Paying for Motherhood

It was an idyllic scene: one daughter asleep already, arm flung over the bed, while the other daughter carefully prepared her baby doll for sleep, tucking the doll into its wicker cradle and covering it with a little blanket. I watched her calmly from my rocking chair, listening to her pretend story as she talked aloud while looking at her doll:

Belle: "Raggedy Ann is this baby's mother but actually, I take care of her every day and put her to bed."

Me: "Are you her adoptive mother?"

Belle: "Huh? Adoptive...I'm not her babysitter. Actually, Raggedy Ann birthed her and then I had to pay money to be her mother. Her adopted mother."

Me: "Oh! ...I guess some mothers have to pay money to lawyers or counselors for adoption, but no one actually pays to be a mother. Babies aren't for buying and selling."

Belle: "Some mothers DO have to pay. And it cost three dollars." (She finally looks up at me.)

Me: "Then you must have really wanted to be a mother to pay that much."

Belle: "Some babies are slaves. And the Pharoah wants to kill them, especially the first-born if they are boys. And slave babies even get whipped."

Me: "That sounds scary. No one should ever hurt a baby."

Belle: "The Pharoah was an Egyptian but the slaves were not Egyptians. There were more slaves than Egyptians."

Me: "They were Hebrews."

Belle: "This Hebrew baby was whipped on the head but now she's fine."

Me: "I'm so sad she was hurt. It's a good thing the slaves escaped from Egypt."

Belle: "Yeah, but not for a really, really long time!"

A few minutes later Belle was asleep, but I was dumbfounded by our conversation and how she had linked the concept of paying for babies to the concept of slavery. I remembered telling her that Hebrew and African slaves were "bought and sold" and that no human should ever be bought or sold. I am so sensitive about money in the role of adoption that I immediately feared Belle was already wondering about that aspect of adoption, but now I think she was mulling over several things at once (babies, mothers, slaves, human cruelty, bedtime) and in the process, reminded me once more about the need for a kinder world. Note to Self: The Disney movie "Moses: King of Egypt" is pretty intense.

Comments

[salmonpoetry]

wow, that is intense!
i just found your blog by accident (address at the end of your email)- there is a lot here!

personally, i worry about the patriarchal, pro-war impact that the dogma of the religions that are part of my family (hinduism, judaism, and of course unavoidably christianity)have on my kid's life.

in that regard, i make an effort to seek out alternative (and not necessarily less historically accurate, depending on your affiliation) renditions and interpretations of some of the major religious stories and traditions.
next week i will be posting some 'positive" (in this sense) stories about chanukkah on my blog, as a counter to what i have experienced as the tendency to overemphasise military victory in many stories.

(i'm not writing this to be critical of how anyone interprets or celebrates religious holidays, in any tradition; stories are so important to a common culture and community. just to suggest there are alternatives we can choose from and perhaps create).

and, on a final constructive note, i hope the Hebrew baby's head is doing okay!!

[inspir8tion]

Hi:
Sorry to post on this entry, but the link for comments on the IAC post does not work. We are looking at choosing who to work with (attorney? agency?) for our adoption adventure. Is there anyway you can privately email me and let me know what you meant by "There were things about our IAC experience in 2001-2003 that made me
uncomfortable, even angry at times, and sometimes confused." Thank you so much!