The Mother of All Words

This is an edition of “The Good Word,” in which our crossword editor, Caleb Madison, dives deep into the most interesting words and phrases of the moment.

The word mother is strikingly similar in languages all across the world: From Swedish (mamma) to Swahili (mama), Czech (matka) to Chinese (mama), most use some combination of the same two sounds, m and ah, to refer to the female parent. This consistency across space and time makes physiological sense, the pioneering linguist Roman Jakobson explained. One of the easiest sounds for a baby to make is ah. Simple consonant sounds such as m, p, and d soon follow, called bilabials because they require no mouth acrobatics besides pursing the lips. Repeated for emphasis, they create two of our most-likely first words: mama and papa.

But Jakobson found a difference between the two parental terms during early language development. He identified a “transitional period when papa points to the parent present, while mama signals a request for the fulfillment of some need.” Because the m sound evolves from the instinctual nasal hum that babies make while feeding, mama comes to mean something deeper than a literal parent figure. These syllables, which may even be pre-human, express our most basic needs for nourishment, comfort, and survival. From it evolves more and mine and mammal. And of course, perhaps the mother of all words––mother.

The symbolic usage of mother is not new, as anyone who’s been a member of the Catholic Church or a sorority can tell you. But in recent years, the word has blossomed into a term of pop-cultural reverence. “What’s that thing you guys have been saying online?” Taylor Swift asked during some stage banter at a Mother’s Day concert last year. “You’re always just like, ‘Mother is mothering.’” Somewhere between a meme and a mantra, the expression became a half-joking phrase of worship, usually accompanying a depiction of a female celebrity at her most commanding.

This particular pop-culture honorific filtered into American vernacular through the Black and Latino LGBTQ ballroom scene, where, according to The New York Times, a “mother” would be designated the figurehead of a group of people in the community. Even before that, the term was used similarly in queer communities as far back as the 1700s: In England, when sodomy was a crime punishable by death, a woman named Margaret Clap ran a coffee house in London that became known for facilitating and protecting gay encounters. Her patrons began calling her Mother.

The metaphorical maternal stretches back even further, into antiquity. To boost morale after a disastrous war, the ancient Roman republic imported the Phrygian goddess Cybele and declared her their protector. Roman citizens took to her with cultic fervor, dubbing her Magna Mater—literally great mother. She was beautiful but childless, because she was the mother of the republic itself. Although versions vary, the gist of her story was: She fell in love with a beautiful young man named Attis; he spurned her, so she drove him mad. Every year, the citizens of Rome held a week-long spring festival to honor their wartime savior, reenacting her story through music, theater, and ritual dance.

More than two millennia later, popular culture crowns a new symbolic mother to comfort our demoralized republic with a festival called the Eras Tour. Revelers gather from far and wide to dance and sing along to tales of love and loss, jealousy and revenge. Again we repeat a variation on that primal childhood syllable—then Magna Mater; now “Mother is mothering”—entreating the feminine divine for sanctuary as things start to get dicey.

But these celebrity mothers aren’t mythical goddesses like Cybele. Nor are they Mother Clap or the mothers of the ballroom scene, risking their neck and providing tangible resources to persecuted people. “Mothers” such as Taylor Swift are wealthy entertainers, elevated to symbolic status by millions of strangers who pledge them their fealty. This sense of the word seems closely connected to Jakobson’s mama of early childhood––the primal expression of a deep unmet need.

But such a need can’t be satisfied by the ecstasy of fandom. The true work of motherhood is carried out every day with no great fanfare. No matter how prolific their output, entertainers and celebrities can’t give us spiritual nourishment in any real or consistent way. Only personal relationships can.

Recently, my grandmother passed away at 92. She was a remarkable and beloved woman, a mother of three, who founded a successful progressive middle school that she ran with a gentle fist and an iron heart until less than a year before her death. Her name was Elaine Schwartz. Most people called her Mrs. Schwartz. Her family called her Ma.

That same first syllable of infancy—so comfortable and easy. We all know what it means without thinking about it, and it’s not so different from that first articulation: safety. Sustenance. Love. So be careful whom you call Mother. Save the worship for the ones who can really give you what you need.