CAN A WOMAN FORGET HER NURSING CHILD?

Today I am pondering this question, taken straight from the Christian Scripture, Isaiah 49:15.   

Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget,
Yet I will not forget you.

 

I remember a lovely hymn we used to sing, repeating the verse:

Can a woman's tender care
cease toward the child she bare?
Yes, she may forgetful be
Yet will I remember thee.

Read the whole chapter, Isaiah 49.

 

The image of the woman and her child is repeated frequently in Scripture.   References to every-day life events make sense to the reader, and what could be more real than examples from the most intimate moments in a family's life?

I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with its mother;
My soul is like the weaned child that is with me. (Psalm 131:2)

 

The answer to the question heading this post makes sense to me.  Of all the unlikely outcomes, the prophet concedes, "Even these may forget".  It's as though it's so unlikely it's almost impossible.  Everyone knows the devotion of a mother to her sucking (or nursing) child.  

The world as we know it has, to a great extent, forgotten this primal knowledge of the relationship of a mother with her child.   Weaning of a child in Isaiah's time, or the time of the Psalms, or the rest of Holy Scripture, may have been when the child was around five.  Years, that is!  Not five days or five months, as is so common in our advanced social structure. 

The Creator God provided all that was good for the race that was made 'in the image of God'.  The human race, male and female, equally bearing the image of God.  God looked at what He had created and saw that it was very good.  Science has confirmed this.  The wonder of bonding or attachment of the newborn with the mother, moderated physiologically by wonderful hormones such as oxytocin, and endorphins,  enables normal processes to continue today as they did in pre-modern societies where an infant would not have survived without her mother's constant attention. 

Women of my generation did not understand much about the physiology of birth and nurture of the newborn when our babies were born.  As a student of midwifery I had learnt a little about synthetic oxytocin and other substances that can be used to stimulate contraction of uterine muscles.  These substances, essential additions to a midwife's kit, have saved many lives.  But when I experienced  the spontaneous natural processes of child-bearing I began to glimpse the truth of the statement "it was very good".  

 

Can a woman forget her nursing child?

Not likely.  Not when the slightest mention - sound or sight or thought - can bring on a 'let down'.  Not when a few hours after the previous feed her breasts are becoming tender and full.  Only the little one brings relief.

Yet, 'even these may forget'.  The prophet of old acknowledges this unlikely, but possible scenario.   

A mother who becomes exhausted, or depressed, or ... overwhelmed.  A mother who is ill.  In her mind she does not forget the child, but her body's hormonal response to prolonged separation is a forgetting.  In fact, her body begins making preparation for another pregnancy. 

 

 

 [Picture: Maria Lactans 17th Century. Antwerp]

 

 

Kindness

The logs on the ground in our front yard were huge.  Way too big for Noel to lift or move with a crow bar.  So we mowed around them.  The rest of the wood from that old tree had been cut up, split, and burnt to heat our home. 

   

 

Then, one cold afternoon, the young chap who had recently moved in next door arrived, driving a heavy duty earth moving machine, and moved those huge logs one by one to the wood pile.  He told us he will be back with another piece of machinery to help split the wood.

  

Kindness. 

Thankyou, dear neighbour.

Story Time

Today I am wrapped in layers of warm clothing, as I seek to counter the cold bleak early winter's day.  The fire in the wood burning stove, burning heavy pieces of river red gum, is faithfully spreading warmth.  Occasionally the  sun breaks through the clouds, adding bright light and a little additional warmth through the large North-facing windows.  

One of the advantages, from our perspective at least, that the 'covid-19' pandemic has brought, is that we stay at home unless we have somewhere important to go.  This self-imposed restriction has led to a new, or renewed, enjoyment of reading.  Out loud, that is.  Noel usually reads, and I listen.  My eyes have not stood the test of time as well as his have, so I enjoy listening.   Most mornings, after breakfast and shower, we read a couple of Bible passages, a devotional message, and commit our day, and all that is precious to us, to our loving Father.   Most afternoons, after lunch, we have 'story time'.

I haven't kept a tally of the books we have read in story time.  Some have been recently published; some quite old.  We have old books that we inherited mainly from Noel's father, who frequented second-hand book shops and who over-flowed his book shelves. 

Our current old book is Charles Dickens' novel, David Copperfield, with illustrations by W.H.C. Groome, and published by Collins Clear Type Press London & Glasgow (no date given), and has 876 pages of rather small print.  I had forgotten how wordy Charles Dickens is, or perhaps how very brief is the literature I have become used  to.  This copy is tattered, with a blotchy water damaged front cover that has been repaired to keep the cover attached. 

There is little, on the surface at least, in David Copperfield that I have had any connection to, in all my life.  Yet I find the story telling, the use of the English language, excellent.  It draws me into the story.  It makes me look forward to the next chapter, and the next.  I know I will feel sad when the story ends.  

 

I don't know how to end this post.  I have no message to share.  Rather, I have chosen to share a brief glimpse of our lives as we are today.