March Book Club - Unmaking Mary: Shattering the myth of perfect motherhood by Chine McDonald

This month I’m reading… 

Unmaking Mary: Shattering the myth of perfect motherhood

By Chine McDonald (978-1399814638, Hodder & Stoughton)   

This is an unusual book: the description from Chine’s publisher indicates it is part-memoir, part social and theological commentary, focusing on how motherhood has been shaped, negatively (but also positively), by cultural and theological understandings of what it means to be a woman. Chine’s aim with this book is to “un-make the cloak of perfection that surrounds Mary and shames the rest of us”.

Chine looks at how the narrative surrounding the iconic Virgin Mary has contributed to harmful views about motherhood and heaped untold pressures upon new mothers – both inside and outside the Church. She unpacks many of the beliefs surrounding Mary from a wide range of theological traditions, but also shines a light on the areas of motherhood that aren’t often talked about: infertility, the lack of preparation for being a mother, severe difficulties in pregnancy, birth trauma, the feelings of shock due to the monumental changes, postnatal depression, difficulties with breastfeeding, the pressure to be the perfect mother while also holding down a high-stress job, being judged from every side, concerns for our children’s future in the light of climate change, as well as a sense of spiritual awakening… 

This book educated me, encouraged me and made me think; Chine’s is a safe, informative and trustworthy voice and this is an important book.

You start the book with a very honest personal anecdote and then talk about the notion of motherhood you had being smashed by the reality of your experience. Why do you think our culture keeps perpetuating this impossible standard of motherhood?

I think the impossible standard perpetuated about motherhood reflects the impossible standards perpetuated about all women. Women are expected to look, act and behave in certain ways. We are expected to be beautiful, nurturing, kind, just clever enough and submissive. The ideals of motherhood – what has in recent decades been referred to as ‘the institution of motherhood’ with all it represents – in many ways exacerbate or contain all of the ideas society holds about women. One of the most pervasive ways in which this impossible standard is portrayed is in the idea that motherhood is woman’s ultimate goal, and that it is ‘natural’. Natural can sometimes come across as meaning effortless. Good mothers therefore are expected to find motherhood easy. I think this expectation is part of what makes it so hard if one does become a mother. I had expected it to be easy, intellectually unstimulating, unchallenging; but it remains the hardest work I have ever done. It is my most precious role, but it is also the most challenging. Perhaps society keeps perpetuating the idea that motherhood is natural and easy because the future of the human race depends on women not being scared off!

You say that “the ways in which Mary has been portrayed represent a depiction of what we expect motherhood to be like”. As you explored this further through the art, literature and culture of the last 2,000 years, was there anything that surprised you?

I was surprised by the sheer variety of types of depictions there have been of Mary, particularly in European art. In many ways, these are diverse representations: from the regal Queen of Heaven to the Madonna Lactans picturing Mary feeding. There has been so much symbolism built up to portray Mary in different ways: she is often depicted with lilies symbolising purity, with a book representing wisdom, knowledge and the Word, with a spotless mirror to represent her perfection as the ideal woman. I was also surprised by the ways in which how she has been portrayed have reflected changing narratives in cultures of the day about what women should be. For example, during the Reformation Mary began to be spoken about and depicted much more as a domesticated part of the Holy Family (alongside Joseph and Jesus) when the stability of marriage, and women’s place in the home, were prized as the ideal. Despite this variety, for much of the past few centuries, she has most often been imagined as beautiful, young and white. 

As you’ve just indicated, Mary is most often depicted as a white, serene woman, whereas you knew even as a child you didn’t fit, as you were “a brown immigrant child” – what did it mean to you to research the Black Madonna and include her in your book? 

Despite Mary – like Jesus – being a Palestinian Jew, I have rarely seen her depicted as brown-skinned. This speaks to the pervasive idea within Western contexts that perfect ideals of humanity must be white. I think I had underestimated the effects of seeing these perfect ideals portrayed on those of us who are not white. There has been much discussion of the ways in which particular ideals of what a woman should look like in magazines and social media affect the body image of girls and women. So too particular portrayals as Mary – the most famous mother of all – being portrayed as white can have an effect on black and brown mothers’ self-perception. I was fascinated to explore alternative black and brown depictions of Mary through Black Madonna icons and images. These are mysterious figures and there is much debate about whether they are deliberately black (as in Afro-Caribbean) or whether they are just wood that has been darkened. There are around 500 of them in Europe, and I travelled to France to see some of them. For many black women, these figures are ways in which they see themselves represented in the image of God. They are powerful, and represent not just black women but all those who are disempowered or marginalised. But I do worry that people seek Black Madonnas because they are put off by the white representations of Mary, and more widely God and Jesus, when the reality is that God is a God who loves and values us all. 

You shine a light on the opposing emotions mothers often feel – profound love but also hatred; both obsession and rage – saying that there has been “no room for the shadows which form part of the reality of maternal experience”. Why do you think there has been a veil over the darker side of motherhood, and how did it feel to expose it?

Honestly, I felt quite vulnerable speaking and writing about the shadow side of motherhood, and in particular sharing my personal struggles. I think part of the dissonance between the expectation versus the reality of motherhood is the one-dimensional nature of how it’s presented. It is absolutely my most precious thing, but it is also my most difficult. Both can be true. I think there is a veil over the shadow side of motherhood because we find it difficult to look at painful things. There are the everyday challenges of motherhood, but for some women there is very real and deep grief, pain and loss. There are women who have experienced infertility, pregnancy loss, still births and the deaths of their children. In the book, there is a chapter on death and loss, ‘A pierced heart’, in which I write about this. But here’s also where the story of Mary can help us. Despite the saccharine depictions, there is also the Pieta imagery of Mary at the most painful moment a mother can imagine: holding the dead body of her child. Here is where Mary can be seen in solidarity with all mothers who face dark times. 

How did pregnancy and birth give you a new insight into both communion but also the Trinity?

Pregnancy and birthing have been the times I have felt most embodied, hyper-aware of my body. In reading about this, I became more aware of what it is to be a body that also nourishes and feeds another. It gave me new insight into what it means to be fed by the bread and wine at the Lord’s table, what it means to partake of the body and blood of Christ. Most of us at some point will have been fed or nourished by our own mothers. We were also all once a part of our mothers’ bodies. Pregnancy also gave me new understanding of the weirdness but also the beauty of being not just one but two – my baby and I, distinct yet the same. It gave me a new understanding of what it means for God to be three in one. 

Chine McDonald on:

The books that have changed my life

Matrescence

by Lucy Jones 

This is a stunning socio-political commentary and memoir about motherhood. Lucy Jones wrote things I had been thinking but had never articulated, and gave me the bravery to be honest in my own book. 

Unapologetic

by Francis Spufford

This book is a case for Christianity from the personal perspective of someone who is not a theologian, but an absolutely stunning writer. It encouraged and inspired me to be unapologetic about the beauty of my faith. 

The Cross and the Lynching Tree

by James Cone 

Before reading this book, I had read very little black theology. It helped me to see the gospel in a totally different way than I had become accustomed to—through Jesus’ brutal death on the cross symbolising his solidarity with black men and women who had also faced brutal deaths, solely for the colour of their skin. Impactful and challenging insights and perspectives.

Chine is a regular columnist for Premier Christianity magazine premierchristianity.com