Gone seem to be the days when mothering, especially stay-at-home mothering, is viewed as a non-occupation. Like when the question, “Does your mom work?” was answered by, “Nah, she just stays home.” Thus giving the impression (at least to this writer) that stay-at-home mothering was uneventful, unproductive, indulgent and downright boring.
Due largely to the advent of the social media age, where we are now privy to the smallest details of one another’s existence, we are given a lens into a current phenomenon that is beginning to come into full bloom. If you haven’t already caught wind of this movement on your news feed, here’s the scoop: neo-traditionalism is on the rise.
Defined as “reviving traditional methods; combining tradition with newer elements.” This can be applied to a range of recent related trends from traditional dietary systems such as the paleo diet, interest in wild edibles and foraging, to herbalism and plant medicine including a growing collective preference of the counter-culture for ceremonially oriented practices that utilize entheogens such as ayahuasca, kambo, san pedro and iboga. It encompasses homesteading, off-grid-living, eco-building as well as home or un-schooling, the reclaiming of the wild, sacred feminine, where red tents and women’s circles are popping up globally like an activation of a long latent mycelial network, the growing fascination in practical application of different indigenous systems of shamanism from Amazonia to Siberia, large scale gatherings in nature at cultural music festivals, ecstatic dance, the rewilding movement, widening interest in the primal arts such as tanning, hunting, bow-making, hand drill fire making and wilderness survival skills.
As Terence McKenna prophetically put it back in the early nineties, “This is where the future is taking us because the secret faith of the twentieth century is not modernism, the secret faith of the twentieth century is nostalgia for the archaic… the way out is back and that the future is a forward escape into the past.”
Now how does this apply to Mothering?
Since evolving from our arboreal dwelling ancestors around 2 million years ago, we’ve adapted to walk upright, doubled our brain capacity and mastered the use of fire and complex tools such as cleavers and hand axes; we’ve basically been on the fast track of evolutionary progress. But how much has changed in the way we are wired biologically since the ways our primate ancestors mothered?
Most primates, including humans are socially oriented creatures that spend their lives living in groups or communities. Amongst primates, this practice affords the group protection from predation as well as assurance of the food source. Mothering is not done by a single parent or set of parents but by the collective, a concept known as allo-mothering. This puts less pressure on the biological mother in terms of the time and effort required to care for her infant. In turn, this alleviation of constant and total parenting responsibilities allows the mother more time to recuperate her strength, thus increasing her reproductive capacity as well as allotting more time to forage, both which increase the efficiency, health and sustainability of the whole group. Now, let’s take a look at mothering practices in traditional societies and see how they compare.
In indigenous groups from Africa to Australia, to the Americas and beyond, mothers were and still are valued as an important position in society due to the fact that they are essentially stewarding the future of that society in the raising of their young. In such cultures, the family structure is rarely nuclear but rather communal where the overall social structure is made up of interwoven and overlapping families that share farming, harvesting, hunting, building and repairing responsibilities, as well as birthing and child raising efforts, thus giving greater support to the whole. This is very similar to the social/familial interplay of primate groups. Such a social structure is what gives birth to the clichéd proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.”
This dynamic greatly differs from mothering practices in many modern Western cultures where children are generally raised in a dual or single parent household, rather than a multi-generational one, where geography and economic necessity tend to separate individuals from their family unit, even if one exists. Work is generally done outside of the house, if not by one parent then by both if there are two, which raises the all-important issue of child-care and has set off a booming industry in response. Child-care usually comes at a steep price, both financially as well as emotionally, as leaving one’s offspring in the hands of other people to raise in order to have the time to generate resources to afford the care in the first place perpetuates a feedback loop that leaves many parents doubting their choices yet feeling powerless that there may be another way in which to live.
There is a quiet yet growing mothering movement that is gaining momentum through social media channels. One only needs to browse certain Instagram hashtags such as #birthofamama, #tribedemama, #motherhoodrising, or #consciousmamasbuddhababies to recognize that changes are underway in which the way modern mothers are birthing and raising their children. Birth bonding, extended breast-feeding, baby wearing, co-sleeping and emphasis on the development of intuition over reliance on outside influences are becoming increasingly more fashionable.
Let’s call it resurgence. This parenting style has almost exclusively and continuously been practiced since the dawn of time with the exception of a brief lapse that occurred in Western society when the post-industrial age began and seems to be waning. As recent evidence implies the best way to raise our children may not necessarily be known by the supposed experts but by the people who know them the best, their own mothers.
