Tag Archives: Mother’s Day

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.

 

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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 →

“I am looking for you, Mother” – Poem by Lisa Alvarado

07 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by in Poetry, United States

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La Tierra Santa by Chicano Artist Cecilia AlvarezLa Tierra Santa by Chicana Artist Cecilia Alvarez
Photo Credit: Cecilia Alvarez

 

In honor of Mother’s Day on May 11, my Poetry Corner May 2014 features the poem “I am looking for you, Mother” by Chicano poet Lisa Alvarado. (Chicano poetry and literature is the term used for writing done by Mexican-Americans about their way of life in America.)

“I am looking for you, Mother” talks about a mother who is lost to drugs.

So you give the man the paper
and he gives you the pills.
The pills help you.
The pills have stolen you from me.

The following lines from Alvarado’s poem inspired my Haiku poem, “Mother”:

I wonder if you will ever hold me or tell me
I am beautiful.

“I am looking for you, Mother” is the final poem in Alvarado’s poetry collection, aptly titled, Raw Silk Suture. Her poems are like raw wounds stitched together with tenderness. Her six poems in the opening section, “The Bone House,” about childhood sexual abuse, best exemplify this.

In the opening poem, “R.E.M.,” the daughter does not understand how the sexual abuse happened. She knows only that she hates her father. Her old wounds of childhood are restored in “Journal Keeping,” the final poem in the section.

My body is a family album;
a record of where rage came to rest.
The task is now absorption,
transformation;
the quiet remaking of cells,
folding softly and strongly
into myself.

The section, “The Housekeeper’s Diary,” first drew me to Alvarado’s work. She not only calls our attention to the life of the Latina housekeeper, but also takes us inside the home of the rich American. Here, too, the poet throws us the raw bone.

In “Reason #1,” she writes:

Women clean
because
every time
they picked up a pen
every time
they danced
someone
broke their fingers
and
bound their feet.

In “Hand Laundry,” the intimate revelations of washing another woman’s underwear indicate the woman’s disregard for and trust in her Latina housekeeper.

I shouldn’t have to know these things…
What is important
is I fold
and store
her life
her sex
in the right place,
and keep my mouth shut.

The mother of the rich, white, Jewish family in “Sons of the Very Rich,” sees her nineteen-year-old son as a sweet boy, a good boy. The housekeeper sees a young man who is dirty and lazy. She knows the amount of dope he smokes and used condoms to be disposed of before his mother comes home.

The housekeeper’s “Home” reveals another reality: a place where she can come back to [her]self in the arms of [her] beloved.

Smells linger everywhere.
Not odorless and antiseptic,
like the place you call home,
the place I clean for you.
This is where I live.
In a place the size of your living room.

Read “I am looking for you, Mother” and learn more about Lisa Alvarado’s work at my Poetry Corner May 2014.

A Happy Mother’s Day!

The Best Mother’s Day Gift

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in Brazil, Family Life, United States

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My Sons - Fortaleza - Ceara - Brazil - 1992My Sons – Fortaleza – Ceará – Brazil – 1992

When my two sons were kids, my best Mother’s Day gifts were the cards they made for me. I treasure these cards to this day. Now that they are young men, my best Mother’s Day gift is celebrating their achievements, large and small, as they work towards their individual goals in life.

Many are the challenges we mothers face as we raise and prepare our children to take their place in the world: to be kind, to make a difference, to triumph over loss and misfortune.

This Mother’s Day, I think of mothers who struggle to raise their children under adverse conditions. Mothers who labor at low-wage jobs in fast-food restaurants, retail stores, and hotels. Mothers who have lost their homes to foreclosure and raise their kids in cars and shelters. Mothers who have lost their jobs and must depend upon charitable and government assistance to feed their children.

When we are strong, our children learn to be strong too. There are countless, unknown, courageous mothers across America and our planet who can attest to this. Dona Lindu (photo below) from Pernambuco in Northeast Brazil, a woman who could not read or write, was such a mother.

Dona Lindu - Mother of Former President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da SilvaSource: revistacrescer.globo.com

Here’s what one of Dona Lindu’s sons said about her:

I thank God for my mother’s courage. Do you know what I keep thinking? How is it that an illiterate woman like that…gather seven* children together and come to São Paulo, in the hope of meeting a husband that she had no idea what he was doing in life?… And succeeded in leaving this husband. And succeeded in raising seven children. Because, if it’s true that marginality is connected to poverty, my mother is the opposite of this. During a period of immense misery, my mother raised five sons that became poor men, but honorable, and three women that didn’t have to prostitute themselves. I think this is very noble. Because of this, I have an immeasurable respect for my mother [he cries].

… My mother had a very great desire for life. She didn’t get depressed or discouraged. She was not a woman who complained about life. I don’t recall my mother complaining about working too much. There was always something that caused her to say: “It’s great, everything’s fine!” Whenever we complained, she would say: “Tch, but there’re people worse off than you.”

* The eldest son had already joined their father in São Paulo.

LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA, PRESIDENT OF BRAZIL (JAN 2003 – DEC 2010)
Translation by Rosaliene Bacchus of interview in June 1993 with Denise Paraná, from her official biography Lula, o filho do Brasil (Lula, The Son of Brazil), Third Edition, São Paulo, Brazil, 2008.

Dona Lindu died in 1980. She did not see her son Lula inaugurated as President of Brazil on 1 January 2003. How could she have imagined that one of her sons would achieve such greatness?

Strong character arises from struggle. Our labor and sacrifices bear fruit of worth. What better gift could a mother hope for?

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.