Mother's LOVE
Hello everyone!
Being a mother is already hard enough without the judgement and the self doubt. You can do your best but that does not mean that your children will turn out alright. You can also be the worst mother ever and your children will turn out OK. No one knows how it works, No one has a parenting book that is fool proof. I know how my parents raised me is slightly different from how they were raised. And I am raising my boys very differently from my parents. It is not because I do not value what my parents did. It is because my kids are different than me, and what worked with me does not mean that it will work for them. Funnily enough my boys will be the first to point it out to me. One thing I wanted to make sure was that I made it easy for my boys to tell me everything. I want them to be sure that they could always come and tell me if something was bothering them. And I listen to them, even if it is long story about their favorite manga character. I listen and I interact. I also ask a lot of questions about themselves, and how they feel.
How y'all doing? Is everything alright with you physically and mentally?
I am hanging in there. We are only in June and this year has been already hard enough.The Covid-19 has already subverted our lives. In my home country, people are upset about the way the government is managing the crisis. And at the same time, most of them are not really respecting the basic rules of social distancing and barrier gestures.
On top of that, recent events in the US - the killing of a black man by police and the protests that ensued - has forced us to ponder more about the racism that black people are facing on the daily not only in the US but around the world. I have been trying to find words to define how it feels to be black and to face racism, but also what I think about the recent events: police brutality, protests and such. It is still hard for me to find them. Hopefully I will share them with you soon.
In the meantime, I would like to discuss something closer to home.
Mother's day came and went. It was confusing at first because it seems like every country has its own Mother's day. In Senegal we usually follow the same calendar as France so Mother's day was the 7th of June. Normally it would have been the 31st of May but since it fell on Whitsun, it was delayed for a week.
Scarf - borrowed from my Mother
Printed dress - thrifted
Earrings - Numero Uno
Shoes - Kadel
I never really celebrate Mother's day in big style. I would give my mother something, usually a new dress or a fancy cake but that is about it. It is not something major that we tend to celebrate in our family. We are more into religious festivals, family events and birthdays. Back when I was married, it was not celebrated either. My kids would always give me some art work or poem they made at school, but that was about it.
I have been legally divorced for two years now. My ex husband won custody of my two boys. It means that I get to see them every other weekend, and half of the school holidays. It also means that sometimes I do not get to celebrate events such as Mother's Day with them depending on the custody schedule. It is hard to be separated from my boys. For years, I was a stay at home Mom, which meant that we spend every hour of the day (except when they were at school) together. As they grew, I could escape from time to time, but my boys and I were basically attached at the hip. I used to know everything there was to know about them: their favorite food, their favorite toy, their best friend at school, the girl they had a crush on, their teachers, their school performance, their dreams, their favorite animated shows. Everything. Now everything I know, is what they tell me during the short weekends we get to spend together. I am less involved in their lives as I used to be.
God, it is hard to be separated from your children as a Mother, a parent. And I feel the emptiness everyday in my soul. It is so hard that I blocked the pain away and focused on my life. Now that I have a life when I do not have to take care of two other human beings 24/7, I could focus more on me. I have a job that I work hard at, I develop more bonds with my extended family and make new friends, I focus on my hobbies and finally started on a life long project. I go out more enjoying things that I could not when I was married. In other words, I have learned to put myself first.
But that does not mean that I no longer care about my children. When you are a mother, you will always be a mother. I lie awake at night, worrying about them. Every day I pray that they are safe. And when I see them, I do everything in my power to make sure that they are happy. I also make sure that I raise them to be good men. It is difficult to educate someone you see only part time. It is also hard trying to co-parent but that is a topic for another day.
The thing with mothers is that not only are we worried about our kids, but we are constantly worried whether we are doing a good job raising them or not. We always ask ourselves if we are good mothers, if we are doing our best? Or if what we are doing is good enough. Society will also judge us. I have been judged by my former spouse, my family, my in laws, my friends, and even strangers. I have been judged on planes when my children would cry, I have been judged at supermarkets when they would run around acting crazy, I have been judged at restaurants when they would throw temper tantrums, I have been judged for disciplining them, for not disciplining them, for not giving them enough food to eat, for giving them too much food to eat, for buying them too many clothes, for not buying them clothes, for buying them toys, for not buying them toys, for letting them watch TV, for not letting them watch TV.... It goes to the certain point where you constantly doubt yourself. Am I doing a good job? And the worst part is that you as a mother also judge other mothers. I remember being shocked once seeing a mother cradling her baby while she was driving. I could not believe my eyes. Didn't she know that she was putting her child at risk. But then one day I was in a car with my cousin and her baby boy. I was holding him but he started crying asking for his mother. He was screaming and kicking so much that she took him from me and breastfed him while driving so he could calm down. As mothers, it was hard for her and myself to hear him cry. That day, I stopped judging.
Another thing I had to do was having long conversations with them about why I am no longer married. Since the beginning of my separation, I was dead set on not lying to my children. I answer truthfully to all the questions they had. Truth hurts they say, but I'd rather they know the truth than lie to them because the truth always come to light. I have never sugar coated the divorce and I have not given them false hopes as well.
Finally, I try my best to not discipline them too harshly. I was raised by the belt. Whenever I would misbehave, my parents, mostly my Mother would hit me with a belt, sometimes on the palms of my hands, other times all over my body. And being the eldest I often took a beating when my younger siblings misbehaved. It affected me so much that I vowed not to do it with my kids. Truth be told, it is hard not to discipline them with belts or sticks sometimes. I had to do it in the past but really when they pushed me to the extreme. I always scold them first, then shout, then finally when they do not oblige, I hit. But I can count the times I really punished them in that way. In the end, it pains me to hit them.
What we must remember as women, as mothers is that no one is perfect. The same way there are no perfect human beings, there are no perfect mothers. What we can do is our best to raise our children the best way we know how. We need to teach them good values, good manners but also to love. And the only way to do that is to give them love in the first place. Children need a lot of things in life, but all those things will not matter if they do not have love.
Have a blessed day!
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