Divine Secrets
of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
However, this is not the ultimate message about motherhood in Divine Secretes of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. As Sidda begins to uncover the secrets of her mother’s past by reading her old scrapbook she also reflects on her own childhood, eventually understanding that her mother is a person too, who dealt with a great deal of sadness. When Sidda learns about her mother’s upbringing, another mother is introduced in the story- Buggy, Sidda’s grandmother. She was a devout Catholic, always in conflict with Vivi’s father, and extremely jealous of his favoritism toward Vivi. Here, the mother is portrayed again as slightly crazed, but far more submissive than Vivi.
A large source of Vivi’s discontent and sadness is the loss of her true love, Jack. He promises her the world, but when he enlists during World War II, he dies in a plane crash, leaving her to settle in the arms of Shep, Sidda’s father. Vivi’s depression after losing Jack is one of the reasons that she is so distant toward her children, causing her to drink to excess, and eventually physically lash out at her children when she has a mental break.
Ultimately, as Sidda reads more and more of the scrapbook and learns about her mother and the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, she begins to see that her mother was doing the best that she could. Sidda says, “My mother's love is not perfect. My mother's love is good enough. My lover's love is good enough. Maybe I am good enough.” Instead of trying to understand her mother, and herself, Sidda reaches a place of acceptance by the end of the novel, leaving the reader with a portrayal of motherhood that I think a lot of people experience. Mothers are all people outside of their role as “mom”, and Sidda accepts that her mother’s actions, although destructive, were ultimately coming from a place of love, and that she was doing her very best.