Uncle John’s Presents Mom’s Bathtub Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Who is the reel daughter?

  ___A. Debra Winger

  ___B. Demi Moore

  ___C. Jamie Lee Curtis

  ___D. Madonna

  5. Debbie Reynolds

  A famously sunny actress, singer, and dancer, Reynolds was an MGM star in the 1950s who brightened up the classic Singin’ in the Rain. Her personal life became tabloid fodder when her seemingly perfect marriage was broken up by Elizabeth Taylor. But through triumphs and tragedies, Reynolds kept on dancing (and singing and acting) in films, television, theater, and Las Vegas nightclubs.

  Reynolds also raised a famous daughter who made a splash as a galactic princess and a heralded writing debut with Postcards from the Edge, a novel about growing up in Hollywood.

  Who is the reel daughter?

  ___A. Sissy Spacek

  ___B. Carrie Fisher

  ___C. Natalie Portman

  ___D. Angelina Jolie

  6. Vanessa Redgrave

  Famous for her radical politics and her brilliant acting, Redgrave’s successes began with Shakespeare at London’s Old Vic in 1961, continued on with starring roles in Chekov plays, and have not stopped in more than 40 years. Redgrave’s films include Julia, Howard’s End, and 1997’s Mrs. Dalloway.

  Vanessa’s famous daughter followed mom’s lead, appearing onstage in Chekov plays and in Shakespearean roles at the Old Vic. Her films include Nell and The Parent Trap. She’s also known for her devotion to her sons and hunky husband, Liam Neeson.

  Who is the reel daughter?

  ___A. Jane Seymour

  ___B. Kristen Scott Thomas

  ___C. Natasha Richardson

  ___D. Meryl Streep

  7. Goldie Hawn

  A bubbly goofball on screen, Ms. Hawn made her mark on TV’s Laugh-In and in film comedies like Cactus Flower and Private Benjamin. But Hawn is actually a bright businesswoman who has managed to negotiate a Hollywood career spanning four decades.

  She’s also a hands-on mother to her kids, including a look-alike, kooky blonde daughter who made Academy Award history as one of only three daughters to follow their mothers in landing an Oscar nomination for Almost Famous.

  Who is the reel daughter?

  ___A. Charlize Theron

  ___B. Kate Hudson

  ___C. Frances McDormand

  ___D. Gretchen Moll

  8. Patty Duke

  A noted television star, Ms. Duke is fondly remembered for starring as “cousins, identical cousins” in The Patty Duke Show. But it was her Oscar-winning portrayal of Helen Keller on the big screen in 1962’s The Miracle Worker that eventually landed her her own show on the small screen and lasting fame.

  Ms. Duke is also a mother of three sons. Her eldest became famous as a goonie in the early 1980s, but more recently he has drawn raves for his big-screen portrayal of a hobbit in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

  Who is the reel son?

  ___A. Corey Feldman

  ___B. Heath Ledger

  ___C. Elijah Wood

  ___D. Sean Astin

  ANSWERS: 1. B; 2. C; 3. A; 4. C; 5. B; 6. C; 7. B; 8. D

  “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.” —George Washington

  Cave Mom Couture?

  Cave moms were more fashionable than you might think.

  Pity the poor cave mom. We picture her walking along, draped in smelly animal hides, when her future mate sees her. He bops her on the head, yanks her off by her tangled hair, and deposits her in his cave. There she spends the rest of her life raising little cave people and cooking up whatever her mate drags in. Ugh.

  But picture this instead: a woman uses a delicate bone needle to stitch up a linenlike fabric or make a lacy skirt. Now take this mental image of our seamstress and place it during the Upper Paleolithic period, about 27,000 years ago.

  Surprised? Modern archaeologists have discovered evidence that cave couture was more sophisticated than we once thought. Move over, Wilma Flintstone! It may be that the concept of life as a prehistoric mom needs a total revision.

