I am very excited to be sharing this post from
to all my subscribers today. Amber writes over at One Tired Mother and I highly recommend her work. Please consider subscribing to her publication!I read this post last week and felt that it gave voice to something that I have been feeling deeply throughout my last 2+ years of being a mother. I hope that it also resonates with you and encourages you to find ways to build meaningful rituals in your own lives.
On ritual - from Amber Adrian
Something we all desperately need (and very much don't have)
“Rituals are symbolic actions that dramatize and articulate a culture’s deepest values and beliefs. They are a way to make the intangible aspects of a culture—its worldview, morality, and values—visible and concrete.”
-Clifford Geertz
Who else is a Downton Abbey fan? There’s just something about that show. I can picture the theme music and intro as clear as day. I miss it. I should re-watch it.
Aside from the beauty of the home itself and the English countryside setting, one of the things I think is so mesmerizing about Downton Abbey is that there is such ritual. From the way dinner is eaten to social conventions, life is intentional—there are ways that things go, for very clear reasons, and life and tradition is passed from generation to generation. Life in 2024 feels nothing like that: everyone is just doing their own thing, with not much agreed-upon anything, and every generation seems to be figuring things out anew.
I’ve long felt that modern motherhood in particular is devoid of proper ritual, especially the entrance into it. We have rituals, alright: experiences that are culturally a rite of passage1 for mothers. But they’re not proper. They’re not in accordance with the power, the substance, the massive responsibility of motherhood.
My very first post for this publication was about feeling angsty on Mother’s Day. Cards and flowers and brunch are indeed rituals, but ones that have never felt appropriate to me. Too syrupy, too trite. Among other things, the typical Mother’s Day practices simply feel misaligned with the deep work I do as a mother.
Speaking of syrupy and trite, consider the modern baby shower. Baby showers are, of course, lovely efforts, and I don’t mean to diminish the love and planning that goes into them. I’m glad they exist. But to me—especially in the absence of cultural reverence for motherhood—they’ve never felt adequate. Unscrambling baby-related words and opening gifts (mostly for the baby) and eating pretty, themed food are simply not sufficient acknowledgement and celebration of a woman’s transition from maiden to mother.
(In fact, the term “baby shower” gives us a hint—this isn’t really about the mother.)
When I was pregnant with my third, I was part of an online women’s circle. There were two of us pregnant at about the same time, both hoping for a VBAC2, and the group planned a Blessingway for us outside of our regular meetings. If you’re unfamiliar, a Blessingway—sometimes called a “Mother’s Blessing”—is a ceremony for a pregnant mother that comes from Native American tradition.3 Despite it taking place with a group of women I’d only met on the Internet, it was a deeply moving, deeply supportive experience.
I remember thinking, This is what mothers need and deserve.
And so, being the person I am, I tried over the last few years to bring some more meaningful practices into baby showers I’ve been a part of planning. It’s been good, but it’s also been a little awkward. To me, the small activities I incorporated felt a bit forced, clunky—how things feel, I suppose, when they’re far outside the cultural norm and not everyone in the room is on board.
You might say I’m overthinking. Or generalizing. You might want a weird hippie ceremony, Amber, but not everyone does. You might be right. But we do, in general, need ritual if we want to be well. In Nourished, the book we’re currently finishing up on this Substack, Deborah MacNamara writes:
“We have lost so many of our rites of passage with the shift to modern industrialized societies. Rituals play a critical role in helping us to release pent-up impulses and emotions. Without rituals to open up channels for expression, it is harder for feelings to surface, which then contributes to psychological and relational problems. This loss [of ritual] has unleashed a steep escalation in social pathology, according to anthropologist Margaret Mead. While Mead made her assertions over 50 years ago based on her cross-cultural research, there is ample evidence to support her claim today. The surge of mental health problems, eating disorders, escalating violence, aggression, addictions, and trauma are just the tip of the iceberg as we face life’s transitions without the rhythm and release rituals once provided.”
