The Hierophant - Society's Lack of Support
There is no grave, no place to visit. Mourning at all is not allowed when you lose a baby before you are 20 weeks pregnant.
As a woman, I'm expected to be ashamed enough of my miscarriage to not voice my grief. It's right up there with menstrual cycles as a topic to avoid. If you grieve visibly, you are made to feel that you are not right in the head - especially when some time has lapsed. The only support available comes in the form of pills, antidepressants. The message we who mourn our angel babies are given is that we should suppress our grief.
If I ever doubted that we live in patriarchy, I know now that I have miscarried at 15 weeks.
We are dealing with something numinous here - something beyond the realm of the patriarchal Hierophant. We are dealing with the bond between a mother and the life that grows inside her when she is pregnant. This bond can be just as deep as with a child who has been welcomed into society but because this child has not passed through the hands of the Hierophant for his blessing, there should be no mention of it.
Well, I'm here to remind you...
Excellent post Idun! You are so right about the attitude that people have and it needs to change. I am going to post this to my facebook this is defiantly a message that needs to be put out there and passed around so others may understand a little more.
ReplyDeleteIt's a very sad fact of modern society. Everyone needs to mourn their losses, and miscarriage is a painful loss, but few are supported in that need.
ReplyDeleteBut rather than blaming patriarchy, I would say it is a side-effect of two modern trends:
1 - it is related to something many of us consider a right that we value - the right of abortion. Since it is relatively easy to dispose willingly of a child before 20 weeks, it follows that the accidental loss of a child in utero in the early weeks doesn't touch people as much as it should.
That sucks for the mothers who lose children, and it does make me question the value we put on life at all. There is a schizophrenia at work there.
I'm not sure what the answer to that dilemma is - on the one hand, we value our freedoms as women; on the other, we also need support when something like this happens.
2 - this denial of mourning is also related to the more widespread denial of mourning, most especially in Northern Europe and the anglo-saxon world. It's considered 'bad manners' to show too much of your feelings. People who mourn for what others consider too long are considered pathological. And in general, death is swept away, out of sight, far away from the living. It's a pathetic sign of the times.
Thanks Avalonschild!
ReplyDeleteSophie - although I agree with the second point I'm not sure that abortion changed things that much. Back in the 'good old days' when abortion wasn't allowed there was great shame in miscarriage (i.e. best not mentioned) and women who gave birth to stillborn babies were sometimes accused of (and put to death for!) infanticide.
I don't advocate a return to the bad old days - they were not at all better! But I do think that the easy availability of abortion has cheapened the value of human life in utero, at least in the early months. I don't know the solution to that, as I don't want a return to those other bad old days either, when women had to go to a back-street abortionist.
ReplyDeleteBut it's very good you are raising the issue of mourning for miscarriages, because shoving it under the carpet is not going to make the pain go away, quite the opposite.