Week 6- Marisa Gee
The topic for this week is
especially relevant with the Trump administration currently making awful
decisions concerning everyone’s access to health care and especially so for
mothers and women who wish to become pregnant. Mothers in the U.S. are largely
under- supported and I believe the health care system often treats mother and
child as individuals when realistically, they should be looked at as a whole as
they are physically and often spiritually connected. And with Trump’s most
recent decisions the rollbacks on what little safeguards, protection and basic
care that is available to women will diminish greatly or become very expensive.
Many facets of healthcare arguably have room for improvement and it is
astonishing that maternal care is not given a priority since literally everyone
living person has to have a biological mother. Our society has a pretty
flippant way of treating life givers.
In the light of this situation, I
felt that the rewritten PPD pamphlet by Audrey Wu Clark, Sharline Chiang, Pooja
Makhijani and Mimi Khuc was very thoughtful. Many of the waiting room pamphlets
I’ve seen, while their intentions may be genuine, seem to be condescending. I
think looking at PPD as a system, mind, body and spirit condition is important
in providing the best care for mothers. Also I feel there is a stigma that
society has towards women with PPD (and mental health in general) and that
needs to be addressed properly as well.
The tarot card readings for this
week I thought were also very thought- provoking. In my mind after I read The
Mother and The Daughter, I thought about how the two connect. Every mother
after all, is a daughter. And a daughter, if she so chooses, will become a mother.
So I was trying to see how the two cards could potentially relate to one
another. In what ways do you think the two tarot cards relate to one another?
Professor Valverde’s piece also
made me wonder about motherhood and how it is defined. While I fully believe
that every mother has their own individual way of defining motherhood for
themselves (often with the influence of culture, family traditions- from both
the mother and the fathers/partners side, and society), her piece made me think
about the way society recognizes motherhood. The part about how she felt that
maybe her biological mother was never meant to be her mother and that her aunt
instead was, posed an interesting situation. I felt that maybe motherhood is
beyond biology (and legal papers as with adoptees and step children) and that
there is a spiritual connection as well, as Professor Valverde felt toward her
aunt. This piece made me critically think about motherhood and once again
societal stigmas around the “perfect” mother and the “perfect” mother- daughter
bond and how that can be damaging and set up cycles of disappointment. I feel
instead of perpetuating these ideals, society should instead attempt to be more
inclusive and supportive including of all cultural practices (as presented in
the articles about Jordanian and Thai women). Neverthelesss, the fight for more
support for women is far from over!
References
The Mother, The Daughter (tarot cards)
Kieu Linh Caroline Valverde. “My Mother Not My Mother.”
Audrey Wu Clark. “Treated Pamphlet on Postpartum
Depression.” In Open in Emergency.
Jamila Abuidhail. “Rural Jordanian Mothers’ Beliefs,
Knowledge and Practicies of Postnatal Care.”
Prangthip Thasanoh, Holly Powell Kennedy & Catherine A.
Chelsa. “Spiritual Healing Practices Among Rural Postpartum Thai Women.”
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