  FINDING A GOOD IMPRESSION

  One of the scientists changing our view of a prehistoric mom’s life is a mother herself. Professor Olga Soffer, an archaeologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, worked for ten years as a fashion promoter before she began her academic career. Now she’s promoting (and proving) the view that cave women were fashionably clever.

  Textiles don’t usually survive for 20 centuries, but Dr. Soffer and her colleagues Dr. Adovasio and Dr. Hyland realized that fabric impressions did. When a piece of fabric fell to the mud floor of a hut (yup, cave moms didn’t always live in caves), it would get walked on, pressed into the ground where it made an impression in the clay. After studying thousands of pieces of mud and fired and unfired clay, they’ve found impressions of textiles dating back 27,000 years. The professors could even decipher the knotting patterns in the fabric.

  Prehistoric bone and antler objects once thought to be hunting tools have researchers thinking again. These objects could also be battens used in weaving. Professor Soffer believes that prehistoric folk extracted fiber from nettles, then the fibers were woven into nets, cords, and even cloth. Working with plants was usually women’s work, so it was most likely the prehistoric mom who spun the fiber into thread and twine or made cloth.

  In addition to the clay impressions, Venus figurines, small, stylized carvings of women fashioned in the ice age, also gave more clues that cave moms were designing women. The various figurines sported woven, plaited hats; lacy, string skirts; sashes; and belts. All these items are representations of intricate fiber clothing—not fur or hides—that likely existed nearly 30 centuries ago. Not only that, but Professor Soffer, fashion maven that she is, points out that the textiles are quite stylish. Cave couture was cool.

  NET GAIN

  But our prehistoric mom was doing more than making brave fashion statements. Once prehistoric mom had twine, it changed her whole life. True, string wasn’t a refrigerator or a washing machine, but string allowed her to tie things up and haul them from one place to another. Not only that, string allowed women to make nets, which made catching smaller animals for dinner possible. Prehistoric sites show the remains of small animal bones from rabbits and marmots, exactly the kinds of animals that mom could have caught. That meant no one would starve if dad let that woolly mammoth get away. In fact, it may have meant that dad didn’t need to hunt big, dangerous game at all.

  So, good-bye to the image of an ice-age woman hunched over a fire in a cave, waiting for her mate to bring home some mammoth bacon. The prehistoric mom was too busy raising children, gathering plants, making creative textiles, and maybe even hunting to have much time to sit around at all. If only one day those researchers find her day planner. It could probably give her modern counterpart some great tips!

  “Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women’s opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering.” —Elaine Heffner

  Goddess Moms’ Divine Woes

  Being a goddess is no guarantee of an easy ride!

  You would think that being a goddess would be a pretty sweet deal—immortality, beauty, people worshipping you. But no mom has it easy—even if she’s a goddess!

  ISIS IN CRISIS

  The great mother goddess of ancient Egypt, Isis was also a queen and the consort of the god-king Osiris. Unfortunately, all that power didn’t keep her from having a life like those afternoon soap operas. Just when she got it all together—wham! It fell apart again.

  To start, Isis’s husband, Osiris, was murdered by his jealous brother, Set, who dismembered and hid Osiris’s body. The flooding of the Nile was said to come from Isis’s teardrops as she wandered its b
anks, collecting every part of Osiris’s corpse. She then used her powerful magic to bring Osiris back to life and the couple conceived their son, Horus. Alas, their reunion (and hanky-panky) was short-lived. Osiris was forced to return to the land of the dead and Isis was again a single mom.

  Fearing Set would kill her son, Isis and Horus hid out in the reeds—without so much as a pup tent. Isis watched over Horus night and day, but Set was able to take advantage of Isis’s single-mom isolation. One day while she looked for food, he disguised himself as a scorpion and gave nephew Horus a lethal sting. When Isis found Horus dying, she was so distraught, all her magic powers of healing deserted her.

  Good thing she could scream hysterically. Her cries reached the other gods, who helped Isis heal her son. From then on Isis was more careful until Horus came of age, killed his wicked uncle, and became the new god-king of Egypt. Let’s hope he thanked his mom.

