and I won't be participating in it. I won't accept it from any agency on their paperwork either.

Exactly this.

@Prater

Ok, all those things are wrong of course and shouldn't be happening.

But I STILL think saying mother will disappear from common language is overstating.

It won't, it's too powerful.

It shouldn't disappear from official language either and I will fight that.

I'm not disagreeing that language matters I'm just saying I don't think mother will disappear.

If you don't agree then fair enough but you won't convince me otherwise on this, my mind is made up.

It's an agree to disagree situation.

I agree with you. I don't think the word will disappear. However I am female and a mother and I'm clearly "mothering" wrong. Most of this doesn't resonate with me. I love my son but my whole identity, inasmuch as that is a concept I think about,is definitely not tied up with being a mother or being in a constant state of fear.

I do see that, Kimiko and, I am aware that not all women feel what I do. That is not a criticism.

You have made me realise that I see "mothering" as a verb which, for me, is filtered through the chronic and serious illness of one of our children. I never expected to see him as a man, let alone as a perfectly ordinary man.

So, yes, you make an important point. My personal circumstances are what make me so angry about the influence of Stonewall. My mothering was desperate, literally desperate, too many times to think about. Indeed, I can't think about it, am quite unable to reflect on it all and this is not at all unusual amongst mothers who have fear for the lives of their kids.

Also, clearly, not every woman who has/had a very unwell child is left with a need to growl about semantics of language.

The medics kept my son alive and I will never be able to express my [insert usual gratitudes and platitudes about the wonder of the NHS here]...but, it was my bosom and my lost sleep and my finding more rope when I thought I was at the end of it, that he needed.

You've got me thinking. I am angry, but you have made me realise that I am also projecting.

Regardless, I'm deadly serious about the civil disobedience outside Holyrood because I am prepared to be arrested in order to keep the word "mother". It is mine. I want it. I need it because my son needed me and only me and it was MY ability to provide what he needed which came at a price. And that has a value and a worth and has defined me and I am not giving up my word which denotes my privilege and my sacrifice. I am not alone in that. And good grief, how I'd like a chance to wail about it.

Beautifully put, thank you. The moment I became a mother, I felt as if I had passed through a portal from living as a teenager to living as an adult - from living in emotional black and white to living in full colour. When this is sad chapter is over, one of the greatest losses will be for those children whose medical treatment resulted in lifelong infertility, that they can never have the faintest idea of what this feels like.

To be a mother - to become a mother - has been the purest joy and the greatest achievement.

The fact that they seek to delete this word and find it 'offensive' to their ideology says all we need to know about them.

Also here's the head of Stonewall claiming that they didn't mean to erase the word 'mother'....
lesbianandgaynews.com/2021/11/jonny-best-on-nancy-kelleys-womans-hour-interview-barnett-zeroed-in-on-a-series-of-salient-issues-and-kelley-rarely-had-any-straight-answers-to-offer-sometimes-the-more/
Could also be called Stonewalling....

It will be interesting when they come up against the commercial world with a lot invested in the word Mother. Some how I can't see millions of cards with "Happy Birthing Parent Day" being big sellers with most people. Perhaps the activists will choose their battle and give this one a swerve.

I think what she means is that we can use the word ‘mother’ to suggest a sexist stereotype that anyone might claim. We can’t use a noun which might recognise the bloody, messy reality of being a female mammal, even in a maternity policy.