Big claim, but resonates as truth for me.
This loss of ritual is affecting all of us, to be sure. In his raw and emotional interviews on his mistakes and his draw to the Catholic faith4, Shia LaBeouf talks about this as it relates to his life (and the life of men in general). He laments: “There’s no puberty ceremony in culture. As an American man, when do you become a man? When you get a driver’s license? Like what do we do? You get a job? When do you become a man?”
I don’t think I need to convince anyone that we are not doing well mentally and emotionally as a society, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that lack of meaningful ritual plays a part.
So what might a ritual look like?
In one of the last chapters of Nourished, Deborah shares about a peasant ritual from pre-industrial Italy. I was stunned as I read this, as it’s so beautiful and feels like a perfect illustration of what life could look like for parents in general—and mothers in particular—if we had the proper cultural support in place. So, I’m sharing it here in full.
The story that follows is of the gathering ritual that occurred when a child was born. In The Magic Harvest, Camporesi writes:
“When the mother is out of bed, her husband and others in the house invite relatives and godparents to Sunday dinner to celebrate the baby’s birth. The relatives accept the invitation and bring several gifts of eggs, fat capons [chickens], and other things, thus contributing to the cost of the dinner. The godfather also comes to the dinner, bringing a basket of loaves of bread. According to the peasant rite, the maternal grandmother may not take part in the dinner, but she does not fail to send her daughter a basket of the special doughnuts made with eggs and sugar.”
Can you imagine telling a maternal grandmother that she can’t attend the celebration of her grandchild and to send donuts in her place? It seems paradoxical that the one person who is likely best positioned to support the parents is excluded. In pre-industrial times, the mother would have been seen as the primary caretaker, so why would her mother, likely her wisest counsel, be denied attendance? What wisdom were the ancestors passing down through this rite of passage that we have lost sight of?
To answer this question, we need to consider what each child needs to flourish. What is the purpose of the feast? To introduce the child to their village of caretakers and initiate their relationships. The feast signifies that the child is cherished, has a relational home, and belongs to the community. The feast is a gathering ritual that serves the purpose of attachment. The meaning of “gathering” in Old English is “to unite and come together in solidarity.” The feast is a commitment to togetherness that is forged through generosity, warmth, and caring. The celebration for the child helps to orchestrate the dance of cascading care and positions each relative relationally to each other.
The initiation ritual serves another agenda, which is camouflaged by the focus on the child and their introduction to the community. The celebration is an invitation to the parents and the substitute guardians (godparents) to take up a relationship as the child’s caretakers. The feast is a way of honoring them as providers and inviting them to claim their rightful place. The godfather provides the bread which represents growth and honors the new life. The parents invite relatives into their home and assume responsibility for introductions. As Robin Wall Kimmerer5 writes, “Ceremony focuses attention so that attention becomes intention. If you stand together and profess a thing before your community, it holds you accountable.” As the village shows up to support the parents, they move the parents to show up to care for their child.
So why is the maternal grandmother excluded from the gathering, especially when the focus is on attachment and cascading care? We need to consider what her presence might bring to the occasion. She is the one person who can easily usurp own daughter as a mother—she is the “grand” mother after all. Her presence could interfere and thwart the mother in taking up a relationship with herself as the key provider. The maternal grandmother is likely more knowledgeable, experienced, and confident as a caretaker. She is a formidable competitor for the matriarchal position, and her daughter is outmatched. Furthermore, there is nothing like the power of your own mother to reduce you to an earlier version of yourself, especially if you are stressed or overwhelmed. The grandmother must not be tempted to rescue her daughter from the growing pains that come with parenting or instruct her on how she should take her place. What the infant needs is for the parents to claim their rightful place and to assume responsibility to care for them.
