I’ve got nothing against Christians. Heck, I’ve been one. I might even tell you that I am one – albeit a conflicted one – if you press me in my more emotional/less philosophic moments. And you might even, sometimes, hear me say that I think that Christians get an bad rap in popular discourse, that they are often unfairly characterized as being uniformly evangelical and extremist and narrow-minded and illiberal and collectively ignorant and all sorts of terrible things that good liberals pretty much never say about anyone else anymore.

So, no, I don’t want any part of bitch-slapping the faithful just because I’ve got my own issues about organized religion. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to check my brain at the door when I wander into a klatsche of Christian women talking about who gets to go heaven and am invited to share my thoughts on the issue. Hence the emergence of – what did I call her? – my pissy inner bizatch the other day when I received an e-mail suggesting that I write a post about Ten Reasons Why I Believe That All Moms Go To Heaven.

My immediate reaction? Why, I do think that I shall write a post about Ten Reasons Why All Moms Will NOT Go To Heaven. And, perhaps, too, Ten Reasons Why, If There Is A Special Corner Of Heaven For Mothers, I Do Not Want To Spend Eternity There.

But when I said as much in my last post, I received this comment: “Oh My…such hate for awesome Mom’s (sic) who break their back (sic) everyday to do the best they can for their kids.”

Let’s clear this up right now: I’m not hating on moms, nor on Christian moms, nor on Christians in general or anyone else who insists upon wearing a halo on their ball cap when I say, again, that I am pretty certain that NOT ALL MOTHERS are going to heaven (if there is, in fact, a heaven, which is still something that I am not completely certain of). Because, as I said last day, I can rhyme off a pretty long list of some good ol’ evil mothers pretty quickly. And, there’s this whole issue that I have about the distinct possibility that I will not be going to heaven (also, where are all the Jewish mothers going? How can I work it so that I can go with them?)

But that’s beside the point. Let’s imagine, for a moment, that there is a special corner of Heaven for mothers, and that by ‘mother’ we are (as my anonymous commenter insisted) referring specifically to good women who love their children and not all those other nasty breeders who have given birth but not earned the holy title of Mother for some reason or another. Are you imagining with me? Good.

Now, let’s see: Ten Reasons Why I Do Not Want To Spend Eternity In Mother-Heaven:

1) There’s probably no liquor.

2) And probably no half-naked dancing boys, either.

3) I really don’t look good in a halo, the lovely sparkly bits notwithstanding.

4) Also, those wings look heavy, and I have back problems.

5) I can’t sing, and I’m guessing that there’s a choir.

6) Is it really just going to be mothers? Is George Clooney a mother? No? Then, no.

7) Have I mentioned about my suspicion that there will be no liquor?

8) Or my suspicion that if there is liquor, it will just be wine coolers?

9) It’s just not a party if Medea and Sylvia Plath and the Borgia women and Anna Nicole and all the other evil or fallen or impious or otherwise bad mothers of history aren’t there, and I’m geussing that they’re not going (even if good ol’ Sylvia made her kids some sandwiches before sticking her head in that oven, I’m pretty sure that ‘preparing lunch’ doesn’t make up for ‘killing self and leaving children to be raised by Ted Hughes and his lovers’ in the Christian sin calculus.)

And Reason Number 10 Why I Do Not Want To Go To Mother Heaven: because heaven, my friends, is a place on earth:

It’s a baby in a sugar bush, dancing to George and Alice Potter’s Old Tyme Jug Band…

… while clutching a wee creamer.

I’ve got my own Heaven, thankyouverymuch, and even if it is a bit hellish at times, I’ll take an Eternal Return to this place over Mommy Paradise, any day.

(Oooh, baby, do you know what that’s worth?!)