According to these “experts,” to be a competent modern mother was a matter of having a stronger will than the baby's. To comfort a fussy baby or to nurse on demand was frowned upon. This deprived both mother and child. The effect on young mothers was to suppress their bodies (drying up the milk) and to suppress the maternal instinct to respond to a crying baby. By doing what they were told, young mothers missed learning that they could instinctively distinguish levels of distress in their children, and could help and be comforting. Instead, a whole generation of American mothers got further lessons in hierarchy: Do what others tell you to do; believe what others say rather than what you feel yourself.
The pendulum eventually swung away from the “show the child who is boss” school of parenting to more permissive parenting, in which nothing must diminish the self-esteem of the child. In this version, a good mother and an indulgent one tended to become one and the same. While you can't spoil an infant by always responding to its distress or by providing whatever it needs, doing so long after infancy does spoil character. Shielding children from disappointments, not teaching them limits and limitations, and excessively praising them for every little thing prolongs childhood and isn't good preparation for responsible adolescence or adulthood. Time to call upon mother bear as a role model!
Mother Bear—Symbol of Artemis
The bear is a symbol of the protective aspect of Artemis. Artemis is particularly protective of girls and women. She is characterized as a virgin goddess and never as a mother. Yet she is the goddess to whom young pre-pubescent girls were dedicated; they were then referred to as the arktoi or “little bears.” During the year that young girls were sanctified under Artemis' protection, they were safe from early marriage and had the freedom from women's constrictions in dress and behavior. They could play as boys did and were free to be outdoors—very much like nine- to twelve-year-old “tomboys.”
I look back on summers at Girl Scout Camp and realize that these were artktoi experiences for me. The camp drew children from the Los Angeles area, busing us up to Big Bear Lake—to terrain dear to the goddess Artemis—where there were meadows, forests, mountains, lakes, and streams. We learned how to make campfires, use a compass, tie knots, carve with a knife, and recognize star constellations, trees, and various flora and fauna. We hiked a lot, sang together around the campfire and while hiking, slept under the stars, showered sometimes, wore wrinkled nondescript clothes (except for the “greenie tops” that had a somewhat uniform look), and stowed our stuff away in a shared tent in case of rain. We were from many parts of the city and surrounding areas. At camp, we did not have to live up to any image we had at school; we didn't spend time concerned about our reflections in mirrors or in how boys saw us. We learned about ourselves and each other, and shared confidences. While our parents sent us away to camp the first time, we returned there by choice. It was meaningful and fun because we had the Artemis archetype in common—the archetype of sister. When this is an active archetype in a girl or woman, she has a sense of sisterhood and an affinity to feminist causes.
Artemis is twin sister to Apollo. While Apollo is God of the Sun, with his golden bow and arrows, Artemis is Goddess of the Moon, with her bow and arrows of silver. She is also called Artemis Eileithyria and is the goddess of childbirth and the divine midwife, because she helped her mother, Leto, through the longest and most difficult labor in mythology. Leto was impregnated by Zeus, the chief god in Greek mythology, and bore the twins, Artemis and Apollo. Because Zeus' wife, Hera, was angered by the pregnancy, no one dared offer Leto shelter or aid.
Artemis is born first. After her delivery, Hera causes Leto to suffer and go into prolonged labor. But divinities are not like mortals, and newborn Artemis becomes her mother's midwife, helping to deliver Apollo. Consequently, in ancient Greece, women prayed to Artemis for swift delivery from the pain of childbirth. Contemporary midwives and women who choose obstetrics and gynecology as medical specialties to help women and reduce their fear and pain in childbirth are thus being true to this aspect of Artemis.
Artemis is the only goddess who often came to the rescue of women in other circumstances. She saves Arethusa from being raped; she protects or avenges her mother's honor when a giant tries to rape her and when a mortal woman demeans her. In these stories, Artemis is fierce in her protectiveness, like a mother bear. Or like activists who rescue trafficked girls from brothels and provide gynecological and psychological care to rape victims. Or like those who lead demonstrations to seek justice for raped girls and women in India, or lobby the United States Congress to pass the Violence Against Women Act, or advocate for a United Nations World Conference on Women. Or like anyone, in fact, who works toward equality for women and the protection of mothers and children.
Mother-Bear Support
Girls raised metaphorically by mother bear can be children nurtured by Mother Nature. They may be drawn to animals and find solace outdoors. They may feel safer and more at home under a tree or currying horses in a stable than in a home where they may be neglected or abused. When these girls find mother bear in themselves and find the support to be themselves in the archetype symbolized by the protective mother bear, they become competitors in the world. It is the archetype of Artemis that comes to the aid of these girls who, in some significant way, were abandoned and then found in nature or with animals the parents that they did not have at home. It may also be their nature as an Artemis to prefer to be in the woods, uninterested in staying at home or in doing womanly or girlish things.
I have known many women in my psychiatric and analytic practice and in my life who, like Atalanta, were psychologically abandoned and then raised by “mother bear.” As girls, they came from families where parental figures neglected, rejected, or abused them emotionally or physically, or where parents, because of illness, death, or circumstance, could not be fully present. As a result, at a psychological and spiritual level, they had to raise themselves. They also instinctively kept up appearances, worked at making good grades or excelling at sports, and acted as if their home lives were normal. It is natural for their Artemis nature to follow examples we see in nature. Nature provides animals with protective coloration so they don't stand out. When animals are wounded or weakened, they know to hide their vulnerability to avoid becoming prey.
Gloria Steinem wrote of herself: “I remembered feeling sad about navigating life by myself, working after school, worrying about my mother, who was sometimes too removed from reality to know where she was, or who I was, and concealing these shameful family secrets from my friends . . . now as then, I turn away sympathy with jokes and a survivor's pride” (Revolution From Within, 1992). Artemis is the archetype that protects the young girl who instinctively hides her vulnerability during the years of middle school and high school.
Girls who are not under the protection of Artemis may reveal rather than hide vulnerability, which can mark them as potential victims to be preyed on, bullied, or made scapegoats. Recent media attention focused on two young girls, ages fifteen and seventeen, who hanged themselves. It's an old story: Girl has too much to drink at a party and passes out; boys take turns having sex with her; her name is passed around at school; then other boys want her to “put out” for them, too. She becomes known as a “slut” and is shunned by the “good” girls. A new variation on the theme makes it worse: While one of the young men is fucking her (what else can it be called?), there are “clicks” as another or others use their smartphones to take photos or videos that are posted online and circulated around the school. Eventually, and in despair, the two young girls killed themselves.
I mentioned hearing about these two teenage suicides at the Pacifica Writers Conference in Santa Barbara and learned from Donna DeNomme (Ophelia's Oracle, 2009) about an “Artemis girl” who did not accept being a victim and whose story had a very different ending. What she told me warmed my heart and was the best kind of encouragement, since, at the time, I was writing Artemis with the intention that it would help women to see themselves in this myth—younger women especially.
Donna described