Reply to comment

A long night passed, as I held and rocked my three year old daughter through another ear infection, I contemplated motherhood as culture. Finally, as the pain subsided and I watched her pain turn to short intervals of quiet slumber, I remembered how, when I was a child, I, too, had severe ear infections and my mother and grandmother would rock me to sleep. I then began thinking of the different ways in which we celebrated holidays together, how my mother always was in the kitchen, all my aunts laughing together, cleaning (doing supposed "women's work"), the men watching sports, but it provided a sense of home and community. It occurred to me how important it is, not only to have an awareness of what our culture consists of but how to teach our children the importance of cultural inheritance (is there such a term??) My family has changed since my mother and grandmother, there are now two mom's in our house, and at holidays, two mom's and a dad and everybody does the dishesand "most" of us like to watch sports (partcularly Steelers). But, some of the same culture stays with me from my childhood, nonetheless.

Have a good class...I will be at home being mom.