Content Warning: Loss of a child, police brutality, violence against animals.
Written by Sydney Caron

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother… When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. - John 19:25-27

Participation in the CreatureKind Fellowship Program has provided me the opportunity to enter into a season of life-altering self-examination and repentance.

In the program, I’ve explored monthly modules on the topics of Racism and Ecology, Christianity and Animals, Sex, Meat, and Labor, Disability Liberation, Climate Justice, the Animals Rights Movement, and Indigenous perspectives on Creation Justice.

Through monthly readings, reflections, and group discussions, I have observed one common theme present in each module: parenthood interrupted.

The interruption of parenthood can be defined as the forced separation of the parent and the child. Forced separation includes emotional or physical distance, loss of kinship through forced estrangement and, far too often, death.

If you begin to look for instances of parenthood being interrupted, you’ll find them.

Parenthood is being interrupted by colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

How is parenthood being interrupted by colonialism?

Indigenous people, families, communities, and nations have experienced the interruption of parenthood through colonization.

According to the book Indigenous Experiences of Pregnancy and Birth, policies such as birth evacuation, Western medical protocols, and colonially informed governance structures cause continual interruptions to the agency of Indigenous people. Lack of agency causes a colonialist influence over the ways Indigenous people carry, deliver, and raise their children. In response to the continued endurance of scrutiny by researchers, health professionals, and the general public, the “complex intersections between colonial processes and Indigenous women’s experiences with pregnancy and mothering” need further consideration and elevation. ¹

On Instagram, @indigenousmotherhood seeks to “destroy colonialism through the tenderness, and wildness of Indigenous truth and love.”²This account highlights how Indigenous parenting practices have been stolen and rebranded, how to heal kinship systems in the midst of cycles of trauma, and how beautiful depictions of Indigenous parenthood are created by Indigenous artists.

Colonialism birthed residential schools, the sixties scoop, and the child welfare system. Societies, structures, and systems that perpetuate colonialist laws, ideals, and control continue to interrupt Indigenous parenthood.

How is parenthood being interrupted by capitalism?

Birth Parents, Adoptive Parents and Adoptees each experience the interruption of parenthood through industries and agencies that are structured by capitalist ideals. This is observable through the experiences of Transracial Adoptees adopted by white Americans.

Based on interviews with adoptive mothers, social workers, and Korean birth mothers at an adoption agency in South Korea, the book Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children: Birth, Foster, and Adoptive Parents, explores the impact of globalization through the adoption of Asian children by white Americans. It provides a critical examination of the widely held belief that the purpose of such adoptions is to improve the well-being and ensure the happiness of “poor abandoned children.” This belief has “helped obscure the roles of gender, nationality, power, and wealth inequalities in international adoption.”³

This sentiment is echoed in the article Toxic White Capitalism and Adoption: A Black Transracial Adoptee’s Perspective. The author, Nicole Monique Beede, a 26 year old Black Transracial Adoptee (TRA), notes that “prospective adoptive parents possess capital (money, medical resources, ‘acceptable’ homes, etc.), along with desperation, grief, and loneliness. They are an easy target to manipulate; the sense of urgency is already there. So what does that mean for Adoptees/Foster Youth/Children of non-White families? We are automatically seen as products.” Beede observes that “[w]hile the consumers, or Adoptive Parents, often have support throughout their investment and a lifetime warranty of organizations that cater to them, the product of the Adoption Industry, Adoptees, are left as an afterthought.” Beede concludes, “Unfortunately, until members of the Adoption Industry come to terms with their systemic toxicity, Adoptees will continue to be preyed upon.”⁴

Capitalism birthed an Adoption Industry that interrupts parenthood through the demonization of Birth Parents, the manipulation of Adoptive Parents and the isolation of Adoptees.

How is parenthood being interrupted by white supremacy?

It is difficult to find systems, structures, or institutions that are free of white supremacy. Its prevalence allows for the immediate and ongoing interruption of parenthood.

In Eileen Campbell-Reed’s most recent podcast episode on Three Minute Ministry Mentor, Rev. Dr. Angela Parker, a Womanist New Testament scholar, explores how the experiences of Black women, like Trayvon Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, are connected to God. Parker recognizes the significance of George Floyd’s struggle to breathe and his calling for his mother. She imagines the stifling of God’s breath during George Flloyd’s murder.⁵ Parker further explores mothering and motherhood as a continuation of breathing in Bitter the Chastening Rod: Africana Biblical Interpretation after Stony the Road We Trod in the Age of BLM, SayHerName, and MeToo.⁶

In Black Motherhood(s): Contours, Contexts and Considerations, Black motherhood is explored through the intersection of motherhood and womanism. It considers the impact of white supremacy but centers West African cosmology as the exemplar archetype of motherhood. By incorporating the power of self-definition, advocacy, and resistance, this model of motherhood is detached from Western patriarchal ideas of frailty and subordination, biological confines, and the barriers of race and gender-based hegemony that are upheld by white supremisicts.⁷

How is parenthood being interrupted by the patriarchy?

The patriarchy is a threat to reproductive justice.

Reproductive justice, a term coined by the Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice in 1994, requires that “every individual be able to make their own choices about their reproductive life, and have access to reproductive health services. Reproductive justice also requires that all people have the ability to raise children in safe and healthy environments. It encompasses not only reproductive rights, but also the social, economic, and political conditions that impact whether and how individuals are able to parent with dignity.”⁸

The patriarchy has birthed beliefs, laws and policies that seek to criminalize, dominate and control the womb instead of seeking to protect bodily autonomy for all genders equally. Removing a person’s right to make their own choices about their reproductive life, continues to interrupt parenthood.
Parenthood is interrupted by colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy.
It is also interrupted by ableism, transphobia, fatphobia, and homophobia.
Again, if you begin to look for instances of parenthood being interrupted, you’ll find them.

