Mothers: Myths and Fairy Tales

First off, let me wish you all a happy late Mother's Day!  I hope all the mothers reading this had a wonderful day.

Considering how very important the role of mother is in our lives, they tend to get a very bad rap in a lot of myths and fairy tales.  I've talked before about Hera, the step-mom from hell; about Aphrodite, who treated her daughter-in-law in an absolutely terrible fashion; and let us not forget Demeter, who couldn't protect her daughter from being stolen into a marriage against her will.  And that's just the Greek pantheon!

Fairy tales have it even worse.  We're all familiar with evil, wicked stepmothers - why, my last post had both an evil stepmom and an awful mother-in-law!  There's also a lot of fairy tales with absentee mothers.  Disney has helped perpetuate this stereotype by predominantly making films with evil mother-like figures - or by having the mom just be absent.

And yet, for all of the focus that the nasty mothers of myths and fairy tales get...there are actually an awful lot of good ones as well.

Take Greek mythology.  I find it hard to say much good about Hera, given how much I loathe her treatment of Hephaestus and Zeus' bastard children.  Despite this, she is the goddess of marriage and the family.  In both her Greek and Roman forms (Juno), she was regarded as a motherly figure to whom many prayed for mercy, guidance, and a strengthening of family bonds.
Aphrodite may have been a nightmare to Psyche, but her Roman form, Venus, was pretty much the ultimate mom.  She led her son Aeneas to safety in the midst of a war, and helped him to start his own kingdom elsewhere...which eventually led to the foundation of Rome.
And Demeter?  Zeus may have given their daughter over to Hades without her permission, but Demeter fought for Persephone with everything she had.  She roamed the earth, searching for her daughter.  Eventually she destroyed all crops and brought about a winter, which she promised would end with either the death of all mankind (and therefore the gods, since mankind was their source of worship) or the return of her daughter.  Not many can go up against Zeus and win, but Demeter loved her daughter so much that she was able to tie with him; Persephone got to return to her mother for half of every year.

So alright, sure, there are some pretty swell examples of motherhood in mythology (Frigg in the Norse myths remains a favorite of mine)...but what about fairy tales?

The Evil Queen from Snow White is a pretty famous villain...so much so that Snow White's birth mom is usually forgotten.  In fact, she spent much of her marriage longing for a child, and loved Snow so much that she died bringing her into the world.
Another fairy tale, Snow White and Rose Red (which is completely different from Snow White) has a single mother raising two daughters in by herself.  She obviously loves them, and has raised them to be kind, wonderful young ladies.
There's a fairy tale archetype which I haven't talked about yet, but which has a common motif.  In it, the mother rejoices so much in the birth of her child that she dies.  She is buried, and a tree sprouts over her grave.  In times of trouble, her child goes out and cries in front of the tree, which usually whispers words of comfort and wisdom.  In some versions of this story, such as The Juniper Tree, a child dies and is brought back to life thanks to the tree.  The mother cares so strongly for her child that she looks out for them even after death.

And it seems that Disney has recently recognized its dearth of strong, motherly roles, because its last few films have had some great ones.  Moana's mom - and especially her grandmother - believed in their girl and wanted her happy.  The live action Beauty and the Beast finally addressed the question of what had happened to Belle's mom, and it is obvious how much she cared for her child.  The live action Cinderella also shows that it was Cinderella's birth mother who instilled in her such great kindness and compassion for others - traits that not even her wicked stepmother could squash.  The Princess and the Frog's Tiana has a wonderful mother in Eudora.

Stories tend to focus on the bad parents, and it's far too easy for us to do the same.  Today, I wanted to take a look at the quiet love lurking behind the scenes - at the loving mothers who are there, if we only look for them.