The poem Momma, written by Chrystal Meeker is a detailed poem about the the life of a struggling mother and her children. In Meeker’s poem, the main character portray the hardship and reality of her family during a difficult time. The narrator provide details about the willingness of her mother, whom she called Momma. This daughter glorifies her mom’s actions while facing financial difficulties. The mother is described as a caring, hardworking individual to her offspring. “A baby to one shoulder, a dish towel to the other” (8) this mother displays the true perception of motherhood. Willingly, this mother ensures that her children are well taken care of before her own well –being. Though she experience challenging situations, she outcast
In “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks and “Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath, both writers describe a mother’s personal thoughts and emotions through their journey of motherhood. In order to defend the mother both poems provide positive aspects of a mother .Whether they are a mother with a child or an aborted child. The poems describe both black and white areas of motherhood and how we shouldn’t mark mothers that have children or aborted children as horrible mothers. Instead, we should consider the circumstances in which both mothers are going through and take into consideration that mothers are mothers whether or not they had the child.
A debate has been raging for years over the necessity for, mother’s duties, which has been so much so that it is termed “Mommy Wars”. The core of “Mommy Wars” is about mothers should wave rights of studying and working to take care of children at home and be a housewife. Traditionally, mothers must be a full-time mother when they raise a baby. However, by the development of society and the movements for women’s rights, this issue has been increasingly a hot topic for the discussion. For this reason, Louise Story interviewed students and faculties at Yale University.
In “Momma” by Chrystal Meeker, the narrator, is telling how their mother cares for her children. In "Momma" by Chrystal Meeker, the narrator is telling how a mother living in poverty cares for her children. In order to understand this poem, readers must understand that the family has arguments, the mother unconditionally loves her children, and the daughters eventually have guilt over the arguments and treatment of their mother.
The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.
“Motherhood is a great honor and privilege, yet it is also synonymous with servanthood, everyday women are called upon to selflessly meet the need of their families. Whether they are awake nursing a baby, spending their time and money on less than grateful teenagers, or preparing meals, mom continuously put others before themselves” – Charles Stanley (Brainy Quotes, 2016)
When all the women in my life are mothers, what else can I aspire to be? Aren’t motherhood and womanhood so intricately interwoven so as to run into one another, to become one another? What kind of woman are you if you can’t add to the discussions in the doctor office waiting rooms about nursing this child or that through this malady or that? What kind of woman are you if you can’t re-tell the story of labor and delivery, recounting the hours, the pain, the excess or lack of your child’s hairiness over a church picnic while eating cold fried chicken and coleslaw? What kind of woman are you if you can’t feel the contradiction between the satisfaction of a job well done and the sorrow at a loss for being necessary when your child moves away from home? What else could I be but a mother? So, I am a mother, and yet am also not one, because I can tell these stories about my child with only partial knowledge. I am a non-biological mother of a child with two mothers, making my position ambiguous when I share my parenting stories publicly; though, at home, when Aedin calls out “Momma,” I’m all too happy to be the one she’s calling.
Mama, as a member of an older generation, represents the suffering that has always been a part of this world. She spent her life coexisting with the struggle in some approximation to harmony. Mama knew the futility of trying to escape the pain inherent in living, she knew about "the darkness outside," but she challenged herself to survive proudly despite it all (419). Mama took on the pain in her family in order to strengthen herself as a support for those who could not cope with their own grief. Allowing her husband to cry for his dead brother gave her a strength and purpose that would have been hard to attain outside her family sphere. She was a poor black woman in Harlem, yet she was able to give her husband permission for weakness, a gift that he feared to ask for in others. She gave him the right to a secret, personal bitterness toward the white man that he could not show to anyone else. She allowed him to survive. She marveled at his strength, and acknowledged her part in it, "But if he hadn't had...
