Motherhood

Women are a very vital part to the succession of life. Granted, it takes a man and women to create life, it may only take a women to raise a person. Throughout the stories we have read, motherhood has been a very important aspect.In the novel, Push, becoming a mother was one of the reasons that the main character was able to move on in her life.  In the novel, When the Emperor was Devine, the mother played a huge role in keeping the family together in a time or sorrow and disproval. Rosa, in both the Shawl and Rosa showed exactly just how important and hard being a mother is. Becoming a mother changes the way a women thinks and her identity as a whole. Instead of being able to think about yourself as a women and your needs, a mother must not only think about herself but also her child's needs. In all cases, the child's need must be put before the needs of herself as a women. In the first story Shawl, we could see this exactly when Rosa risks her life to keep Magda alive and with her. Knowing that if Magda was found they would both be shot and killed, she still made the sacrifice to keep Magda. When food was scarce in the camps, Rosa made sure that Magda was the first fed even if her own stomach was empty. At the time it says that Rosa was breast feeding Magda, but the scarceness of the food made her milk less nutritious for Magda. Having a child changes a persons identity in the fact that they must change their whole point of view on life. It makes the person realize the true importance of some things in comparison to others. Since motherhood was so important to Rosa, once Magda was killed by being thrown against the fence, her whole life changed again. Having had to shift her lifestyle to become a parent, moving on from having a child to now not having a child was virtually impossible to Rosa, as we can see through the story Rosa. It was hard for her to move on in her life without thinking what could, should or would have been with Magda. Everyday she felt a sense of guilt that she was a bad mother to her child because the fact that she didn't and wasn't able to help Magda survive. At that point in her life, Rosa's main duty was to make sure of the survival and health of Magda. With Magda's death, it made Rosa feel as though she failed as a mother. This was the reason she wasn't able to move on with her life because she felt that she failed at the only job she had, being a mother.