The Mother Factor

My church recently launched a Parents Fellowship whose aim is to help parents mold a Godly character in their children. Hubby and I quickly signed up because, to be honest, we need all the help we can get in raising our three angels. The first one is not even a teenager (I understand this is where the rubber meets the road!) but as she reminds all those who care to listen, she is a pre-teen! Her school also organizes courses to equip parents in this tumultuous journey and we are currently on an Adolescence course. These are welcome additions into our busy lives (who isn’t?) despite the inconveniences of being treated like children ourselves. Can you imagine we must sign an attendance register, which by the way is withdrawn fifteen minutes after class starts. Not to mention, the homework! Which reminds me I have two case studies to read before coming Saturday! Nonetheless, we dutifully attend if only to glean a few useful lessons from other like-minded and often-clueless parents and the experts (if ever there was anything like expert parents!).

I was reflecting on the huge responsibility parents have  in raising their children, when it hit me how lucky I am to have these resources at my disposal. I stopped in my tracks thinking how my parents, particularly my mother, managed to raise all seven of my siblings and I. She was only eighteen when she had her first child. By the time she was thirty, she had birthed seven of them, had two snatched from her hands by the grim reaper, and still kept a straight face. Thirty is significant because that is when I had my first born! (In case you are wondering, I was waiting for the cows to come home and as you all know, they can be stubborn in the midst of so much pasture!). Anyway, back to my mother. In the midst of all the cacophony associated with such a full house, she still managed to go through college earning herself a P2 teacher’s grade and starting what would become her lifetime career – instilling sense not only to her own brood but to all others that crossed her path, literally!

We all have tales to tell about our mothers. Good or bad, mothers made us what we are today. Forget the strange things they all seem to have learnt from a nameless virtual school. I am sure you have seen them circulating on social media:

…wiping dirt from your face with saliva…

…telling you to go on and break all the cups/glasses just because one accidentally fell…

…the third eye that knew your hand was in the sugar jar even when she was not there…

…whipping you then telling you not to cry, or else…

…banning you from talking to so and so’s children just becaused she and so and so disagreed…

Etc….

Growing up, my mother was not my best friend. Firstly, I thought she was a slave driver. In fact, had I lived in this era of Children’s Rights and being the litigious society we have become, I am pretty sure we might have faced off in a court of law! Or how do you explain a seven-year old babysitting two toddlers and taking charge of the home. Mind you, she expected to find a neat home upon her return, or you faced the music. Secondly, she knew not how to spare the rod and believed the proverbial notion that children only flourish if chastised for any wrongdoing. In fact, she could very well have been Mdzomba’s teacher, the only difference being that she allowed you to choose your own rod, eh, stick. You see, being a teacher’s child was a big deal! According to my mother, the entire village had their eyes on you. Watching and waiting for you to miss a step, and she was not going to let that happen! So we had to be smart; brainwise, in dress and in character. To achieve this, our home was an extension of her classroom, chalk and all – and woe unto those of us who did not keep to the straight and narrow.

Disciplinary action aside, I believe with all my heart that my mother did the best she knew to achieve me. Were it not for her guidance, I shudder to think how I might have turned out. My older sister and I must have bee the reason for her worst nightmares especially during our adolescent years when some nuts came loose. Yet, she continued to give us room and board in her house even when we committed the greatest act of rebellion against her entire being – snubbing church!  You see, for as long as I can remember my mother  has always been a church-going Christian and she brought us up to respect the Sabbath. But hey! There comes a time when personal decisions must be made. And make them we did. And so we conspired to break her heart for at least two years. Years in which her waking thoughts must have been receiving the news that one of us was fooling around with some boy and got herself pregnant – after all, that is what foolish girls did back then!

Anyway, God must have hearkened to her desperate cries and that phase passed without leaving us with permanent scars. And praying she did, still does. My mother’s prayers can stretch to the moon and back. If you are in a hurry, better offer to pray yourself otherwise forget your appointment! And she will mention the physical, emotional, mental, social, financial and spiritual needs of all her children then start all over again with the grandchildren, calling each by name. With a mother interceding like that, wonder not that I am at this place, right here and now.

Now it is my turn – to bring up my own children in what can only be a better manner than my mother’s. I cannot fall short. And that is why I am open to learning about this huge responsibility called Parenting. I read somewhere that kids do not come with an instruction  manual. That may be true, but I am determined to write my own manual, borrowing the best tips from my mother’s style and incorporating the best researched ideas. Of course with help from the One above, the Super-parent. So, help me God!