Mother’s Day was among the most highly celebrated occasions in the commune. As a woman’s sole purpose for existence was to procreate, each woman was judged by the number of children she produced in service to our religion and to God. Creating mortal bodies for God’s other spirit children was her way of showing gratitude for her own mortality and evidence of her relentless service to meeting His desires.
Each year on Mother’s Day we all came together in the church/community center for a morning of remembering our mothers. The children all gathered together at the front of the room and sang Sunday School songs commemorating motherhood. The singing was interjected by a sermon provided by a male member of the audience in his perspective of what it meant to be a wife and a mother. The morning was completed with an award presented to the woman with the most children.
As much as my mother tried she never won that award. One other woman had her beat each year. The spread widened as my mother had several miscarriages and Sister Jessop had twins. My mother ended her child birthing years with only twelve children. There were those in the community who scorned her for quitting too early but she had come to determine that a dozen would suffice.
The Polygamist's Daughter 