Sunday, September 11, 2005
It occurred to me today...
...that when my mother calls me "mother" she isn't referring to thinking that I am actually her mother but to the relationship we now have wherein I take care of her with the intensity that a mother takes care of an infant, toddler and child. This isn't to say that caregiving to an Ancient One is anything like caring for a child. I think, though, in this culture and some others, because the primary caregiver in a family is always the "mother", this condition sticks in our subconscious. When someone, later in our lives, ministers intense care to us we can't help, from out of our sub- and unconscious, but equate that person with "mother". Thus, when we are Ancient and our under-conscious states are closer to the hand of our conscious states, we are apt to refer to those who are taking intense care of us as "mother". A shame, really, that in this society we aren't just as apt to refer to an intense caregiver as "father", or "daughter" or "son", "child", even, "aunt" or "uncle" or "nephew"...
It is well to remember that our under-consciousness states are not influenced and shaped only by Nature but by Culture, which is a large part of our Nature as humans. Humanity has proven repeatedly that primary caregiving of fellow humans at any stage of life need not be administered by only one person, nor only women, nor only mothers in the case of children, nor only daughters in the case of caregivers to Ancient Ones. It would be interesting to launch a comparative cross cultural study of what Ancient Ones who are in various phases of creative mentality call their caregivers when they are practicing what we, the 'undemented', refer to as "mistaken identity". In certain Asian cultures, for instance, wherein it is assumed that daughters-in-law will take care of one when one is Ancient: When someone other than a daughter-in-law takes on a caregiving role to an Ancient relative, what would that Ancient One, when in the depths of "mistaking" identities (or, perhaps, correctly identifying relationships) autonomically call the caregiver?
Food for thought...
It is well to remember that our under-consciousness states are not influenced and shaped only by Nature but by Culture, which is a large part of our Nature as humans. Humanity has proven repeatedly that primary caregiving of fellow humans at any stage of life need not be administered by only one person, nor only women, nor only mothers in the case of children, nor only daughters in the case of caregivers to Ancient Ones. It would be interesting to launch a comparative cross cultural study of what Ancient Ones who are in various phases of creative mentality call their caregivers when they are practicing what we, the 'undemented', refer to as "mistaken identity". In certain Asian cultures, for instance, wherein it is assumed that daughters-in-law will take care of one when one is Ancient: When someone other than a daughter-in-law takes on a caregiving role to an Ancient relative, what would that Ancient One, when in the depths of "mistaking" identities (or, perhaps, correctly identifying relationships) autonomically call the caregiver?
Food for thought...