  RHEA-GURGITATION

  Rhea was a Greek goddess lucky enough to be married to the king and lord of everything, Chronos. Unfortunately, her status was no guarantee against winding up in a dysfunctional family. Chronos had heard predictions that he would be knocked off his throne—or simply knocked off—by one of his kids, who was destined to be greater than dad. Choosing power over papahood, Chronos simply swallowed all his offspring. Guess he figured being lord of all he surveyed was worth a little indigestion.

  Rhea, on the other hand, was miserable. After watching all five of her precious infants go down Chronos’s greedy gullet, Rhea decided enough was enough. She hid her sixth son, Zeus, in a cave and tricked her husband into swallowing a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes. The ruse worked and Rhea got to raise her boy. The grown-up Zeus forced his father to disgorge his two brothers and three sisters, who were able to overpower their papa, just as he had feared. Zeus and his siblings then became the Olympian gods, all thanks to Rhea’s motherly ingenuity.

  CERIDWEN’S UGLY SON

  When even your mom thinks you’re ugly, you know you’re ugly. The Welsh goddess Ceridwen had a son who was no great beauty and was, in fact, quite a great ugly. Despite being the goddess of fertility, death, regeneration, and wisdom, Ceridwen could not cure her son’s serious case of the uglies. She worried about him getting along in the world.

  Since beauty is only skin deep, Ceridwen knew her son could get by with his bad looks as long as he possessed great wisdom. Ceridwen possessed the Cauldron of Inspiration, which allowed her to cook up a magical brew to give her son the smarts he needed to overcome his aesthetic shortcomings. One drop of this potion and the boy would possess all the knowledge of the world.

  The brew required a year and a day of stirring. She hired a boy named Gwion to help her with the task. On the 366th day, Gwion stirred in the last three ingredients and accidently burned his finger on the potion. He stuck his burned finger in his mouth and instantly gained supreme knowledge from the tiny taste he had. Ceridwen returned, realized what had happened, and had a goddess-sized fit. If Gwion had all the knowledge, then there was none left to help her son.

  Gwion wisely fled, but Ceridwen chased after him. With his new powers, Gwion became a hare and tried to elude her. But she turned into a dog and continued the chase. Gwion became a fish; Ceridwen became an otter. He flew off as a bird, so she went after him as a hawk. Finally Gwion flew to the threshing floor and hid himself as a grain of wheat. Not so smart since Ceridwen became a hen and promptly ate him up.

  After eating the wheat, Ceridwen found herself pregnant (these things happen in myths). A smart cookie herself, she figured that the baby would be Gwion and planned to finish him off after he was born. But the baby was so beautiful that she let him live, and he became the greatest bard of Wales. And the poor ugly son? He had to earn his own wisdom and do it with a face that only a mother could love.

  THANK GOD, IT’S FRIGGA

  Frigga is the Norse cosmic mother, the goddess for whom Friday is named. That alone is enough to make anyone love her! Frigga was the goddess of households and in charge of married and motherly love. Like most moms, Frigga knew everything, but in her case, Frigga knew everything because she was the goddess of fate and could foretell everyone’s future. Frigga would never tell anyone their fate since she knew they were powerless to change it.

  Only once did Frigga decide that she would go all out to change fate. She did it to save her son, Baldur, a favorite among the gods, beautiful and pure. When it was learned that Baldur was fated to die, Frigga made an effort to save him by making everything in the world—pointy sticks, hard rocks, singing birds, heavy anvils, you name it—promise not to harm him. And everything Frigga asked was granted. Only she forgot to ask the mistletoe to not kill her boy.

  Enjoying his newfound invulnerability, Baldur invited the gods and goddesses to hurl things at him for fun. Baldur may have been loved, but he sure wasn’t too bright. Loki, the Norse god of mischief, knew of Frigga’s omission and made an arrow out of mistletoe. He then convinced Hodur, a blind god, to shoot this arrow at Baldur to join in the fun with the other gods. Hodur shot; the arrow struck Baldur and killed him. The gods mourned long for Baldur and for the fact that even a cosmic mother couldn’t control the fate of her child.

