View from the Precipice

Master of the Scandicci Lamentation, Virgin and Child, after 1508

 

 

Mother Love

 

“And the tree was happy.”

            Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree

 

“O Lord, forgive me for the tears of my mother.”

            Sergei Vasiliev, Russian Criminal Tatoo Archive, Print No. 17

 

“Are you my mother?”

            P. D. Eastman, Are You My Mother?

 

 

Mother Love is legendary for two things: its intensity and its selflessness. The intensity it shares with Fear and Lust, those other two drives that, as we’ve seen in our “Views” for March and April, help insure the reproduction of the species. Mother Love’s proverbial selflessness, however, distinguishes it not only from these two drives, but from all the rest.

 

Mother Love is, in essence, what the Christian gospels (originally written in Greek) call agape—the highest form of love: self-sacrificing, unconditional, and entire. It’s often used to refer to God’s love of humanity and, by extension, his Son Jesus’ love for us as well.

 

Shel Silverstein’s children’s book, The Giving Tree is, for many devout Christian parents, a parable of agape love epitomized. In it, a boy establishes a strong filial bond with a maternal apple tree, asking her, repeatedly, for things he needs or, as time goes on, simply wants. He begins by playing in the tree and eating her apples, but as he grows older he asks for more and more things—shade, branches to build a playhouse, wood to build a boat—and even carves his and his girlfriend’s initials in her bark.  (Ouch!)  At each stage, we read, “The tree was happy.”  Finally, all that’s left is a stump. The boy, now a weary old man, returns with a final request: a place to sit and rest. Guess where he finds one?

 

                         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                “And the tree was happy.”

 

It didn’t take long for the Sunday schools to catch on to the Christian message implicit in The Giving Tree  (“tree” = cross, etc.). According to Ursula Nordstrom, Silverstein’s publisher at Harper & Row, their enthusiasm was crucial to the book’s success.

 

For others, however (like me), the book is a portrait in full of self-disesteem and emotional masochism.[1] “The tree was happy?” It was happy to be plundered and disfigured and dismembered, to the point of becoming a dead stump? A dead stump that the “boy” (as he’s referred to throughout) can park his fat ass on?

 

What’s missing here?

 

No, not reciprocation. Not “the boy” giving back, or rather not just that. Because no amount of giving back can ever equal the first and greatest gift your mother gave you: life! (Yes, there’s a Dad in there somewhere, but you don’t know it until it’s too late for him to count. Meanwhile, he’s a stork. We’ll return to him in a moment.) No, I mean what giving back represents.

 

Gratitude.

 

You don’t need chocolates and red roses. A tree hug will do. Even a simple “Thank you.” Moms are pushovers that way.

 

What’s also conspicuously missing in Silverstein’s giving parable, however, besides gratitude, is remorse when the opportunity for saying “thank you” is gone forever. I mean when your Giving Tree has given up the ghost.

 

You know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever disobeyed or disappointed your mother. What you’re feeling is nothing compared to what you’ll experience if you let her die without making it up to her. It’s a feeling of abject disinheritance from the human race itself. The Cyrillic tattoo—"O Господи, прости меня за слезы моей матери”—on the anonymous gang member in Print 17 of Sergei Vasiliev’s Russian Criminal Tatoo Archive [2] pretty much sums it up:

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                                  “O Lord, forgive me for the tears of my mother.”

 

There is but one way to keep from disappointing your mother: do what she says. Obedience is the only adequate reciprocation for the gift of Mother Love, and remorse the only adequate punishment for withholding it. Because when you disappoint your mother, you break her heart!

 

Which brings us back to Jesus and that other, much more faithfully observed Mother’s Day in the Christian calendar.

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But before we turn to Christmas (surprised you there, didn’t I?), I need to say a word about the Catholic doctrine of Immaculate Conception, or impregnation without the taint of Original Sin.

