Uncle John’s Presents Mom’s Bathtub Reader (5 page)

Play for mom?
Sure. Especially if she digs Sondheim.

“Mother” by Barbra Streisand
(album:
Barbra Joan Streisand
, 1972)

What it sounds like:
Are you kidding? It sounds like
Barbra.
Only Barbra could make this song about parental disappointment sound like a glorious anthem of freedom.

Play for mom?
Yup. It’s not a “happy mom” song, but that will get ignored because of TheVoice.

Classic Athenian and Spartan moms were different from each other as night and day

F
our thousand years ago, the Greeks may have been speaking the same language, but they weren’t ruled by one king or queen. They lived in city-states, all with their own politics, traditions, and customs. For moms and their kids, life was very different in the city-state of Athens than it was in the city-state of Sparta.

Athens is famous as the “cradle of civilization.” The Athenians gave the classical world cultural gifts: great art, architecture, and theater. They also began our most valued political traditions—big stuff like trial by jury and democracy. But when it came to women, those advanced Greek leaders were a little backward.

An Athenian woman was expected to submit to her husband’s “wisdom,” which was problematic if he didn’t have any. She couldn’t eat, sleep, or drink in the same room as men or make financial decisions. She wasn’t allowed to vote, go to political meetings, or attend the theater. She couldn’t even go to the market without a chaperone. And a famous Athenian quote went like this: “Teaching a woman to read and write? What a terrible thing to do! Like feeding a vile snake on more poison.” It seems that the prevailing attitude was that women were dangerous enough already; if one went and gave them
ideas and started them thinking, they would become even more perilous to men. So when it came to women’s rights, it was all Greek to the Athenians.

Why all this female bashing? Blame it on the brilliant Athenian philosopher Aristotle, who figured out that if a wife decided to fool around she might bear her lover’s child without anyone being the wiser. (Well, duh.) Aristotle also knew that if a woman was uneducated and powerless it was easier to control her and limit any possibility of hanky-panky. That way when a husband died, he wouldn’t have some other man’s kid inheriting his stuff.

But now for something completely different—Sparta. Most Greek city-states were like Athens in their attitude toward women and children. Not Sparta. Instead of being kept at home, Spartan gals went to their own schools, just like the guys did.

The Spartan women were tougher and freer than other Greek women. Like their brothers, Sparta’s young women were trained to be fine athletes and to hand the enemy his head in battle. Since Greek sporting games were often conducted in the nude, girls practiced running races without a stitch on, even when men were around. (Athenians considered it shocking!) Spartan ladies were as “exposed” as Athenian women were hidden away. The Spartan women’s athletic prowess was respected and admired by the Spartan guys, who believed that strong women meant a strong state.

But the Spartans were hardly feminists or even democrats. There was no great art or theater. Sparta was a tough warrior culture where men and women served the state.
(The word “spartan” doesn’t mean “austere” and “self-denying” for nothing!) Still, unlike Athenian young ladies, the tough chicks in Sparta were encouraged to develop their abilities. They were expected to be educated, fit, and courageous so that they could defend their homes when their men were away and produce great warriors for the state.

These differences between the homebound Athenians and the warrior Spartans showed up in their marriage plans. The short list of what Athenian women
could
do included attending religious functions, funerals, and, of course, weddings. Perhaps because it was one of their few nights out, Athenian girls had wedding ceremonies that fans of
Modern Bride
could probably relate to.

On a night with a full moon, the veiled bride, dressed in her best, would meet her bridegroom as guests looked on. There would be an animal sacrifice (OK, maybe
Modern Bride
readers would pass on that part) in the bride’s honor and feasting that included cakes made with honey before the groom led the bride to his chariot to take her home. Unfortunately, the romance could be superficial since it was often a ritual where a very young bride was transferred from being the property of her father to the property of another older man whom she barely knew.

A wedding in Sparta was a heck of a lot cheaper than in Athens. No caterers, no bands, no bridesmaids, no fuss. Instead, the groom showed his strength to his bride by abducting her and carrying her off into the night for a quickie honeymoon that usually didn’t include hotel reservations. But a Spartan woman did marry someone
who was young and strong, and often there was mutual attraction.

As for motherhood, when a child was born in Athens, friends and relatives sent gifts. Mom decorated the doorway with an olive branch or a wreath of olive branches for a boy and a wreath of wool for a girl. Athenian women were encouraged—or should we say allowed?—to enjoy motherhood.

But the birth of a child in Athens wasn’t always a happy occasion. Sometimes a husband decided not to keep the baby. It might be too great a financial burden or partially deformed or the wrong sex—female, of course; little girls got bigger every day and then eventually required a dowry from their dads when they got married. In that case, the baby was put outside the gates of the city and left to die or adopted and raised as a slave.

Meanwhile back in tough Sparta, mothers weren’t having a terrific time either. Soon after a baby was born, soldiers arrived to make sure the infant was physically perfect. Otherwise it was removed to die or become a slave. Being a society devoted to military might, an imperfect child could grow up to be an imperfect soldier, which was viewed as a threat to the state. Spartans were not known for their sentimentality.

A Spartan mother was trained to have one emotion: pride in her child’s courage, honor, and prowess as a soldier. As legend has it, before battle a Spartan mother told her son to “Come back with your shield or on it!” This not-so-sweet advice meant her sonny boy had better either win (come home
with
his shield) or die in battle (be carried
home
on
his shield). Capture or surrender were clearly not options, so you can bet that running home to mom wasn’t exactly smiled upon either.

Despite their differences, when it came to motherhood both Spartan and Athenian moms had something in common. A quote from Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta (who wanted females to care only for duty and honor), summed it up when he complained, “All women are by nature fond of children.”

A traveler’s guide to statues of outstanding mothers.

Y
ou’ve surely heard of some of these women, and others may be unfamiliar to you. But each of them has a statue dedicated to her somewhere in the United States. One, in fact, has eight statues. So hop in your car and take a road trip to visit these statues of outstanding women and devoted mothers.

Joan Benoit
(b. 1957) won a gold medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. No small accomplishment. But did you know that she is the only American woman to have won a gold medal in the Olympic marathon—and one of the few living women to have a statue devoted to her? Take a look at her statue if you happen to be driving through Cape Elizabeth, Maine—a summer resort on the coast, seven miles south of Portland. The full-length bronze statue by sculptor Edward Materson is located at the Thomas Memorial Library at 6 Scott Dyer Road in Cape Elizabeth. Benoit, a native of Cape Elizabeth, married Scott Samuelson; they have two children, Abby and Anders.

Harriet Beecher Stowe
(1811–1896) was the author of the antislavery novel
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
, which sold 300,000 copies within the first year and influenced the advent of the Civil War. She was also the mother of seven children. Her bronze bust by the famed architect Stanford White is at the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at
University Avenue and West 181st Street, The Bronx, New York. The bust has a dress with a round collar, a pin, and a shawl around the shoulders. Quite a prim look for such a dynamic lady!

Ella Fitzgerald
(1918–1996) “practically invented scat,” said her obituary in the
New York Times.
Her first record, made at age 17, was “Love and Kisses.” In 1938 her “A-tisket, A-tasket” was a huge novelty hit. Her full-length bronze statue shows her standing, wearing a dress and high-heeled shoes, and in the act of singing. The statue, by sculptor Vinnie Bagwell, is at the Trolley Barn Plaza in Yonkers, New York, where Fitzgerald lived for 13 years. The woman who was called the “First Lady of Song” married twice, the second time to jazz musician Ray Brown. They adopted a son, Ray Jr.