"STAGE MOTHERS" IN THE BIBLE

For those of you who may not be familiar with the term 'stage mother,' it refers to a woman who relentlessly pushes her child's career in some sort of performing field to the exclusion of all other concerns and despite making herself generally unpopular to those she deals with, including the child himself or herself.

There are numerous real life examples to which one could point in order to illustrate this phenomenon. And it should be mentioned that “stage fathers and spouses” could just as well be included in this category.

As to the motives of the stage mothers, they may vary. Some may sincerely care for their child so much that they will sacrifice their own wants and needs in order to see that their child gets all that they deserve. But there is also the possibility that the stage mother is subconsciously trying to live out vicariously in her child's life the sort of career she herself wanted to have. Finally, it must be admitted that there are sad cases in which the child is merely viewed as a “money-making machine” who can be milked for all he or she is worth.

This same theme appears several times in Bible also, as seen in the examples below:

Sarah (Genesis 21:8-10)

In this story, Sarah demands that Abraham cast out her slave Hagar and her son Ishmael after she sees him playing with Isaac. Much depends in understanding this passage on the exact meaning of “playing with.” It has been taken at face value or felt by others to refer to Ishmael making fun of Isaac or even taking sexual advantage of him. In any case, it enrages Sarah to the point where she says that “the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.”

We can say that she was justified in her action of protecting her son, slightly overreacting, or just looking for any excuse to remove Hagar and Ishmael from her life in order that her son would inherit alone.

Rebekah (Genesis 25:27-28; ch. 27)

Rebekah and Isaac are the poster parents representing the dangers of having favorite children in the family. But Rebekah takes it to the extreme in assuring that her son Jacob would obtain the favored blessing from Isaac rather than Esau, the eldest child. She carefully coaches Jacob in what to do in order to disguise himself as Esau for the blind Isaac and even cooks Isaac's favorite dish for him before Esau has time to come back with game to feed his father first.

Rebekah is willing to take all the blame for this deceit on herself in order that her precious boy will receive what she desires for him. And it results in her not even being able to see Jacob since he must go into exile.

Jochebed (Exodus 2:1-10; 6:20)

You may not be familiar with this name (as I wasn't), but this was Moses' birth-mother who not only saved his life when all the other Jewish boys were getting murdered, but also arranged it that a prestigious Egyptian woman, Pharaoh's daughter in this case, would find him. In addition, she saw to it that she was appointed as his nursemaid. So he had the best of two worlds growing up, access to the seat of power and a good Jewish education. And she had the advantage of being with her son during the process.

Naomi (Ruth 3)

Naomi is the epitome of the stage mother in the way she craftily maneuvers events so that Ruth ends up marrying the rich man Boaz. But in the process she actually puts Ruth in harm's way by convincing her to make overtures to him in the middle of the night. Fortunately, Boaz is a righteous man and does not take advantage of the situation, and of course God is directing the action behind the scenes the whole time.

Personally, I do not think much of Naomi with her moaning and groaning about her personal problems. And the fact that she seems to consider Ruth's child as her own (see Ruth 4:16-17) confirms the fact that Naomi appears to be living out through Ruth the life she feels was wrongfully taken from her by God.

Hannah (1 Samuel 1)

Hannah joins the group of barren women who only get pregnant through God's help. But in her case, she takes the selfless act of giving her boy back to God rather than keep him for herself. And she also goes one step further than Jochebed in seeing that Samuel is raised in an environment even closer to the real seat of power, God's temple.

Bathsheba (I Kings 1-2)

As David lies on his bed dying, Bathsheba is rightly concerned about the fate of her and her son Solomon. Despite David's promise that Solomon will inherit the throne, she has learned that another son, Adonijah, has proclaimed himself king instead. Right after she has told David of this development, Nathan barges in with the same news. David promptly has his officials anoint Solomon and have him parade through the city.

But the conspiracy doesn't end with David's death in that Adonijah then asks Bathsheba to relay his request to Solomon for the hand of Abishag, the woman who shared David's bed before he died. Bathsheba duly tells Solomon, who is rightly enraged at her request since that act would have symbolically meant that Adonijah was the rightful king after all. There are two ways of interpreting her motive in giving in to Adonijah's request: (1) she knew full well what Solomon's reaction would be and hoped it would result in Adonijah's death or banishment or (2) she was so naïve that she didn't realize what Adonijah's request meant .

Jezebel (I Kings 21)

This is a variation on the stage mother motif in that it is concerns a married couple in which the man, King Ahab, acts the part of the helpless boy who must be pushed into action by a woman. The clearest example is seen in the famous story in I Kings 21 in which Ahab is dejected because Naboth won't sell his vineyard to him. He acts sort of like Jonah pouting over his dead vine. Jezebel has to come along and put him in a better mood by reminding him that it is very easy to hire men to give false testimony which will put Naboth to death. And she does just that.

Mordecai (Book of Esther)

Here we go a little further afield with the stage mother theme in that it is a man, Mordecai, who first pushes his cousin Esther reluctantly into action when the Jewish people are threatened. When their requests are met favorably by the king, who is portrayed throughout as being even more clueless than King Ahab, both Ruth and Mordecai take charge and get the king to not only eliminate their enemy Haman but also to empower the Jews to fight back anywhere in the kingdom where they are threatened.

Their motives are quite clear – neutralize their personal enemy and anyone else who would take action against the Jewish people as a whole.

Conclusion

What can we say regarding this parade of those who engineered events to favor themselves and/or those to whom they were devoted or could manipulate? Of course it varies with the individual circumstances, but an appropriate closure is provided by G. Norman, who discusses the case of Rebekah: “Rebekah was a woman of strong will and ambition, devoted at first to her husband, but later transferring that devotion to her younger son, with disastrous results for the life of the family, though the sequel shows that in the overruling of God even this was converted to the furtherance of His purpose.”

And we could make the same statement regarding all of the narratives above. In each case, it was used in one way or another to bring about God's will.