The Search for Nurture and Connection

SEARCH (verb): A careful and thorough examination in order to find somebody or something.1

I write as a mother and daughter of our time. In light of this I open by examining a classic childhood tale of our time by P. D. Eastman, the book Are You My Mother? (If you are unfamiliar with the tale, I will paint it well enough for you to know my point.) It was one of my favorite bedtime stories. The winning elements of adventure, loss, humor, and comfort are woven throughout the baby bird’s repeated questioning of an unlikely host of candidates. As I laughed at the silliness of the bird’s escapades, my own life felt anchored and secure.

When the story was over, the lights were turned off, and I was kissed and tucked snugly into bed, I would sigh and smile to myself. Why? All was well. I would never have to search like my friend the bird. I knew who my mother was. She was the very one who read to me. How could this little bird be so silly and confused?

More than four decades have passed since that time and I see the story a bit differently. I now understand the reason for all the confusion. This baby bird had never seen what it searched for. I, on the other hand, had never known life without a mother. Sadly, we now live in a world that looks very different from the one I knew. For a moment I want to revisit this childish tale because I believe its simplistic story captures the cry of a generation of searching daughters and mothers alike.

The story opens with a proud mother bird sitting in her nest on her egg. Suddenly the egg jumps! She is startled by the realization her baby will be here sooner than expected and flies off to find some food. As she is off gathering food, her baby breaks through its shell with one question on its mind: where is my mother?

Dilemma #1: Mother is looking for food. Baby is looking for Mother.

After looking high and low, the baby determines it must leave the nest to find its mother. The hapless baby bird steps into thin air and falls a very long way to the ground below. The search is on. The bird begins its trek by walking right by its mother, who is busy wrestling a worm.

Dilemma #2: Mother too busy to notice Baby. Baby doesn’t know what Mother looks like.

How could this happen? The baby didn’t recognize its mother because it did not know what its mother looked like. She is so focused on the worm, her child is all but invisible.

Walking on, the baby bird approaches a series of barnyard animals and poses the question, “Are you my mother?”

The first to be questioned is a kitten that only stares. Perhaps it wondered what a baby bird might taste like. The bird moves on.

Next a hen is questioned: “Are you my mother?” She simply answers, “No.” You would think she could have been a tad bit more helpful.

A sleepy dog is approached and he elaborates some, saying, “I am not your mother. I am a dog.”

Okay, at least the baby bird has a bit more to work with. It knows now it is not a dog.

Dilemma #3: Right question . . . wrong source.

Next there is a cow who seems a bit perturbed and answers the question with one of her own: “How could I be your mother?” (The fact it gives milk doesn’t make it a mother.)

This causes the baby a bit of a crisis. Was the search valid? Did it even have a mother?

Dilemma #4: How do you know what you have not seen?

After a moment’s pause it confirms, “I did have a mother, I know I did. I have to find her. I will. I WILL!”

The baby bird no longer walks, it runs. An urgency has been awakened! It races by a broken-down car realizing there is no life in the metal frame. It runs to the edge of a cliff; perched precariously the bird looks down into a deep canal and sees a boat in the distance and calls out, but there’s no answer.

The bird lifts its eyes. A plane is crossing the sky. “Here I am, Mother,” The plane travels on without slowing for even a moment.

Frantic, the baby birds sees a “big thing” coming its way and runs to meet it. Without a moment’s hesitation the bird leaps onto the teeth of a giant, earth-moving vehicle while shouting, “Mother, Mother! Here I am!”

Then the “big thing” speaks: “Snort.”

The baby bird makes its first identification. “You are not my mother—you are a Snort.” Actually it is a crane. (This is the part I thought was hilarious!)

Immediately the baby knows the voice is all wrong! This was not his mother. It tries to escape but finds it’s too late. The “snort” is on the move. The giant arm raises the bird higher and higher. Terror overwhelms as the bird realizes it cannot run or hide. It is completely at the mercy of the “big thing” carrying it.

Dilemma #5: The “big thing” is not the mother. The “big thing” is now in control.

The Snort stops. Completely undone, the baby bird closes its eyes and wails for its mother.

Suddenly, all the pieces come together. The “big thing” drops the baby into its nest.

Stunned by the impact, the bird opens its eyes wide. At that moment, who should drop in but the mother, worm in mouth! This time it is she who poses the question. “Do you know who I am?”

And most certainly the baby does! After reciting an entire list of what she is not, it declares, “You are my mother.”2

Happy Ending: Wide shot of mother and baby cuddling in nest.

Okay, so how does this childhood story of lost and found speak to us today? Well, let’s break it down.

First there is an anxious expectant mother who does not know that babies need to first know their connection. This element is even more crucial than their need for food.

