Mama as the Ideal Mother in A Raisin in the Sun W. S. Ross once said “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” As simple as this quip may sound, its complex implications are amplified through the life of every person born since the beginning of humanity. What attribute makes a mother such an extraordinary influence over her young? One such attribute is the ability to nurture. Beyond the normal challenges of cooking, cleaning, schooling, singing, feeding, and changing is the motivation by which such sacrifices are made possible. One cannot raise a child without mutual respect. Emotion and anxiety must drive her instincts. Her ability to foster is only heightened by minute personal imperfections and …show more content…
Lack of mutual respect. Lena realizes she is not encouraging the respect her son requires to lead his family; thus giving him the opportunity he needs by trusting him with some of the money from the settlement. This action effects him greatly and completely changes the mood of the family atmosphere. Respect is a mutual relationship – a two-way street. A mother longs to feel respect from her children especially in her later years. Any hint to a lack of respect becomes, in her mind, a negative mark against her mothering skills. In the same play Beneatha, Lena’s daughter, is searching for her true beliefs and identity (1745). Mama Lena tells Beneatha that she is to respect the religious beliefs while she is living at home. Beneatha respects her mother but repels against the idea of God (1745). Along with mutual respect, emotion and anxiety play a significant role of nurture in motherhood. The two control her inner conscience which in turn leads her maternal instincts. A mother knows (has a feeling) when her child is ill when he/she is away at school. She senses the total devastation in her son after losing his first little league baseball game. In The Red Hat by Rachel Hadas a mother senses the boy’s need to grow up (line 14), but is uneasy with the thought to let him walk to school alone(line 10). So she and her husband follow their son to school. Strange feelings of emptiness and flimsiness capture her .