 

Original Sin is the inheritance of all human beings, according to every Christian denomination, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant, with rare exceptions. It’s propagated biologically, along with our fallen human nature, beginning with our first parents, Adam and Eve, who succumbed to Satan’s temptations in the Garden of Eden and ate of God’s forbidden fruit. “Immaculate Conception” is conception without the stain (im- is Latin for “without” and macula for “stain”) of Original Sin. Non-Catholics (and even some ill-educated Catholics) often assume that this phrase refers to the birth of Jesus. But no, it was Mary, mother of Jesus, who had to be conceived immaculately, so that her son—half human and half divine—wouldn’t inherit a “fallen” human nature on his mother’s side. The Father’s side presented no problem, of course. (“Duh,” as the theologians would say.)

 

I’m taking the time to explain all this not as a point of pedantry, but because it helps us understand the importance of the so-called “Cult of Mary” in the Roman Catholic tradition, and by extension, the veneration of motherhood itself throughout the world.

 

The “Cult of Mary” considers the Virgin Mother of Christ just one degree removed in sanctity from the all-male Holy Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) of God himself. The only human being since The Fall to have achieved the state of original purity and innocence enjoyed by our first parents at their creation, Mary has the immediate ear of God, so that prayers to her have a much better chance of success than prayers to any other saint. And she’s All Mother, the epitome of forgiveness and forbearance, more likely than any other saint to intercede on behalf of us poor sinners, no matter how many times we sin, and never punitive when we do.

 

The same can’t be said for her divine husband, or even for their only begotten son, who is taken to be, in all accounts of his life on earth, the model of agape love. Sure, he starts out ok, all “turn the other cheek,” “do unto others,” “remove the beam from your own eye,” “take the shirt off your back,” “ask and it shall be given,” not to mention the ultimate sacrifice—death on the cross to insure eternal life for the entire human race, which he loves so much. 

 

There is no sin Jesus will not forgive—prostitution, greed, robbery, even murder [3]. You can wallow in sin your whole life long, like the gangster in Print 17, as long as you repent. (Sincerely, now! Jesus will know!) And you can repent as often as you want.

 

Until you die.

 

That’s when Jesus adds up the columns, like a celestial tax collector.

 

No more Mr. Nice Guy.

 

This is the guy, John the Baptist tells us, who’s coming to separate the chaff from the wheat and “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12). This is the guy who “did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34-36), the guy who says, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37), or worse, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother. . . he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26).

 

This is no longer the Son of Mary, inexhaustible well of agape love. He’s his Father’s son now, carrying on Dad’s punitive agenda of “an eye for an eye” and world-wide deluges that wipe out all but “His” People and fire-and-brimstone hailstorms on Sodom and Gomorrah. He's weaponized, and your insignificant demise is only the beginning. His prophet foretells an Apocalyptic End Time of horrifying destruction and eternal torture for all but the Faithful, which is to say, the Obedient.

 

You can ask the Virgin Mary for forgiveness until you’re blue [4] in the face, and she’ll be glad to oblige. Maybe your own mother will take pity on you from beyond the grave, if you have her forwarding address. But there’s nothing either of them can do to help you now.

 

You’ve broken their hearts for the last time.

 

To err is human and, despite the proverb, so is to forgive.  If there’s any kindness in the milk that little cherub on the USPS Christmas stamp has been sucking from his mother’s breast, it’s human, not divine. Doesn’t matter, though. For Jesus, they have the same pull date: “Armageddon.” Once that milk goes sour, look out.

 

Vengeful gods aren’t always male, of course (the Greeks had Nemesis and the Furies to contend with) and I don’t want to leave the impression that Mother Love is reserved only for female people who give birth. Parental affection is contagious. Any human being in the vicinity of a newborn baby can catch it, including Dad.

 

It’s a scientifically proven fact that the only requirement you need to experience what we call “Mother Love” is a fully functioning endocrine system and close proximity to an infant or small child, the younger the better. Biological males, as well as females, come equipped with all the hormones they need, including cortisol, prolactin, progesterone, oxytocin, and (in abundance) testosterone (crucial to the development of the placenta in expectant females), to form a close and tender attachment to their—or anyone else’s—newborn child. [5]  The phenomenon is known as “parental synchrony” and it’s operative during both the prenatal and postnatal periods, with “far reaching effects” that extend “outside the parental dyad” to the point of impacting infant development.

