I don't know if you've ever spoken about this before. But what is Hera and Demeter's relationships like with each of their children?
i may have mentioned things briefly, but i don’t think i’ve ever sat down and talked about it, so thank you!!! i’ll start with demeter, because that’s a little easier.
demeter is a very good mother. she gets a bad reputation because women expressing any kind of emotions get treated poorly, but her love for her children literally knows no bounds. she is encouraging and kind, affectionate and forgiving. she can border on over-protective, but it’s done out of love and knowledge of what her world looks like (demeter has been burned so many times by the gods around her, that she does not trust them and does not trust them with her children).
the easiest child to talk about is persephone, because the myths are so abundant and i’ve written with many great ones. demeter adores her daughter. she dotes on persephone endlessly, and is still willing to receive that 4am call for assistance. she’s learned to forgive hades for persephone’s sake, and is as involved in persephone’s life as she’ll allow. but demeter has relaxed a lot, and trusts in her daughter to make her own decisions and make them well.
her other children - ploutos, despoine, arion. i haven’t really had much of a chance to explore these relationships, but i imagine it would be the same. they have their own lives and demeter respects that, but she’s happy to be as involved as possible, and dotes on them a lot.
family is incredibly important to hera. her role as mother is significant not just to her children, but as mother to all, as goddess of motherhood, as she who blesses mothers and families. and so her relationship with her children is extremely significant, and she adores them all in her own way. but i think it’s also fitting that the goddess of motherhood is not a perfect mother - because none are perfect, because all make mistakes, because mothers are not infallible.
her relationship with hephaetus is complicated. the post-partum depression was severe, and what she did to him was horrific and awful and so unlike herself, as PPD often does to mothers, and it haunts her. part of her reluctance to reunite with hephaestus afterwards, after she knew thetis had come to care for him instead, was because she did not feel worthy as his mother. she did not think there was anything she could do to earn his forgiveness, and so she left him with a mother who could be what he needed. her shame was insurmountable. which meant that when he came to olympus to enact his punishment of her, hera accepted it. she did not like it, but she accepted it for what it was, and upon her release, made it her solemn vow to make up for what she had done. and i think, after a lot of work and forgiveness, her relationship with hephaestus has grown stronger. she loves him. she thinks he’s a brilliant mind and he makes her proud.
ares is her little baby boy, and hera’s boy mom vibes really come out with him. he’s unruly and difficult, and he always got himself into trouble, but hera sees so much of herself in ares that she forgives it a lot faster than zeus does. she’s hard on ares - as she is on all her children - because she sees so much potential.
eris is more complicated. eris is the kind of chaos that’s hard to focus, the kind of aggression that cannot be contained, and it put her at ends with her daughter. hera is very much so a tough love kind of mom, not taking any shit or allowing disobedience to go unpunished. and because of eris’ nature, hera’s parenting methods did not always mesh with her daughter. it severed their bond, and has taken centuries to repair in my opinion.
hebe and eileithyia receive the same treatment from hera - tough love, no room for nonsense, but a loving and guiding hand that often pushes them to work harder. she is proud of her daughters - eileithyia took on part of her domain, and hebe became hera’s personal cupbearer (and assistant), and she loves them dearly. she visits them regularly and takes them under her wing to raise her daughters to be strong and independent.
i would also like to add that most of zeus’ other children have become “hers” in one way or another. (the exception being dionysus… and sometimes artemis n apollo). athena is like a daughter to her, and hermes, the muses, persephone even - she may not like how they came about, but she cares about them a lot and views them as her own. mother to all the gods, y’all.
