Mother's Day and The Mistaken Zygote: If You Have a Mama From Mars

The Mistaken Zygote Syndrome
by C.P. Estés

I tell my patients this story I made up, with both levity and gravity, to try to explain one of the great mysteries of this Earth: why some parents and offspring sometimes look at one another and ask themselves, “Who the heck are you? and what planet did you really come from??”

Here’s what I have to say on the matter in my consulting room:

We are born the way we are, and into the odd families we came
through:

1) Just because… (almost no one will believe this).

2) The Self has a plan, and our pea-brains are too tiny to parse it (many
find this a hopeful idea) or

3) Because of the Mistaken Zygote Syndrome
(well…yes, maybe…but what is that?).

Your family thinks you’re an alien.
You have feathers,
they have scales.
Your idea of a good time is the forest,
the wilds,
the inner life,
the outer majesty.
Their idea of a good time is folding towels.

If this is so for you in your family,
then you are a victim of The Mistaken Zygote Syndrome.

Your family moves slowly through time,
you move like the wind;
they are loud,
you are soft,
or they are silent and you sing.
You know because you just know.
They want proof and a three-hundred-page dissertation.
Sure enough, it’s The Mistaken Zygote Syndrome.

You’ve never heard of that?

Well see,
the Zygote Fairy was flying over your hometown one night,
and all of the little zygotes in her basket were hopping and jumping with excitement.
You were indeed destined for parents who would have understood you,
but the Zygote Fairy hit turbulence and,
oops, you fell out of the basket over the wrong house.
You fell head over heels,
head over heels,
right into a family that was not meant for you.

Your “real” family was three miles farther on.
That is why you fell in love with a family that wasn’t yours,
And who lived three miles over.

You always wished Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So were your real parents.
Chances are they were meant to be.

This is why you tap-dance down the hallways even though you come from
a family of television spores.
This is why your parents are alarmed every time you come home or call.
They worry, “What will s/he do next?
S/he embarrassed us last time,
God only knows what s/he will do now.

Ay!

They cover their eyes when they see you coming
and it is not
because your light dazzles them.

All you want is love.
All they want is peace.

Sure enough, it’s The Mistaken Zygote Syndrome.

______________
CODA: One solution I think works well and mercifully as well: Find those you truly belong to. Blood is not thicker than resonance. One can lend respect and regard to blood, and yet also give love where it is returned. Thriving requires it. As I quoted Charles Simic the poet, later in this piece: He who cannot howl, will not find his pack.