Tag Archives: motherhood

Reflections: Who is My Family?

25 Sunday Jul 2021

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Photo Credit: LDS Living

Family has always been central to my well-being. At an early age, growing up in what was then British Guiana, I realized instinctively that my family was vital to my survival. My parents’ constant bickering and violent verbal exchanges threatened the unity of our nuclear family of seven: two adults and five children. Connections with the two branches of my extended maternal and paternal families tempered the fears and insecurity that unsettled my young life.

During the turbulent years of our struggle for independence from Britain, my extended families shrunk with the migration of relatives to the Mother Country. Later, when Britain tightened immigration from Guyana and its former West Indian colonies, more aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends found new havens in Canada and the United States. Loss has left its scar on my life.

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Mother Did You Know: Guest Post by Swarn Gill

09 Sunday May 2021

Posted by in Family Life, Poetry, Relationships

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Claire de Lune (2019) by Audrey Kawasaki

This Mother’s Day 2021, I share the poem “Mother Did You Know” written by fellow blogger, Swarn Gill. He captures with precision my own experience as a woman and mother. I’m heartened that he’s able to see the truth of millions of years of social conditioning of the human species.

*I dedicate this poem to women in general, but also to my mom, who is an amazing woman and still inspires me to be more to this day.

mother did you know
it’s all your fault
you caused the fall
of man
that them’s the breaks
when you talk to snakes

mother did you know
you’re not quite human
humans should be a male
those other parts
aren’t on the chart

Continue reading at Swarn Gill’s blog, Cloak Unfurled.

Swarn Gill, a biracial Canadian, is a professor of Atmospheric and Earth Science. He lives in Pennsylvania, USA.

Motherhood: Where is the joy?

13 Sunday May 2018

Posted by in Family Life, Human Behavior, United States

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Today on Mother’s Day in America, families are celebrating the day with their mothers and grandmothers. While my sons will mark the day by joining me in activities I enjoy, I see no cause to celebrate motherhood.

Where is the joy of motherhood, I ask myself, when you live in fear of ICE agents separating you from your American-born children? Where is the joy in motherhood when your hours of labor value little to provide food and shelter for your children? Where is the joy in motherhood when intolerance, bullying, and hate put your children’s lives at risk? Where is the joy in motherhood when you watch your child suffer for lack of medical treatment?

Why, I ask myself, do we bring children into a hostile world that no longer fights for their right to life once they leave our womb? Why do we bring children into a world facing ecological collapse, climate disruption, and threat of nuclear war?

Speak to me not of love. Love protects and defends our young. Love nurtures.

I speak not to parents and grandparents who are doing their best, going beyond the possible. Rather, I speak to those among us who support laws and policies that favor corporations and billionaires and punish the families of our nation.

In an overpopulated world, motherhood has lost its meaning. Our uterus is for “baby-hosting.” Just ask Katy Talento on the White House team.

 

Mothers Can Be Complicated

10 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in Family Life, Human Behavior, Relationships

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Mother and Daughter - Abstract Painting by Marie Jamieson

Abstract Painting – Mother and Daughter – Ink on Heavy Paper
By Marie Jamieson

On this day in the United States and in some countries around the world, as we honor our mothers, I have to admit that mothers can be complicated. Happy the woman who has a loving relationship with her mother! I did once…before our thirty-year separation.

My mother migrated to the United States. I stayed behind in Guyana, got married, became a mother of two, and later migrated to Brazil. My mother and I became different individuals. Our values and priorities in life diverged. Continue reading →

A Happy Mother’s Day

13 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in Brazil, Family Life, Relationships

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Bookmark received from my eight-year-old son on Mother’s Day 1993, Brazil

[Translation: I love you a lot – You are the best mother I’ve ever had – I adore you a lot a lot – I will never forget you mother]

We live in challenging times, a period of economic and social upheaval. As mothers, we are oftentimes required to make extreme sacrifices for our children, whether they are our own offspring, grandchildren or adopted.

Today, on Mother’s Day, let us remember mothers who have lost their jobs and homes and struggle to provide for their children.

Let us remember mothers who have put their lives on hold to save a son or daughter trapped in alcohol or drug addiction.

Let us remember mothers who also care for their aging mother or mother-in-law.

Let us remember mothers who have lost a son or daughter and continue to mourn their untimely passing.

Let us remember mothers who have cancer or other life-threatening disease and fear for the future of their young children.

Let us remember mothers trapped in violent and abusive relationships.

Let us remember mothers mistreated, neglected or killed by their own offspring or the children they raised.

With motherhood comes great responsibility. During my years in Brazil when I raised my two sons alone, I recall a Mother’s Day that I lamented the burden of motherhood. I could think of nothing to celebrate. But there came a time when I realized that my sons were my greatest treasure; that being a mother made me more joyful, more caring, more compassionate, and more connected with others.

If the burden of motherhood weighs heavily upon you at this moment in your life, know that it provides you with an opportunity to develop your true greatness. Forced to raise my sons alone, I found my inner strength and courage, my capacity to overcome each obstacle along the way, and to triumph.