 

Infants are specially equipped to elicit this hormonal response in adults generally, not just their parents. My electronic assistant has provided me with this handy list of their wily ways:

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• Crying: A primary, early signal to communicate needs like hunger, pain, or loneliness, which prompts a caregiving response.

• Smiling and Vocalizing: Social smiling (starting around 6–8 weeks) and cooing are designed to delight caregivers and encourage continued interaction.

• Eye Contact and Gaze: Infants prefer looking at human faces and will lock eyes to create a strong sense of connection and emotional exchange.

• Physical Proximity Seeking: Behaviors such as clinging, grasping, and reaching out, especially when distressed, ensure the infant stays close to the safety of the caregiver.

• Appearance (Kindchenschema): Features like a large head, large eyes, and soft skin (often called "baby schema") innately trigger protective, nurturing behaviors in adults.

• Temperament and Cuddliness: An infant’s responsiveness to being held, their scent, and their ability to be soothed help strengthen the emotional attachment. 

 

My favorite is “Kindchenschema,” because it’s fun to pronounce.

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So does this mean the mother’s and father’s roles in parenting are interchangeable? By no means. Their hormonal drives may be identical, but they usually differ in intensity and, mainly due to socialization, they are typically expressed differently as well. Mothers more often interact with their infants face-to-face and “babble” more, in a kind of “protolanguage,” a literal “mother tongue,” attuned to the syllabic capabilities and frequency range of the infant’s patterns of vocalization. Fathers tend to engage in more physical play—holding or tossing in the air, swinging around, bouncing, “rough-housing.”

 

Regardless of style or level of intensity, the parental instinct is something both sexes can experience simply through being in close proximity to the newborn. The biological mother’s proximity, however, begins prenatally and tends to be more continuous postnatally. Gestation and breast-feeding also make it much more intimate throughout. To paraphrase Civil War general Nathan Beford Forrest, the mother “gets there firstest with the mostest.” Thus, the beatification of motherhood. Not that getting there second, with a bit less, doesn’t have its compensations.

 

Speaking of which, I think we’re closer to understanding why Jesus’ Heavenly Father was so ready to sacrifice his only begotten son on the cross, aren’t’ we?  Even if he’d shown up when Jesus was born, he still lacked any of the hormones and neural circuitry he’d need to develop a strong paternal attachment.

 

This is where Joseph, so often relegated to the back tier in the Nativity tableau, along with the shepherds (even the cow and the donkey and the sheep get manger-side seats)—this, I say, is where Joseph really shines. And why? Because he was a human being, with all of the biological equipment needed to make him a loving father and none of the impediments of a disembodied divinity. While God was MIA, pacing up and down the heavenly waiting room like some cigar-clutching pater familias from a situation comedy, Joseph was there, in the delivery room, watching and watching over.

 

It was Joseph who stood by his pregnant fiancée, who married and defended and protected her on the long, cold journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, who found them a place at the sold-out inn, and who stood right there, in the closest proximity imaginable (except for the farm animals), watching his son come into the world. And it was Joseph, his “parental synchrony” in overdrive, who shepherded his new family on the long journey to Egypt to save the boy from jealous King Herod’s “slaughter of the innocents" (Matthew 2:16–18)?

 

I say “his son” because, well, wasn’t it? What other legitimate claimant could there be? God knows who his “real” father was.

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Among Catholic saints, Joseph holds many titles. He’s the patron saint of workers, carpenters, families, the Universal Church, even a happy death. One of the many titles he lacks, which in my opinion should be first and foremost, is “Patron Saint of Adoptive Parents.”  True, technically, he was Jesus’ stepfather. But the day-to-day reality of his situation tracks closely with that of adoptive parents everywhere. “Whose child is this?” wasn’t, for Joseph, as it is for most of us, just a line from a Medieval Christmas carol, and the answer, “God’s,” must have been difficult for this simple, honest Nazarene carpenter to fathom, let alone credit.

