The poem “The Mother” brought tears to my eyes. “You remember the children you got that you did not get.” (Brooks 2). This poem was very moving to me not because I have ever had an abortion but I am a mother and I can understand the regrets in this poem. She talks about the live of her babies that were never born. She stole their birth and their right to life. She is remorseful of their unfinished lives. The babies “never giggled, planned or cried” (Brooks 33). You understand her pain and that she did not decide to have abortions because children were inconvenient but that the decisions might have been made out of necessity and love. She loved all her children. It makes me realize that people make difficult choices and mourn those painful consequences.
I am just guessing but maybe she is a mother already burdened with more mouths than she can feed and the father who cannot or does not take responsibility for them. So rather than bring more babies into the harsh world; she views that it is kinder to abort them. She is a woman overwhelmed by life and rationalizes that the babies are “damp small pulps with a little or with no hair. “ (Brooks 3). She is haunted by her babies’ unfinished lives. At the end of the poem she beseeches the reader to know that she knew them and loved them “All.” (Brooks 35).
I was touched by this poem also. For the same reason as you I'm a mother. I have never had an abortion either but I know how sad it would be if any of children had not been born. The world would be missing so much.
ReplyDeleteThis poem reminded me of a close friend. I'm not a mom, I don't know if I ever want to be a mom. And I've never had an abortion but a very dear friend of mine has. I still remember the day she asked me if she was making the right decision. Despite her certainty that this is what she needed to do there was still an insecurity on whether she was doing the right thing in everyone else's eyes. That's the feeling I got from this poem, the desire for the mother to be understood that these children really did mean something to her, she needed people to understand that what she did was necessary but that it didn't mean she didn't love them. She even accepted what she'd done, she didn't believe the child was just a fetus, she didn't believe it wasn't a big deal. In her words she'd murdered her children and she understood the weight of it. But like my friend I just kept getting the feeling that she wanted someone to tell her that she made the right choice, so she could let go of the guilt.
DeleteI think the poem also brought a great humanization to the women who make this horribly difficult decision. It is not one made lightly or without thinking of the consequences to going through with it or not. This isn't something women don't think of or write off like throwing away an old t-shirt or returning some unworn shoes. This is a harsh, emotional, and taxing choice that she has made and is completely thinking of the good of the child while doing it. While she loves them, she knows she could not give them what they needed had they been brought into the world. She is not selfish and she is bravely depicting herself as such.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, she sees her decision, she accepts her decision and she owns it. I appreciate her for that. For admitting this wasn't the first time, for in essence saying it wouldn't be the last but not just writing it all off as though it didn't effect her. She was effected be each and every child that didn't get a chance to laugh or cry in this world and she just wants it to be understood that despite what she'd done. She knows the extent, she accepts she chose to kill her own children, but she just wants it to be understood that she loved them. Each and everyone despite what she'd had to do.
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