“The Red Tent” Model of Support

When a book requires a page of the family tree to illustrate the relationships of all the characters, that raises a red flag that it might be a little complicated for me right now! However, the community of women described in The Red Tent by Anita Diamant fascinates and inspires me. The novel is a re-telling of the biblical story of Jacob and his sons through the female perspective.

It’s a complex and somewhat disturbing book that is more like four books in one. The thing that keeps me reading though is the relationship of the women. In the red tent each month they celebrate their femininity and their abilities to create and sustain life. Take this passage describing the birth of the narrator Dinah:

After Rachel wiped me clean, she handed me to Zilpah, who embraced me, and then to Bilhah, who kissed me as well. I took my mother’s breast with an eager mouth, and all the women of the camp clapped their hands for my mother and for me. Bilhah fed my mother honeyed milk and cake. She washed Leah’s hair with perfumed water, and she massaged her feet.

Now that is how we were meant to give birth, to be initiated into parenthood, to receive the support necessary to care for ourselves and our children. Imagine how wonderful it would be if each new mother were attended to by some combination of her mother, grandmother, sisters, aunties, and midwives! Imagine if each breastfeeding mother had the on-going support of other mothers experienced in nursing! The La Leche League model of mother-to-mother support has filled in some of the gaps, but I still wish such support were passed from generation to generation within each family as well.