Born on the Fourth of July: The U.S. and its Mother Complex

As we move through this four-day week toward our Independence Day celebration this Friday, July 4, the question on everyone’s mind is: When is Angelina Jolie going to have the twins?

Yep, we’re a nation born under the sign of Cancer, and motherhood is one of our sacred cows. Hence, the American hysteria about abortion, from both the right-to-lifers and those who support a woman’s right to choose, and the recent brouhaha about the pregnancies at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts.

Tainted food is another hot-button issue for this crustacean country. Earlier this week, tomatoes were suspected of infecting at least 900 people with salmonella and instantly disappeared from restaurant salads across the country. Now, the government is examining other possible causes for the salmonella outbreak, namely things “often served with tomatoes.” Gosh, it seems like the alar apple scare happened just yesterday. (It was in 1989, for the record.)

When I was growing up in the 1960s, it was said that the U.S. psyche could be boiled down to three things: “Mom, apple pie, and Chevrolet.” This was around the time that we were making the big push to reach the Moon, the orb that astrologers consider to be the ruler of Cancer.

When I first started learning about astrology, I could see how Mom and apple pie were great loves of this Cancer nation, but I never understood how Chevrolet fit into the “I Want My Mommy” dynamic.

And then last night, as I was mentally adding up how much I had spent on gas driving from Albuquerque, N.M., to Clarendon, Tex. (a hamlet outside Amarillo), it hit me: When you’re snug in your car, you’re encased in a safe place. Sound familiar? I’m sure I’m not the first one to make this connection, but being in a car is like being back in the womb.

So it’s really “Mom, apple pie, and back to the womb.” And unless you have a twin, you didn’t have to share your first “car” with anyone else, certainly not a train full of strangers. Maybe that accounts for the American distaste for public transportation.

The Freakonomics dudes over at The New York Times are surveying readers in an effort to determine why Americans are so rattled about having to pay more for gasoline after having enjoyed some of the lowest gas prices in the world for years. Here’s the link.

Well, if driving in a car is returning to the womb, than gasoline must be mother’s milk. Of course, Mom doesn’t charge anything for the sustenance she provides, but that’s the point: We consider gasoline to be our birthright! Hence, all the whining we’re hearing about higher gas prices.

So the next time you hear some pundit talking about America’s entitlement issues (Remember the proverbial welfare mom who drove a Cadillac?), remember that we’re a Cancer country. That’s why the jingle went: “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid.”

We don’t want a Mommy who tells us “No.” That’s why women bosses and politicians encounter so much resistance in this Cancer-ruled country, picking up nicknames like “control freak,” “stern schoolmarm,” or worse.

The Brits didn’t mind “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher telling them what to do, and the Germans seem content with Angela Merkel as Chancellor. It’s in America that we heard a voter allegedly asking GOP candidate John McCain, “How are you going to stop the bitch?” before Hillary Clinton conceded the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama.

Am I giving Americans a pass on infantile and sometimes downright crude behavior because our country was born under the sign of Cancer? Not at all. But we’ve got to give this big, fat baby who’s about to turn 232 some love at the same time we gently say: “It’s time to grow up.” I mean, way past time.

If the U.S. doesn’t stop sucking (there’s a Cancer word for you) the planet dry… (You fill in the blanks.)