While researching for my Ph.D., I decided to delve into Greek mythology to determine whether I could find a story that could illuminate my understanding of mothering and my interest in maternal ambivalence. I discovered the myth of Demeter and Persephone, which, while thousands of years old, demonstrates how a mythical mother, Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, weathers changes and obstacles in her relationship with her daughter. The mother’s search for and ultimate reunion with her daughter, Persephone, sends symbolic messages about mothering that speak to maternal trauma and loss.
Myths are not literal; they are generational stories that are continually adapted and retold. The personal experience and creativity of each narrator and listener move him or her to ascribe personal meaning to the tale as new versions continually surface
In this vein, Demeter and Persephone’s story has helped me to refine and bolster my understanding of mothering and maternal ambivalence. The myth has inspired me to take core elements of the story, in particular the mother’s struggle with her light and dark feelings, and expand them into an understanding of how a wise mother can channel her pain and suffering into a truthful and transformed relationship with her child.
This is how I retell the myth in my words:
Persephone, the daughter of the goddess of the harvest, Demeter, is playing peacefully in the fields with her friends when she is lured by the beauty of the narcissus flower and then abducted by Hades to his kingdom in the underworld. When her mother, Demeter, goddess of the harvest, realizes that her daughter is missing, she embarks on a frantic search for her. She becomes increasingly anguished as her quest yields nothing and eventually becomes so disturbed and disinterested in the harvest that the fields of the Earth become barren. Meanwhile, Persephone is miserable and pines for her mother and refuses all food.
Hades is informed about the struggle on Earth, and he agrees to send Persephone back to her mother. However, before Persephone leaves to return to Earth, Hades implores her to eat four pomegranate seeds. This sentences her to live out her life in the corresponding proportion—four out of the 12 months in the underworld and the balance of eight months on Earth with her mother, which Demeter accepts.
I break down this myth, and this is what I draw from it:
The narrative at the beginning, that “the daughter is playing peacefully,” speaks to the mother’s unattainable hope that her child will forever remain safe and innocent under her watchful eye. This is a fantasy as we forever lose and find our children, physically and emotionally. This is a truth we have to know, to steel ourselves for, and accept.
My use of the word “lured” suggests that, on the one hand, the daughter is abducted, and it also implies a curiosity about the underworld with its dark side.
It’s a parent’s worst nightmare that their child may be abducted, physically or psychologically, to the underworld by forces that are out of their control. This produces fear, helplessness, searching, anguish, and an unhinging, a loss of equilibrium, as total despair and emotional paralysis set in. This is marked by a barrenness when nothing else matters.
Persephone is returned to Demeter for four out of the 12 months of the year.
This myth illuminates that our reality is not necessarily what we may anticipate or desire. However, it holds true about the situations that we face with our children.
At this point, I think about how to complete Demeter’s myth in my imaginings. I am left with conjectures about how I believe that Demeter would have managed her situation. About the sustaining, persevering, transformative, and forgiving power of maternal love.
As mothers, we must accept that:
Our dreams and hopes are separate from reality, and they require continual monitoring and often resetting.
Mothering demands flow, which surfaces in sensitivities such as forgiveness, reparation, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
We have to own and continually adjust the expectations and prejudices that our mothering brings.
Both ourselves and our children move between light and darkness, often bringing confusion, turmoil, and anguish to our daily mothering.
How do we bear this reality and our contrary feelings toward this? How do we preserve our relationship with our child? How do we let go of our expectations, hopes, and dreams and face reality?
Demeter experiences both immense joy and disappointment as she begins to realize what Persephone’s eating of the four pomegranate seeds represents. It is a continual reminder of the mother’s past anguish, which is set to return annually. Demeter recognizes that her life has irrevocably changed, that something has broken for her. She must sustain a loss, and she questions whether this can be repaired and transformed.
I believe that Demeter prioritizes and values an ongoing relationship with her child, so she understands that she must adapt to a new relationship, lean into it, and flow with it. She divests herself and Persephone of blame and judgment. She learns to live with difference and to integrate and bear her multiple feelings, those of deep love and joy together with passing darkness, including feelings of sadness, frustration, loss, bewilderment, and the unknown. She must somehow find opportunity and healing in her despair and disillusionment.
She sees the perplexing and uncomfortable ones as an invitation to transform and to reset her relationship with her child. To reconnect in another way, to listen and learn. She accepts that there are parts of our children’s lives that we cannot be privy to.
This is the realization of her maternal ambivalence.
It takes maternal wisdom, thinking, and humility to compromise and to discover that our ongoing relationship with our children is very much on their terms. This belief lives dormant and active in the mother’s DNA.