Single Mother

Though parenting in the traditional sense involves both a father and a mother, Ceres looks after the single mom. After all, she was one.

Ceres was dealt the ultimate blow a mother can experience -- her child was taken from her. When Hades kidnapped Persephone, Ceres' efforts to negotiate for her child's return were so powerful that we have Spring and Summer, expressions of her abundant happiness at her child's presence -- the life force of growing plants and the fruits of the crops. The depths of missing her daughter during Persephone's annual six months in the underworld manifests in Fall and Winter, when everything dies back and life goes dormant.

Any mother who has waited for a child late to come home, or been through a custody dispute, can attest to the primal fear of losing her child. The fierceness of Ceres' response is a familiar story to women whose children have been taken by spouses, the courts, illness or accident. The myth speaks to the emotional reality of a woman whose child is gone.

The myth also gives tremendous validity to a woman's ability to create life from a difficult situation, no matter what form it takes.

Even the loss of a grown child who leaves home for college, marriage or a coming-of-age adventure is a passage for a mother, no matter how much she prepares for that eventuality. How a woman handles the separation at any stage in the life of her child is a result of Ceres' influence.

Many of us are parenting alone, as Ceres was, and must rely on our own responses for decisions along the way. We may form a community of other women -- other mothers, our sisters, our friends -- that offers emotional and practical support for the rigors and joys of child rearing.

More on Parenting:

Parenting
Child Care

Recommended Links on Single Parenting:

iVillage Parent Soup Channel
iVillage Parentsplace Channel

Order your Parents Reading!