Raising a child can be an overwhelming situation for any working mother and father, but it is an even more daunting task when there is only one parents to take on this mission. I commend all parents who juggle and multi-task their lives to provide a balance and nurturing life for their children, but I must still remain objective. I can say that I speak with knowledge, having female friends and female family members who are single-handedly taking on this challenge. Being a parent has made me realize that there is no one plan that works for all, but certainly there is one desired result; children who become caring, independent and productive members of society. Due to my observations, I have come the the conclusion that single mothers spoil their children with unearned gifts, give too much freedom to their children, and let their children get away with uncorrected bad behavior.
Societal perceptions of motherhood in North America have changed drastically over the last century and continue to change. Due to prescribed traditional gender roles, the concept of motherhood has historically been latent in the concept womanhood, in that a woman’s ability to reproduce was seen to be an inherent part of her identity. Thus there existed societal pressures not only for women to become mothers, but to fit into the impossible standard of being the “perfect mother”. However, as the feminist movement gained more ground and women were increasingly incorporated into the workforce, these traditional views of gender roles and in turn motherhood were challenged. As the family dynamics that exist today are much more diverse, what makes a “good” mother and a “bad” mother continue to be debated – the “Mommy Wars”, to be discussed in the first section, though a largely media driven debate, that is telling of our society’s preoccupation with “mother-blaming”. The second section will discuss feminism’s relationship with motherhood; while in the past some feminists have rejected motherhood as a whole with the belief that there was no way around the patriarchal oppression that existed within it, today feminist scholars argue that there are ways for motherhood to be less oppressive and more empowering. The third section discusses the fairly new practice of feminist mothering in which feminist mothers work to challenge the “institution of motherhood” in order to use motherhood as a platform for activism. Therefore, as feminism seeks to challenge these traditional gender roles, the feminist movement has enabled women to redefine what it means to be a mother in our society – making motherhood a symbolic platform for women’s rights.
Who will look after it? .She goes off to work, but never stops worrying about the child” (131). In a statement, Kollontai introduces one of the greatest dilemmas that face a working-class mother, whether to work to support her child or to stay at home to provide the care and attention that her child needs. This is especially true because, at least the current application of feminist thought, appears to create another class of alienated women as soon as a previous one rises up.
This submissive role for mothers often made them economically and financially vulnerable when the male was no longer present in the family unit via divorce, death, etc: “The language of the nuclear family continues to sway our speech, crowd out equally valid models of living” (Hochman 320). These are important aspects of mothering, which define the gender bias of patriarchal marital institutions and the resulting burden that often makes it very difficult for women to be “fit” mother’s when having limited employment and/or financial options to raise their children and support the family
When people think of mothers, most immediately jump to the image of their own unconditionally loving, sacrificing and caring figure they had as their own, whereas some had callous, uncaring women that they had to call a mother. However, the three poems The Victory, Metaphors, and The Mother by Stevenson, Plath, and Brooks, respectively, depict motherhood in both of these manners which expounds the true feelings behind any current or future mother.
...eals the mother’s attitude towards her new role. Just as in the Victorian era where women were limited in their development as individuals and mainly served as wives and mothers, the speaker feels as if she is confined to her new role as a mother and is denied her creative freedom.
After reading the first ten chapters in “Prayers for the Stolen” by Jennifer Clement, I found some interesting details about how mothers take care of their children in the story that connected to my culture. Mother’s love is like a big ocean, every mother has her own ways to express her love. Most of them are good at protecting, taking good care for, and making sacrifices for their children while others are bad because sometimes one just loses control and can’t understand clearly what she just did, such as giving the permission for her underage child to drink alcohol like Ladydi’s mother in the story.
middle of paper ... ... In the traditional society, the father’s only focus is on earning an income for the family which has a direct impact on the family members due to the lack of time spent bonding with his children and wife. The responsibility of the children falls on both parents’ shoulders, not just on the mothers. However, this is also an issue in modern society, if mothers rely too much on day-care and do not spend enough time with their children, then the same thing that happens to the father happens to the mother.