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We have numerous, and famous, tributes to Mother Love, a distinguished (and undistinguished) tradition of them. But who’s ever written a paean of praise for Adoptive Love? Or Step-Love?

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I nominate P. D. Eastman.

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Whoa, now! The P. D. Eastman who wrote “Are you my mother?” That parable of conventional, biological Mother Love? Baby bird hatches when Mother Bird is off looking for worms to feed it, then goes in search of her, asking every creature it meets, “Are you my mother?” and meeting with rejection at every turn, until a steam shovel (aka a “Snort”) does the hatchling the courtesy of gently lifting it up to the nest it tumbled out of, whereupon Mom appears with a big juicy worm.

 

Yes, I mean that Eastman. [6]

 

A moment’s reflection tells us the lesson here applies to fathers as well as mothers, and to adoptive parents as well as birth parents. For, in the end, the only criterion the baby bird has to distinguish its mother from all the other candidates, never having laid eyes on Mom to begin with, is that “mother” is what provides nourishment, protection, and love—a role that anyone, biologically related or not and including fathers, can also provide.

 

Joseph had the advantage, which most adoptive parents don’t get when they sign up for duty, of being there from, literally, the Zero Hour of his son’s birth. That the success rate for adoptions is inversely proportional to the age of the adoptee will come as no surprise to many of you. Younger adoptees—newborns, infants, toddlers, preschoolers—bond more successfully with their adoptive parents than do children six years of age and up. [7]

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There are exceptions, however, where the attachment grows in only one direction. Twelve years after his birth, Jesus went missing for three days. Mary and Joseph found him disputing with the rabbis in the Temple. Mary asks him, “Son, why hast Thou thus dealt with us? Behold, Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.” To which the delinquent replies, rather impudently, “How is it that ye sought Me? Knew ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49).

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This reply (or rebuke?) is conventionally interpreted as addressed to Mary, but in the archaic English of the King James Version “ye” is plural and Mary has just bundled Joseph’s sorrow with her own. How must he have felt to hear his son invoke, as adoptive children often do, this ghostly, absent, but “real” Father as the ultimate authority demanding his obedience?

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Only an adoptive parent, I’ll bet, can really know.

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Predeceasing Jesus, Joseph was at least spared the greater agony of standing at the foot of the cross and hearing his wayward son, obedient to the bitter end, cry out in that astonishing moment of despair just before he died, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani”—“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27: 46).

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That agony was reserved for his mother.

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Notes

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1. "One of the most divisive books in children's literature," according to librarian Elizabeth Bird. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Tree

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2. Online at https://fuel-design.com/russian-criminal-tattoo-archive/photographs/sergei-vasiliev/print-no-17/

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3. Before he was converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus, St. Paul was a chief persecutor of Christians, often to the death, and supported the killing of St. Stephen, which makes him, in the eyes of many, a murderer or at the least complicit in murder.

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4. Her liturgical color, as it happens.

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5. See "Do Parental Hormone Levels Synchronize During the Prenatal and Postpartum Periods? A Systematic Review," Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review. 14 April 2024. Volume 27, pages 658–676, (2024). Males have even been known to lactate under certain circumstances. In Sri Lanka, for example, a 38-year-old man successfully nursed his two daughters after his wife died during childbirth. See “Strange but True: Males Can Lactate,” Scientific American, September 6, 2007.

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6. We must assume it’s the hidden driver of the steam shovel who extends this courtesy, mustn’t we? Which would make the steam shovel a literal deus ex machina, in line with Jesus’ famous parable about the sparrows, not one of which can even fall to the ground without God taking notice (Matthew 10:29).

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7. See "Toddler Adoption and Attachment: Good News," online at https://creatingafamily.org/adoption-category/toddler-adoption-and-attachment-good-news/