"I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.
They have clung to me all my life."
~~Abraham Lincoln
Hi all,

Happy Mother's Day!  I hope this day finds you well and happy!  My dogs decided to "celebrate" me by waking me up at 4:00 something in the morning.  Thankfully, they did let me nap a bit ago but I will say it doesn't make for the most restful sleep to have a coonhound decide to use your legs as his mattress.  ;-)  So this comes to you from a sleep deprived mind (not helped by the fact that Danika slaughtered my coffeemaker on Friday) and I apologize for any mistakes or duplicates, especially with the game.  I *think* it's okay but ya never know!

God bless,
Jenni
Motherly Tropes in Dyeland Stories II

For the first version of this, please see last Mother's Day's JABB 489.  Thanks!

Calling Parents by Their Name- I don't think anyone in the Dyeland stories does this to be rude or because they have a crummy relationship with their parents.  Shelby calls Andrew and JenniAnn by their names because, for one, they aren't her "real" parents.  While they really and truly parent her, I think they kind of slid into that relationship over time.  Since her brother Asher, who remembers his parents much more clearly, would have called them Andrew and Psyche/ JenniAnn from the beginning, his admiring little sister woulda copied him.  For a time, Max also called Andrew and JenniAnn by their first names with the latter becoming "Maja" early on followed by "Dad" for Andrew. 

Don't Tell Mama- While I didn't delve into it too much, I think there's a subtext of this with Vincent in "Origins."  While we can all debate whether or not his violence was justified, it's something Vincent seems reluctant and maybe even embarrassed to bring up with Cora.  Part of this may have been due to Vincent wondering if, perhaps, he was the product of rape.  Once Cora shut that worry down, I'd like to believe Vincent had a very open, honest, and healing conversation with her about his past.

Hands-Off Parenting- I'd like to think the Friends will, for the most part, be the most benign version of this.  Especially in the Tunnels, I think the kids are allowed to roam and amuse themselves (within reason) without close adult supervision.  In "Chrysalis," the kids are allowed to play a pretty expansive version of Hide-and-Seek without the adults hovering.  During Bible studies, the adults take turns, usually a couple at a time, to watch the kids.  Given how out-numbered the adults are in those scenarios, I think it's safe to assume that they let the kids play with out much interference and are merely there to deal with any flare-ups of temper or accidents.

I Have No Son-  Or daughter...  While Kylie's and Emma's mothers may not have formally disowned them, they essentially have no relationship.  Kylie's mother is critical to the point of being dangerous.  Emma's mother just won't have anything to do with her.  Thankfully, Dot and Maryam have stepped in as surrogate mothers. 

A Mistake is Born- My head-canon is that Daisy's mother felt like this about her.  I guess it's my only way of grasping how she could be so cruel.  On the plus side, Daisy's father loved her and now Josef and Amber-Marie are very happily and gratefully parenting her.  It's probably also safe to assume that Liam's mother, especially when in a compromised state, threw this sort of nonsense at him.  Belle's birth-mother likely felt this way, too.  In all cases, the kids ended up with folks who view them as the miracles they are.

Parental Sexuality Squick- Another averted trope!  When little Jacob was a baby, JenniAnn would sometimes babysit him overnight so Vincent and Catherine could "play chess."  JenniAnn obviously knew what they were really up to.  More in line with the trope, Max was momentarily ill-at-ease when Andrew told him (jokingly) that he and JenniAnn had gone skinny-dipping.

Jewish Mother- Despite being used as the cartoon on this tvtropes.com page, Maryam is NOT an overprotective, crazed mother to Yeshua/Joshua.  (Nor is she blonde!)  In fact, Maryam urges Yeshua to perform his first public miracle and, while she certainly has her worries, never interferes with his mission even when she has every reason to.  So this is pretty well averted.  Probably the closest match to the trope is Martha, Mary Magdalene's sister-turned-mother.  She and Lazar are both pretty protective but, in hindsight, they had very good reason to be. 

Let Her Grow Up, Dear- While a sexual awakening has nothing to do with it, a gender-reversed version of this sometimes plays out with Violeta.  While Andrew tends to want to treat her as the adult she is, JenniAnn almost seems to be aging Violeta based on her appearance in Dyeland.  So there's one parent-figure expecting Violeta to be a college-aged kid and another who thinks of her as being around 7 or 8.  To some extent, a more literal version of this plays out between Catherine and Vincent as concerns JenniAnn.


Find the Mom!

The chart below has the first names of several moms and grandmas from TBAA hidden in it.  Use the hints and color coding to find them all.  A gray space means that spot has shared letters.  Answers can be across, down, diagonal, and backwards.  Good luck!  You can email me for the key or wait for it to be added here at a latter date.




This newsletter is dedicated to John Dye for touching so many lives and to his mother, Lynn Dye, for raising him to be the man who brought us so much hope and joy.
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