Thursday, June 5, 2008

Learning from African Perspectives on Motherhood

"If I no sleep, my mother no sleep.  If I no chop, my mother no de chop.  She no de taya aa, sweet mother, I no forget the suffer way you suffer for me" (Nico Mbarga, "Sweet Mother").  

Being a good mom isn't that different from being a good pastor.

In her article "Abiyamo: Theorizing African Motherhood," Oyeronke Oyewumi notes that Western cultures such as ours often view the mother as "trapped in her primary role as caregiver."  I see this everywhere.  Our culture is forever offering me sympathy for my plight (this starts early - "Are you sleeping?"), hope for the bright day when my daughter starts school  ("You'll get your life back when your child starts school..."), and encouragement for me to take what is surely a deeply-needed break from my child as often as possible now ("Did you know there is daycare provided?"  "Why don't you ask a church member to watch your daughter once or twice a week so that you can get more done?").  All of this is very well-intended.  

But other cultures' understandings of motherhood confront me with the limitations of our own.  It is true that being a mother is demanding and difficult.  But this is not all that motherhood is.  Mothers are great life-givers.  Mothers exercise tremendous influence over their offspring and thus over society as a whole.  Mothers are every human being's first home.  They are the first relationship every human ever experiences, for better or worse.  In Yoruba culture, motherhood is viewed not as a temporary situation for the woman of a baby, trapped until she can return to doing what she really wants, but as a lifelong gift.  

I think our culture's perspective on motherhood feeds off of the way in which our culture nurtures the value of self-centeredness in all of us, mothers or not.  We call it "independence," but what we really mean is that we believe it is enslavement to be in a situation in which we have to give up our own needs and sense of entitlement moment by moment to care for another in the way of Jesus.  Thank God that he doesn't value his "independence" as much as we do.  

I am happiest as a mom when I am surrounded by people who believe that what I am doing in being a mother is valuable, when the benefit to the child and thus to the world is emphasized, when the cost is taken as a given not to be avoided but as something that must, for the sake of the child and the world, be embraced.  I believe this is true not only for mothers but for all persons called to live of life of sacrificial service for others.  

Next time you encounter a mother with a small child, please offer a word of joy and delight for the great benefit of her sacrificial service.

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