  MY KID’S GREAT—BUT NOT HIS FRIENDS!

  Selu was the great corn mother of Cherokee myth. She and her husband Kanati had it all. Kanati could miraculously provide game for the table, while Selu always had baskets of corn. It was a sweet family life, and you can guess what their son was like, as they named him “Good Boy.”

  Unfortunately, Good Boy had a best friend. This friend, Wild Boy, was born from deer blood spilled into a creek. Under Wild Boy’s influence, Selu’s son got into trouble. Despite warnings that he must never follow his parents, Wild Boy convinced Good Boy to follow Kanati. They saw him go into a cave and come out with a freshly killed deer to feed the family. When Kanati was gone, the boys rolled aside a big boulder from the cave entrance and suddenly all the game animals in the world fled the cave. From that day on, hunting was a very difficult labor, requiring great skill.

  Wild Boy and Good Boy followed Selu too. They saw her go into a storeroom, shake her body, and miraculously fill a basket with corn. Startled, the boys screamed out that Selu was a witch. The corn mother feared (now that her secret was out) that she would be killed, so she left the world. Before going, Selu gave the two boys careful instructions of what to do to have corn for nourishment. But they didn’t follow her directions completely. To get corn today, farmers must tend it carefully. Corn will not even grow in some parts of the world.

  Kanati left to follow Selu. Without the Cherokee couple’s wisdom, people had to work hard to put food on the table. Selu had raised a good boy, but like many other moms, she would probably admit that she should have been more careful about who she let her son hang out with.

  Japan’s Most Novel Mom

  Shikibu Murasaki (978–c. 1031) was always a smart cookie. Her father knew that she had a quick wit and he gave her a good education and allowed her to read many classic Chinese tales that weren’t considered proper for young girls. If she had been a man, she certainly would have been a scholar, but instead Murasaki was married off to a relative and had a daughter.

  When Murasaki’s husband died, she and her daughter went to live at court to become ladies-in-waiting to the empress. At court, Murasaki wrote much of The Tale of Genji, which is considered the greatest Japanese literary work and which is thought by many to be the world’s first true novel. The Tale of Genji is the story of a talented, beautiful son of the emperor who could not rule because his mother was too low in status. Some scholars have speculated that Murasaki’s daughter wrote the last section.

  Get Down, Mama!

  A celebration of mothers—good, bad, sappy, and even sexy—over six decades of song. Get down, mama!

  “Apron Strings” by Everything But the Girl

  (album: Acoustic, 1992)

  British pop duo Everything But the Girl is best known in the United States
for the cool techno longing of their dance hit “Missing,” but before that singer Tracey Thorn expressed a warm longing for something else: babies! “Apron Strings” tells of a woman besotted with the idea of motherhood and domesticity, singing to her as-yet-unborn child, “You’d be happy wrapped in my apron strings.” Film-maker John Hughes used the yearning song to sappy cinematic effect in his mostly ignored pregnancy comedy She’s Having a Baby, but don’t let that dissuade you. It’s a really lovely song and a reminder that even club divas can hear the beat of the biological clock.

  “To Daddy” by Dolly Parton

  (album: The Essential Dolly Parton, 1995)

  Dolly Parton spins a tale of the perfect, long-suffering, poor country mama, who silently accepts deprivation and marital neglect: “Mama never wanted any more than what she had / and if she did, she never did say so to Daddy,” Dolly sang. But if you think this is just another one of those of those “stand by your man” sort of ditties that makes modern women gnash their teeth, just you wait. At the end of the song, with the kids all grown up, Mama up and disappears, off to find the love she didn’t get at home. Passive-aggressive on her part? Possibly. On the other hand, Daddy’s a real jerk who should have given up some cards and flowers. So there you have it. In addition to Dolly’s original version, there’s a fine cover by Emmylou Harris on the recent Parton tribute album, Just Because I’m a Woman.