Tomorrow we are celebrating Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became official in the United States in 1914 to be celebrated on the second Sunday of May.
In the United Kingdom Mother’s Day or Mothering Day is a different date. It is a part of the Christian observance of Lent and falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent.
In other parts of the world Mother’s Day is celebrated on different dates. On whatever date or time, it is celebrated, there is a universal understanding that mothers should be honoured. Some people say that everyday should be Mother’s Day for the job of mothering is one that is selfless. There is no time off, it is often unrewarded, and there are endless silent battles that some women never tell.
Being a mother, I say that one is never fully prepared for the journey of motherhood. It is a journey of joys and sorrows, wins and losses, hopes and regrets and while some women love their children and are happy being mothers there are also those who seek to return and hide in the shadows of what they were before becoming mothers. Some women become a shell of themselves; some feel unseen and unheard existing only on the oxygen that fuels their children.
Women are expected to figure it out once they give birth to a child whether they have support or not. Even in instances when women are battling with conditions like postpartum depression, they are expected to be brave and strong whether they get help or not and be there to nurture and love their children.
On this Mother’s Day, I want us to think about the silent voices of the mothers who are struggling but do not show their struggles for fear of being judged by society. We must think about the women who have partners, but most of the responsibility is left on them to raise the children. We must think about the mothers in abusive relationships. We must think about those who keep up appearances sacrificing themselves to keep their families together.
We must also think of the single mothers who have little or no help and how it affects their mental health and self-esteem. We must think about teenaged mothers who are often unprepared and, in some instances, shunned by society. We must think about the women who might not have given birth but have mothered adopted children.
In Guyana Mother’s Day is celebrated with pageants, stage shows, brunches and other events to show mothers that they are appreciated. There is an understanding that without the endurance and sacrifices of mothers, the society would collapse.
The job of raising children is not a job for one parent. It takes two to conceive a child and therefore it expected that both parents would be involved in the raising of that child. The bigger and healthier the village, the better it is for society.
Mothers need to be in good physical and mental health to be the best versions of themselves and therefore the best mothers they can be for their children. However, this is not always so. It is not uncommon for frustrated mothers to abuse their children. In the name of discipline some mothers beat their children, but sometimes it is also in the name of being disappointed by the fathers of their children.
I know of several stories when mothers would have turned a blind eye to their children’s suffering. Some women ignore the abuse of their children. Such coldness is difficult to comprehend, but the reality of unaddressed trauma, of hurt people hurting other people and the unpreparedness of some women for motherhood is not spoken of enough.
There are too many women living in poverty with their children in Guyana. A few weeks ago, there was an incident that touched me. I saw a mother who was no more than twenty-five and there were four little ones with her including a baby and a toddler. The children were untidy and from just looking one could tell that their lives were filled with struggle. The children who could talk wanted hotdogs from one of the popular Venezuelan stands, but she told them she did not have money to buy and quickly took them across the road perhaps out of embarrassment while the children cried.
Some children are born into a cycle of poverty. As good intentioned as a mother may be, unsupported and poor, the odds against the children are often too many. While there are many stories of success where women work hard for their children and the children become upstanding and successful citizens, there are also many stories where the children become lost in society because their foundation was not stable.
We all can agree that stories of mothers who have children that they cannot adequately take care of are too many. Single mothers especially can be degraded by society and blamed for their plight of having to parent children alone. The circumstances that lead to women becoming single mothers are often not discussed. Whether it is by divorce, having children out of wedlock or by the death of a partner many women do not choose to be single mothers but are forced to become due to circumstances.
Young women should be mentored by older women. While some people may believe that a woman will adjust and mother a child regardless of the circumstances or whether she is ready or not, that is not always so. There should be conversations with young women about what comes with motherhood. It is not just about cute babies whose first day of school will arrive in the blink of an eye, but it is a lifetime of setting an example, nurturing, sacrificing, and sometimes putting one’s dreams on hold.
We must talk to young women about protecting their wombs. Whether they choose to do this by abstinence or safe sexual practices, they must be able to choose partners worthy of them who will not abandon them to raise children alone. There are too many instances when women have children with men who have no interest in being fathers. There are too many fathers who are comfortable abandoning their children and thinking that it is okay to leave women to figure it out on their own.
Young women must spend time getting to know their partners before they decide to have children. The days when background checks were done by families should probably return. It is human for people to have unplanned pregnancies and in some instances even when time is taken to know one’s partner and to plan the future, relationships do not always work out. Still, the more we plan our lives, the better it will be for us and the society.
We should not be afraid to talk about the quiet parts of motherhood. Those quiets parts are often about struggle, disappointment, and regret. It is time for such cycles to end and for all fathers and mothers to stand together to nurture generations who will not continue the quiet painful cycles.
