Handbook
A handbook of operationalising our m/other tongue
Otherwise known as a m/other-us-all
And never as a man-u-al
Please read with your tongue somewhat in your cheek.
This is a growing, changing, emerging document.
Using our m/other tongue to express our tacit maternal knowing is founded on the capacity to be comfortable with:
Not knowing/letting go
Dependence/interdependence
Faithfulness
Daily questions and affirmations:
Who do I want to care for today?
What care-full maintenance do I wish to attend to today in celebration, joyfulness, and admiration of that maintenance action and the relationships it might facilitate?
What boring graft I have gifted to humankind, and how will I take pride in that?
What Structure am I putting around love? Does this structure support or obscure Engagement? If it obscures, is it necessary for other reasons? What are those reasons? And so, what co-regulated, playful steps forward to the other can I take?
Fear and not knowing are a sign of getting the process right. Shame comes from someone else making you feel small. Guilt is good, it helps us consider if there is something different we could do that might make things better. Guilt helps with taking the initiative.
Look for the skilled m/othering that people do and name it, as it is often hidden in plain sight and not seen as skill or knowledge. First spot it in others and then in yourself. Share what you find!
Whose backstory do I need to imagine in order to empathise – with both the cared about and the cared for? How does this imagination-work help me support them in having fulfilling relational experiences – in building positive attachments and developing a felt sense of safety?
Don’t be seduced by the manstream idea that the purpose of life is completion and harmony. Embrace, as much as you can, and from the place of our m/other tongue, the process of moving between positions. Develop skills in the juggling act of keeping both content and process, repetitive/boring and unique/novel, as equal in value and deserving of internal respect. Juggling is difficult. You will drop balls. But such ruptures are the pathway to the resilience of kinship when repair is embraced.
And … rest. It’s your job to do so. M/othering – especially when it looks as though you’re doing nothing – is hard work. Without rest and regrouping, the interdependence of m/othering is quietly reclaimed by the master’s toolbox, and we find ourselves once again serving the master. When we are exhausted, we are more likely to Other.
So let’s swap our toolboxes for changing bags – with integral theoretical changing mats to support the process of transformation in comfort, wherever it is needed; emotional Sudocrem to protect from irritation and chafing; psychological cotton reusable nappies to recycle so they keep returning to contain the mess; and cognitive, environmentally sound wet wipes that won’t destroy the planet’s future. All ready for action. And lots of time and emotional contact to enjoy, because we are well rested.
Allow others to make the space for you to rest. Receive the space. You are allowed to enjoy m/otherhood.
It’s about the bodies. It’s about being slow and messy and things having to be repeated. How do we make space in ourselves to let that be? How do we love, and let ourselves be loved?
The radical shift that enables us to speak our m/other tongue as a first language is to reposition the embodied experience of conception, gestation, birthing, feeding, and infant care. For research, this becomes a matter of ontology and epistemology; for practice, it becomes the primary reference point for understanding human motivation, desire, and resistance – grounded in the mother and infant relationship. If I can hold this within myself in a consistent and non-defensive way, then I think I will have climbed out of the toolbox and begun to fill my changing bag.
Our job is to sit with the challenge of continuing to love when that love is not received by the other. Part of that job is to find the people, the places, and the language that make this possible, even when it feels impossible and we do not know how to love the unlovable. Our job is to keep working at loving the least loveable person, or system, in the room from our maternal position, without losing our choice to use our maternal power in the service of the other growing into interdependence.
Doing the “right” thing, as defined by the Uni-verse, will keep us going, because it does not disturb the status quo. Doing the “useful” thing, with dignity and care, in service of our purpose in the multi-verse and Trans-verse, will keep us growing.
The cry, “Are we nearly there yet?” reveals the manstream’s obsession with destination. The purpose of our life’s work in the m/otherland, using our m/other tongue, is not to arrive somewhere specific. It is to be fully present with ourselves and with others; to honour, or witness, whatever ‘fully’ means at different times, places, stages of growth, and for different people, both ourselves and others. Productivity is that. Community is that. Productivity is community building. It is difficult, even dangerous, work because we can’t shut down when it becomes difficult to do.
In our m/otherland, change starts from the bottom up. The task of cleaning the nappyful is not a hindrance to peace and connection, it is the vehicle to health above wealth in decision-making and peace instead of using power to subjugate people who are doing things we don’t like.