Hundreds of diverse personal Instagram accounts, many with tens of thousands of followers, are all putting their own individual spin on a new version of traditional mothering, one that looks sexy, exciting, fun, natural, organic, earthy and intuitive.
There is a radical traditional mothering movement underway.
Instagram exhibits a vast and perplexing gamut of neo-traditional mothering archetypes. You’ll find everything under the sun from pig-raising paleo moms to bee-keeping vegan moms, marijuana-endorsing moms to the homesteading/off-the-grid/DIY mamas, urban fashionista moms to the island-living mermaid moms, some with only one offspring, others managing a small clan, some that are adopted, artificially inseminated or children by marriage. Despite the apparent diversity there are some basic similitudes to the way these new mothering role models are being defined.
Many of these profiles exemplify a break with the traditional, stereotypical representations of motherhood, replacing them with more varied and unconventional archetypes, be it your pierced, tattooed, interracial and in some cases even same sex mothers. Many of them expound attachment-parenting philosophies, with an overwhelming array of images showing mothers breastfeeding, sleeping together with their children or carrying them on their bodies in any number of newfangled wraps, slings and packs. Many are not nine-to-fivers but rather self-employed entrepreneurs who have managed to create a livelihood that is centered on the home and family. For some, motherhood has actually morphed into a career or its own branded product, in and of itself.
Despite these creative efforts to present a fresh, new face of the modern mother, there are still collective challenges to confront due to the way our social order is constructed. Some of the common challenges faced by Western women when they become mothers are:
1. Isolation/alienation from their family, friends and tribe
2. Lack of a proper support system: financial, emotional, communal
3. Overwhelm
4. Body image issues
5. Not having enough time
6. Marital discord
7. Juggling family life with career
8. Lack of knowledge or tools to manage one’s own health or the health of one’s family
9. Being bombarded by too many choices
The Sacred Motherhood Blueprint is the “forward escape into the past.” It has manifested in response to fill the void that occurred when we ceased to live in tribes, benefitting from the wisdom and collective experience of our clan and intergenerational relations. It’s a virtual initiation into the ways of neo-traditional mothering that synthesizes the cross-cultural wisdom of our maternal ancestors with innovative information in user-friendly course formats that span the journey from conception to pregnancy, birth to postpartum and culminates in the rearing of your baby during that fundamental first year. The Blueprint was designed to specifically address the common challenges of the modern mother and provide simple-to-integrate solutions through our 5 module paradigm, mirrored on Nature and the all-encompassing intelligence of the 5 elements.
Earth: Let thy food be thy medicine. Experience the gamut of nutritional philosophies from Ayurveda to Westin Price in a concise and condensed way that will give you the tools to choose the right path to eating for fertility, to maintain a viable and healthy pregnancy, to recover strength postpartum as well as to increase lactation and introduce your baby to potent nutrition from the start.
Water: Become sovereign in you and your family’s health. If you’ve ever felt at a loss of how to manage even simple illnesses and know there is a better option than immediately turning to doctors and pharmacies that treat symptoms and not underlying causes, then its time to access a multitude of botanical and natural remedies including herbs, flower essences, homeopathy and aromatherapy for your household toolbox.
Fire: Relationship takes on a whole new dynamic once family comes into focus. Learning to discover and interface between your needs and desires on this path into motherhood and that of your partner and family, how to build a support system within your community as well as how to navigate the delicate balance of career with child-rearing are all topics we delve deeply into.
Air: Self-care practices and lifestyle therapy make for happy, healthy mamas and construct a foundation of well-being on which to build your family and raise your children.
Ether: To know oneself intimately is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves, our children, partners, families, co-workers and communities. Cultivate a flourishing inner garden through the development of uniquely personal spiritual and ritual practices and reap the fruits together with your most cherished ones.
In this society of over-consumption, we easily can become victims of overwhelm with a constant influx of too much information, too many choices and not enough time. As a team of mothers, natural living proponents and holistic practitioners, we’ve spent decades gleaning the most useful information in the fields of health, interpersonal dynamics and spirituality and compiled them in a way that can be easily integrated into busy lives and full schedules. This movement in neo-traditional mothering presents an opportunity to transform our consciousness as individuals, as caregivers and as a species.