Just for today, celebrate the fragile joy of motherhood.

Auntie Katie, a Good Neighbor

06 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in Family Life, Guyana, Human Behavior, Relationships

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Bookers Stores (now Guyana Stores) – Georgetown – Guyana (1960s)

Source: www.flickr.com

When I was a kid, our neighbor Auntie Katie lived alone and had no children. I always thought of her as a woman in her forties. Perhaps it was because she was much older than my mother, who was in her twenties during those early years.

Auntie Katie was a buxom woman with strong arms. She had puffy fingers and wrinkly fingertips. “From washing clothes,” she told me when I asked her about her hands. Her large wooden wash basin, filled with water when not in use, always stood at the foot of her backstairs. I enjoyed listening to the squishy sound she made when she rubbed the wet soapy clothes again the scrubbing board.

No one was allowed to enter her kitchen when she was making black-pudding. Her well-seasoned rice sausage, eaten with spicy sourie sauce, was my favorite Saturday evening treat. Among her many customers was an important visitor she addressed as ‘Brother Forbes.’ He was a young British-educated barrister-at-law who later became Guyana’s first Prime Minister in May 1966, when our country gained independence from Great Britain. With sales of her black-pudding, Auntie Katie helped to raise funds for Brother Forbes’ political party. She never missed his party meetings and rallies.

She and my mother argued a lot about political matters. I was too young then to understand what it all meant. Sometimes, they stopped speaking to each other for several weeks. Then, they were friends again. Whatever their differences, my mother respected Auntie Katie and often looked to her for advice.

Every Sunday morning, Auntie Katie dressed up to go to Church. She used hot iron combs to straighten her hair, usually kept tightly-braided and hidden under a headscarf.  Her Church hat matched her dress and handbag. I dressed up with her colorful beaded necklaces and clip-on earrings.

Whenever my mother was busy with her sewing, Auntie Katie would keep an eye on us as we played in the yard. One Christmas season, when my mother had lots of dresses to sew for Old Year’s Night, she took me, my brother, and sister downtown to visit Santa Claus. The three major department stores – Bookers, Fogarty’s, and Bettencourt – each had their own Santa Claus. To our delight, we received presents (at a price) from all three Santas.

Auntie Katie was like a second mother to me. After we moved apart, I saw very little of her. But the years she was our neighbor were enough to teach me not to judge a person by the color of their skin. For this, I am forever grateful to her.

On Mother’s Day, I remember Auntie Katie, a good neighbor. I celebrate all women who have no children of their own but, like her, open their hearts to the children around them.

Failed Expectations of a Work-at-Home Mom

11 Sunday Mar 2012

Posted by in About Me, Family Life, Guyana, Working Life

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Photo of Seamstress: http://www.michelleshaeffer.com

During Guyana’s struggle for independence from Britain and the years following independence in May 1966, my parents raised five children – two girls and three boys. My father’s wages at a small import and wholesale family-owned firm could not cover our basic expenses. As far back as I can remember, our mother worked at home as a seamstress to assist our father in providing for our needs. She was a housewife and a work-at-home mom.

As the first-born and a female, I helped my mother with the housecleaning and in taking care of my four siblings. By twelve, with the help of my brother or sister next in line, we often went to the corner shop for groceries and to the market for fresh produce.

My tasks in the afternoons, after school, included hemming, sewing on buttons and hooks, doing bead-work on evening gowns (fashionable at that time), and collecting covered buttons and buckle-heads from the lady in the neighborhood who specialized in this service. When dresses were not ready on the delivery date, I became the delivery girl. I must confess that I was not always a willing assistant. I had my school work. I wanted time to go out with my friends.

To take care of our washing and ironing, my mother hired a domestic servant (as they were called at that time) to come to our home twice a week.

Our work-at-home mom had no fixed working hours. Whenever she had a large dress order, such as a bridal gown and gowns for the bridesmaids, she would work through the night until dawn. Her determination, persistence, dedication, and hard work shaped our lives.

The money she earned went towards our private high school fees, school uniforms, and school books. Regretting that she had never had a high school education, she wanted a better future for us. In so doing, she sacrificed her own dreams.

This year, she will complete 79 years. She laments that she has never lived. Even though my siblings and I have succeeded in our chosen professions, we have failed to meet her expectations in our choice of spouses. She believes that the sacrifices she made for us were to no avail.

My reunion with my mother in the USA, after 31 years of separation, swept through my life like a tsunami. As I struggled to save myself from drowning in her anger and bitterness, I learned an important lesson. As a mother, I cannot expect my sons to fulfill the dreams I have for myself or my dreams for them. Regardless of my sacrifices in raising them, they have to make their own choices and live their own lives.

As women and mothers, we have to cultivate our own gardens. We have to take delight in our own achievements, however insignificant they may seem to others. When we fail, we cannot lay our failures at our children’s feet.