There is another hidden gift, and this one is for the grandmother. The initiation ritual helps her be reconfigured as an elder and take her place in the family. Think of it this way: how does a matriarch lay down who she has become through years of sacrifice and caring? Attachment is for life, and the desire to guide and support our children doesn’t go away just because nature makes us less necessary for their survival. The grandmother cannot abandon who she is—her mothering is cellular if she has taken it to heart. There is no “off button” for a radar system that has been honed over decades to keep loved ones front and center. It is a system that has been built on love and ingrained through action. The birth ritual provides a dignified and gentle nudge to the grandmother that she must step aside so that her daughter can come into view. Her absence creates a void into which her daughter can confidently step as a mother. The void gives the grandmother space to grieve the passage of time and the changing of roles.
At the root of this initiation ritual, and many rituals, is the dance of attachment and separation. The birth of a child brings changes to the mother-and-daughter/son relationship. It is a time of loss, celebration, and transformation as the cycle of life and death plays out. To move through the strong emotions that will surface, the grandmother is offered food as a vehicle for expressing her caring. She is asked to make donuts using eggs and sugar, which represent new life, rebirth, and triumph over death. The donuts become her trusted messenger for imparting blessings for a new beginning and a sweet life. The initiation ritual allows the grandmother to gracefully pass the matriarchal attachment baton along, preserving her relationships in the process. The story, at its core, is a beautiful orchestra of cascading care.
When I read this, after I wiped the tears because UM THIS IS JUST SO BEAUTIFUL, I again had that same thought: this. This is what’s missing.
There are a lot of things making motherhood harder than it needs to be, and lack of appropriate cultural rituals is one of them. Instead of being welcomed into the massive life-shift of motherhood with meaningful ceremony, mothers today often feel relegated to the fringes, no longer relevant. In a podcast interview I watched once, an intensely tearful woman says, “I really believe that mothers and children are like a forgotten species in our modern day society. You become a mom and then suddenly you’re, like, pushed out—‘go find your Mommy-and-Me group, go figure it out on your own, and we’ll see you when you can be productive again.’”
This is so far from okay.
The Blessingway ceremony felt more supportive than almost anything else I’ve experienced as a mother. The women gathered shared poems, quotes, and reflections on the power of motherhood and womanhood. As they each shared their chosen words, I held the bead they’d picked out and, upon the conclusion of their words, put it onto a string. All of the beads had been sent to me beforehand, and other items too: a beautiful journal, a cute mama tanktop, herbs to soak my feet during the call, and other things I’m probably forgetting. (As each of these packages arrived in the weeks leading up to the ceremony, tears welled every time I saw one in the mailbox.) I don’t remember exactly how the rest of the time went, but I remember both of us pregnant women had a chance to express to the group how we’re doing and feeling. I was following my intuition6 and having this baby at home, despite the fear of many loved ones, and I felt both confident and anxious about the birth.
It was such an amazing and special thing, this gathering of women. And it was on Zoom! Imagine the power of a meaningful and purposeful in-person gathering that is just part of the way things are done when one becomes a parent. Imagine how that might shift things.
An interesting thing happened with the bracelet from the Blessingway ceremony. I wore it during labor and birth; you can see it clearly in some of the birth photos. Then, at some point during the descent and surrender that was my VBAC at home, it broke: I noticed only after Rosie was born that it was no longer on my wrist. The strange truth is that we never found any of the beads. Not a single one. It’s like they disappeared after they’d served their function, and something about that just makes so much sense.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you felt this lack of ritual in modern life? In motherhood? What can we do about this?
1 Like pregnancies and births full of technology-driven interventions. See the book Birth as an American Rite of Passage.
2 We both ended up having successful VBACs. Super healing experiences for both of us.
3 I’m not sure exactly about the roots of this practice—please weigh in if you know more than I do!
4 I linked to both of the interviews at the bottom of this post: What do we want from the opposite sex? They’re well worth your time.
5 Author of Braiding Sweetgrass.
Hannah Chartier