Parenthood is being interrupted. Not only in the human-animal experience of parenthood, but in the non-human animal experience of parenthood too.

How is the non-human animal experience of parenthood being interrupted?

The parenthood of the Sumatran Orangutan is interrupted by the felling and burning of their rainforest home by palm oil corporations that produce half of the packed products in supermarkets.

The parenthood of the Sturgeon is interrupted by an incision in the belly, the removal of the ovaries, the harvesting of the eggs, driven by human demand to consume caviar.

The parenthood of the Orca Whale is interrupted when they are denied their natural life within a matriarchal pod only to be held in captivity for the thrill of human entertainment.

Through the consumption of dairy products and meat, we can find an example of parenthood being interrupted present with us at each of our meals.

Farmed animals experience the interruption of parenthood at a rate too quickly and too cruelly to properly measure.

Parenthood is interrupted when a cow is made to endure indefinite separation from the calf they have just birthed.

Parenthood is interrupted when pigs are deprived of their ability to practice their natural nurturing behaviors, like “singing” to their young while they nurse.

Parenthood is interrupted when an affectionate protective mother hen who communicates with her chicks while they’re still in their eggs is denied the opportunity to witness them hatch.

Parenthood is interrupted when those who work in the agriculture industry are separated from their children in order to work long hours for low wages in unsafe working conditions.

Childhood is interrupted when parents seek to prevent forced separation from their children by bringing their children to work with them.

Parenthood is interrupted by illness, disease, and food insecurity caused by the placement and operation of factories, slaughterhouses, and processing facilities.

The impact of the interruption of parenthood in the lives of non-human animals is a lot like the impact it has on humans: death, destruction, and a growing distance between God and God’s Creation.

What does it mean for me, as a part of the Church-at-large, to be in ministry centering the welfare of farmed animals?

Exploring the interruption of parenthood has allowed me to further discern what it means for me, as a part of the Church-at-large, to be in ministry centering the welfare of farmed animals.

The interruption of parenthood is an experience that Mary had while Jesus was dying on the cross.

In John 19:25-27, Mary is about to experience the loss of her child. Mary’s motherhood is about to be interrupted. Jesus recognizes his mother’s changing role — from motherhood to childlessness. Jesus responds by entrusting his mother to the disciple whom he loved. In doing so, Jesus provides Mary with an opportunity to re-inhabit the role of motherhood following its interruption. Jesus, making a way out of no way, interrupts the interrupting of parenthood. Upon Jesus’s resurrection, Mary’s earthly motherhood continues as faith reshapes and bonds a new family unit between Mary and John, while Mary’s heavenly motherhood is recognized as eternal.

Mary’s motherhood was interrupted and parenthood continues to be interrupted today.

To be in ministry centering the welfare of farmed animals involves recognizing the Church’s communal responsibility to engage in, advocate for, and celebrate the liberation of parents and children throughout all of Creation.

Liberating the parent means liberating the child, a cycle the Church must now seek to participate in.

This involves dismantling systems that require, uphold, and enable the interruption of parenthood.

All forms of oppression must be named, challenged, and repented of. Including the numerous accounts of historical and contemporary interruptions of parenthood that the Church has sanctioned, supported and funded.

We must continue to decolonize our faith.

Can we, the Church, imitate Jesus and interrupt the interrupting of parenthood?

Can we choose to interrupt the interrupting of parenthood instead of perpetuating it?

Can the instances of parenthood being interrupted that are present with us at each meal act as a call to action?

If you begin to look for instances of parenthood being interrupted, you’ll find them.

As we seek to safeguard the integrity of Creation, may each of us witness the prevalence of the interruption of parenthood and respond through prayer and action.

For those who witness the interruption of parenthood and those who experience it, may you find comfort and rest in the reminder that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the interruption of parenthood has been interrupted for good.

May each of us continue to repent of this sin that we participate in and continually return to God’s way of love and liberation for the whole of Creation.

Works Cited:

Craddock, Karen T. Black Motherhoods: Contours, Contexts and Considerations. Demeter Press, 2015. Kindle.
Gill, Jungyun. Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children. Lexington Books, 2016. Kindle.
Parker, Rev. Dr. Angela. “3MMM: Embodied and Relational Reading” interview by Eileen Campbell-Reed. Three Minute Ministry Mentor, Apple Podcast, March 8th, 2022, audio, 15:28.
Parker, Rev. Dr. Angela. “3MMM: Embodied and Relational Reading” interview by Eileen Campbell-Reed. Three Minute Ministry Mentor, Apple Podcast, March 8th, 2022, audio, 16:13.
Salty. “Toxic White Capitalism and Adoption: A Black Transracial Adoptee’s Perspective.” Accessed May 13th, 2022. https://saltyworld.net/toxic-white-capitalism-and-adoption-a-black-transracial-adoptees-perspective/
Shahram, Sana Z. “Indigenous Pregnancy, Birthing, and Mothering in Colonial Canada.” In Indigenous Experiences of Pregnancy and Birth, edited by Hannah Tait Neufeld and Jaime Cidro, 13–29. Demeter Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1vw0sbs.6.

Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund. “Reproductive Justice.” Accessed May 13th, 2022. https://www.leaf.ca/issue-area/reproductive-justice/.