Given Some More Thought

I've given the Weird Phenomenon more thought (see post below). BTW - Thank you to everyone who sent me emails and comments supporting me for that one. It does mean a lot to be heard. I think moms like to share their pregnancy/birth stories with other women because it's such a profound experience and they don't get to share it often. Really, it is an incredible thing, making a person in one's own body. There's a bond between people who have undergone that kind of miracle. There certainly is among people who have or who are adopted. Sharing birthing stories helps unite women and is a way of collecting the tribe. So when women are compelled to share their stories with me, its a way of connecting with me in a way they are familiar with. When it happens, I should listen and welcome the invitation.

Women's spirituality is so deeply rooted in the biological notion of motherhood. We are bestowed with the ability to give birth. But what about those of us who aren't able to do it? Or who choose not to? Does it somehow make us less than women? Fertility is emphasized so much in women's circles that it marginalizes those of us who don't have or use it. Take out fertility and you are faced with defining women's spirituality in other terms. What makes a mother? How do parents and children bond, if not through genetics? In what way's do women bond as women if the birth experience is not shared? I don't expect answers to these quesitons, I find them everyday, in subtle ways.