I remember when I gave birth to my first son, he emerged looking a bit perturbed. His birth had been stressful. After twelve hours of hard labor contractions, the doctor had grabbed his head with large, cold, metal forceps and pulled him out. What a completely rude introduction to our world!

He came into view wailing. He was whisked away and dried and bundled in a blanket. The efficient nurse handed the screaming one off to the father. I was still in the closing stages of delivery—afterbirth and many stitches. From my vantage point I could see John felt completely awkward and at a loss. He bounced the bundle up and down, but Addison only cried louder.

I felt utterly helpless. I was unable to move, but I was certain if I could just hold him close and speak to him, he would be fine. I asked, “Can I hold him now?”

“Not yet.”

I asked and was answered the same way four or five times.

“I promise I will not drop him,” I pleaded, yet the truth was I’d never felt so weak in my life. I was still partially paralyzed from the epidural. I was at a complete loss. Tears came to my eyes.

One nurse must have sensed my angst. She came over and elevated the head of my bed and arranged the pillows against the guardrails so I was barricaded in. I will never forget what happened next. The nurse walked over to John to retrieve my son. She spoke quietly to him while she walked over to place him in my arms. He was crying lustily, eyes tightly closed.

When I saw his swollen, bruised face I realized he had possibly had a harder time of it than me. I said, “Oh, baby, I am so sorry.” Instantly he stopped crying and turned toward the sound of my voice.

The nurse said, “Did you see that?”

I had. My heart leapt . . . he knew me! He recognized immediately who spoke. I was the voice he had heard for more than nine months.

I took him in my arms and whispered, “It’s okay, baby—I am here.”

Addison was suddenly and completely calm. He opened his eyes wide and looked directly at me. I don’t know how to explain it, but in that moment something opened up within my soul; another birth had taken place.

There is power that comes to women when they give birth. They don’t ask for it, it simply invades them.

—SHERYL FELDMAN

I was a mother, this was my son. There was an immediate connection. His stare penetrated and enlarged my heart. It was as though he was searching and sounding the depths of me just as I was searching him. We both longed to know and be known. I did not want to stop gazing into his eyes. Even though he was battered and bruised, he was the most amazingly beautiful child I’d ever seen. He was perfect in every way. Everything else was lost to me.

My baby bird had answered . . . “You are my mother!”

After a while, the nurse suggested I nurse him to establish my milk supply. I remember scanning my surroundings and wishing the setting was a bit more warm and private. I felt a bit awkward, surrounded by IVs, monitors, metal rails, and strangers. What if I didn’t have what my son needed? What if my breast was empty? I suckled him and it was not long before he fell asleep, safe, sound, and satisfied, completely exhausted at my breast.

What meaning does this mother-child connection have today? The sons and daughters must know, first and foremost, there is a safe and intimate connection for them in this vast expanse of Earth. All of us must know we are watched for and welcomed. This must happen if we are going to flourish, for without this link it is far too easy to lose our way.

Ideally this connection should first happen in our homes, and then again in multiple ways as we journey through life. If you have never experienced this, it is time you did. If you experienced a violation of safety or trust where you should have had nurture, it is still imperative that these intimate connections happen.

All of us must know we are watched for and welcomed.

It is the purpose of this book to help position you to make those heart and relationship connections. The sons and daughters must be surrounded by nurture if they are to thrive.

Returning to our friend the bird, we see that it struggled to bust out of tight quarters only to discover it was suddenly alone in an immense open space. Shouldn’t there be someone to say, “Welcome”? Who would introduce it to this world? Hadn’t there been another outside the thin eggshell? Hadn’t there been singing and shadowed forms? Where was the warmth?

I wonder, is it the desire to join others that lends each of us the strength necessary to escape tight quarters?

The baby bird enters life without any boundaries or guidelines. Perhaps this baby was hungry, but even more than food, it needed to know both who and whose it was if it was to feel safe. The first cry of this humanized bird was not “Where’s the food?” but “Where is my mother?” Shouldn’t she be here? Didn’t she know I was coming today? Wasn’t she watching for me? I must know her if I am going to be safe.

And another thing—where was the father? Why did the mother have to leave her nest to provide for the baby?

Okay, perhaps in real life, baby birds really want only food, but humans crave intimacy and closeness. Daddy birds provide for and protect their young—humans do not always, but that is another story.

Mothers help us discover who we are. You can’t allow just anyone to define you. You should not ask just anything who you are or whom you belong to. You should ask questions only of those you know have answers. Nothing outside of an appalling lack of perspective could cause a bird to ask a cow, “Are you my mother?”

Perhaps the cow’s question and indifference actually challenged the bird’s right to a mother. Isn’t a question of value raised here? In essence the cow said, “How could you think you belong to me? I am so utterly different from you!”

