mothers and Mothers
"In an ideal society, the Mother-Child relationship would be primary, revered, even sacred . . . "
I can't hear what the speaker says next, because my son has to go to the bathroom, and there aren't any boys' bathrooms because this is a feminist thing, and he's not comfortable with a bathhouse full of women, and we need to figure out what to do now.
She's saying something about the patriarchy--big surprise--and something else about work relationships, peer relationships, then something about how different it is in certain Mother-centered African tribes.
I can't really hear, because my daughter's legs hurt, because her feet don't touch the floor in the big grown-up folding chairs we have, but she's too big to sit comfortably on my lap, and my butt's going to sleep trying to hold her anyway.
She's talking now about communing with the Great Mother, and it must have been really good because everyone is applauding, but mostly what I notice is that the standing ovation gives me a bit of cover to slip out and find a boys' bathroom and get me and my daughter out of these metal chairs. Besides, they're hot and bored and tired, and I'm hot and frustrated and my butt really is asleep now, and this just isn't working.
I'd like to come back for the stuff this evening, but I promised to bring some milk by my own mother's house before I went home, and the kids are going to have to get to bed, so I guess I'm going to have to miss the rest of this. I hate that, because I wanted at least to be able to ask about the gossip from Michigan this year; I probably won't be able to go there myself until Tommy's old enough to stay home on his own, since he's almost too old to go already.
It was a really cool idea to have this event to learn about the Mother in Mythology, to celebrate women, and all that, and I'd really like to see and hear the rest, but it's just not working. I'll get a friend to tell me about it all, when someone asks me where I went, or maybe I can read a transcript later, if there is one..
I suppose it's only the folk without kids or family obligations, who have time to stay at the festival for Mothers. See, I only have a lower-case m.
4:25 p.m., Saturday, April 29, 2000
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