Of Woman Born & Limitless Love
Adrienne Rich’s introduction to her book Of Woman Born showed her growth and elaborated on her reflections in the ten years since first publishing the book. Throughout the introduction, Rich points to the many nuanced facets of motherhood that complicate the relationship, mainly the way systemic pressures and oppressions shape the way these relationships come do be (or don’t) and how they grow and progress in reaction to the child’s specific environment. When Rich spoke about black motherhood and referenced literature by afro- and carribean-american women and the ways they tackle the “specific cultural differences in mother-daughter interactions”, I couldn’t help but think of the multitudes of stories of ways these cultural differences have played out between my own mother and myself. This particular topic had been on my mind today, and after reading the section on black motherhood, I was naturally prompted to go back to an article my mother sent me just this morning. Having been born and raised in Panama, my mother and I have often struggled to find common ground or to understand where the other is coming from, not due to lack of trying, but due to the environments that we were raised in. We have worked hard to understand each other’s love languages, to communicate effectively, and to really listen when the other is speaking. To this point, she had forwarded a Roxane Gay article about growing up with Haitian-American parents, an article that was full of quotes that I can remember from my childhood almost exactly the same. Some of the most striking to me were “a closed door meant we were probably up to no good. A closed door meant we were trying to shut our parents out of our lives when they wanted nothing more than to have their lives fully entwined with theirs.” The idea of boundaries and privacy are key concepts in healthy American families, but one that was utterly unheard of to my mother. I was able to see this tension even between my American-born father, who accepted my requests for space and boundaries immediately, and my mother, who seemed truly shocked at his reaction and hurt by what she perceived as my not needing her. However, when she sent the article, as you can see in the copy I’ve attached, she wrote “Hi Bre—this article will help you understand the “me”, my love + my belie[fs]”. Although it has been hard at times, particularly when I was young and saw relationships functioning differently than my own, I am reminded and truly overwhelmed by the uniqueness and, as Gay puts it, the limitlessness of love that I have been given and taught to give back.