Amina Blackwood Meeks, Contributor
YEA, YEA and what else is new? Speak the truth and speak it ever, cause it what it will - aren't you just a little tired of these made-in-Europe-and-North-America-must-be-good-for-the-whole-world rituals? Like Mother's Day?
Well, maybe you have to be a certain age to be tired of certain rituals. Or maybe you just have to not care what anybody else thinks to come right out in public and just say it. Or maybe you just have to be broke after all the extra money you have to find, out of your same old two-pence a week, to pay Mr. Davies all the extra money he will be reaching into your pocket for to afford any of the high-priced gadgets and events that 'they' keep telling you is just the thing to make your mother feel special this Mother's Day.
You know what I really think. I think your mother is more tired of the whole thing than you are. Especially if you don't pay her much mind for the rest of the year. But maybe she is too decent a person, too much of a mother, too bent on believing that maybe, just maybe this year, you will find a way to make it last, to just heng up de phone inna yu aise and tell yu cap it! Nuh badda!
RITUALS
And isn't that what rituals are? The little habits performed out of habit that come along at the right time to reconnect us to whatever we have been disconnected from and remind us of what is really important about this rite of passage that we call life, even as they prepare us for the next stage?
Like, has it ever occurred to you that contrary to popular belief mothers only have one heart? Just ignore the fact that they have learned to behave in ways that lead everyone else to think differently. I mean, you can't blame anyone for thinking that you have multiple hearts if you insist on carrying the child on your hip, while you complete the meal and supervise homework, having just come in from the work-for-pay, answer the phone, rectify everything that didn't go as planned during the day and prepare for tomorrow's encounter all the while smiling and humming "these are a few of my favourite things..."
Well, maybe that's quite appropriate. One story of the origin of Mother's Day celebrations takes us back to England in the 1600s to the fourth Sunday of Lent, to be exact, designated, 'Mothering Sunday'. On this day, England's poor who worked for the wealthy in places located far from their homes, were given the day off and encouraged to return home and spend some time with their mothers.
A special cake, called the mothering cake, was often brought along to add 'specialness' to the occasion. You can imagine that? Being given time-off and permission to show your mother that you care. Ah bet some people did not avail themselves of the opportunity, just like now.
For mothers have plenty hearts. One is full of nothing but loving kindness and creative forgiveness for every act of inhumaneness and inconsiderateness that spring forth from the of-springs. "Is chu dem fadda gawn leave dem. Is because dem leave school wid nutten but a school leaver's certificate. Dem nat working, time hard. Is de sign under which dem born."
Well, look here, it is my considered opinion that none of these factors that predispose some of us to uncaring behaviour is about to change in a hurry without conscious and planned intervention. Perhaps we should use the day to consider how we are raised in this society, how we learn to be human beings and how we teach it.
MOTHERING
How do we create a society in which the attributes of mother and mothering inter alia loving kindness, patience, tolerance, will to forgive are hallmarks of how we relate to one another on a daily basis. We might also consider the net effect of the various means we use to tell thousands of mothers in this country that they simply do not count. I mean the mothers who will never see anyone like themselves much more be seen themselves on a television programme.
STRETCH A DOLLAR
Really, can you see farmer Brown's wife being celebrated for her ability to stretch a dollar and send their children to school every day without ever ending up in anybody's debt even if such an ability would be an asset in the budget offices of this country?
I mean the mothers who single-handedly raise accomplished and successful, decent and law-abiding musicians, artistic luminaries, sports heroes, doctors, teachers, members of Parliament and the like, who hear all too often about the shortcomings in the society all due to the fact that too many children are being raised by single mothers.
And then could we bear in mind that there are places outside of the consciousness of the Western world where Mother's Day as a holiday has yet to make an arrival.
Places like Africa where there is no ambivalence or equivocation about the place of honour of mother, her crucial and pivotal role in the making and maintainance of civilisation and the collective benefits which result from according her the respect she deserves every day of the year.
Can't buy that from a catalogue. Can't tally it up in the GDP. But then we have become very short on the rituals which enrich the quality of life and give meaning to sustainability.
And yes - "Honour thy father and thy mother".