This disregard caused the bird to question all it thought it knew. Was it ever cared for? Wanted? Watched for? Loved? Did it belong? Was there one who was bigger and wiser who would know and understand what it needed? Who would protect its young life? Who would instruct it and, when the time was right, teach it to fly?

These are the very questions that drive our human quest for connection.

In an atmosphere of nurture, the answers are revealed. There are answers with true mothers. There is safety when true mothers enfold us, even if they are not sure they can answer all the questions. We need the comfort and assurance of their presence. The truth is, there has never been a more desperate need for the presence of nurture.

I know something of this urgency. I travel the world and see motherless daughters running from one thing to another, calling “Here I am,” but far too often their voices go unanswered. They call out, but the mothers are busy and the earth keeps turning. These daughters are in our homes, school systems, marketplace, and churches.

The daughters are in every age bracket and everywhere women can be found. They range from beautiful young actresses to doctors and attorneys. They are pastors’ wives who are surrounded, but alone. They are stay-home mothers, isolated and exhausted. They are college coeds and women in prison.

Just as the baby bird ran to what P. D. Eastman called “the big thing,” I think motherless women are running to another “big thing” happening right now. There is a stirring, a gathering, and an awakening happening around the world. Women are rising to take their places. They are finding their voices and reconnecting with their hearts. In response to this, doors are opening to women. Nature itself is crying out for the nurture the women bring.

Nature itself is crying out for the nurture the women bring.

I believe this timeless reconnection of mothers and daughters will happen with the helpful intervention of the “big thing.” The “big thing” is networking us through technology so each of us knows we are not alone. The big picture is opening up before us: The world needs its women. The sons and daughters need their mothers. Women need each other.

We are heartsick and in need of intimate, safe connections so we can in turn heal and help others.

The problems are so big, the needs so vast, so that our response must also be intimate and enormous. Big government with big guns will not answer the human cry for safety and connection. We are heartsick and in need of intimate, safe connections so we can in turn heal and help others.

Just as the “big thing” was not the bird’s answer, it is not ours. Our “big thing” is the facilitator of connections. The bird’s answer was his mother. On a larger scale, nurture is an answer to people’s needs for connection. I watch amazed as the voices of daughters are rising and linking together on TV, over the Internet, through books and every form of media. If we can all begin to speak the same language of nurture and strength, we will make the necessary connections. There is amazing power in speaking the same language. It makes the overwhelming and impossible . . . possible.

Look at what God said when the people in ancient times built the Tower of Babel:

“Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.” (GENESIS 11:6–7)

When the languages were diversified, confusion set in and they were unable to complete their tower. Perhaps at that time God did not want all the people in one place. He wanted the inhabitants of Earth to spread out and fill it.

But that was long ago. We have filled the earth and live in a very different season. I do not believe this is a season when God is scattering people—I believe He is in the process of gathering. I believe God has connections for the daughters and mothers on every level, in the marketplace, in the media, in the home, and in the house of God.

This gathering of women, this hunger for nurture, is what drives me. I want to find the daughters and help them recover life and safety. I want them to grow so they can fly. I want to turn the heads of the busy mothers so they will notice the daughters who are searching. And I want to empower the grandmothers to lend the comfort only they know how to give so well. I want these women nurtured well, so they can in turn enlarge the lives of others—who will hear the cry of Earth’s citizens.

As the years have passed the story Are You My Mother? has become more poignant than funny. Actually I hear the inquiry echoed worldwide as a generation of daughters search the faces of other women in pursuit of mothers. The quest is not undertaken just by infants, but by those who realize that they have in fact lost something of value. They have turned to many semblances and forms of mothers but found that these substitutes were all in fact lacking.

I want these women nurtured well, so they can in turn enlarge the lives of others—who will hear the cry of Earth’s citizens.

Some of these daughters were forced to fly from their homes before they had realized the strength of connection with other women. They are ever moving, but never resting. Having never been nurtured, they have no frame of reference on how to nurture others. Some were abandoned in the nest and had to struggle to live. Others were intimately injured in what was meant to be a place of safety. Even now these women are afraid to stretch forth their wings and fly.

Perhaps you are one of these. Perhaps you are a mother who would love to do something but do not know where to start. Perhaps you are a daughter who desperately needs a mother. Perhaps you are both.

Women are life and relationship connectors. Where is your connection? Daughter, where is your mother? Mother, where are your daughters? Sister, where are your friends? Grandmother, where are the younger women who long for your wisdom?

God is stirring those whose hearts are longing to see these loose ends tied up. These are connections we need to actively search out and begin to develop. Sisters, I believe it is our time. Nurture, the language of the feminine heart, is being restored as women arise, recognize each other, and begin to connect for strength and purpose.

Copyright © 2008 by Lisa Bevere