One of the women who tell their story in the book is a speaker, program maker and video chief Dragonfly Rowan Happy (32). She talks about the stillbirth of her first son Amari, about which she also made the documentary Quiet Life made. At 38 weeks pregnant, Amari died in her womb, after which she gave birth to a baby she would never get to know. After that terrible event, she struggled with her identity.
From The Good Mom:
I gave birth to a child, but am I also a mother? I had no physical proof of my membership. […] I didn’t know how to identify myself. The thing that made me a mother was no more.
Rowan: “When you are pregnant, you are preparing for motherhood. Also practical. We had all the things in the house; a playpen, a pram, diapers. We had become parents, but apart from those things nothing indicated that. I had a lot of trouble with it. Was I a mother or not?”
She realized that Amari had indeed made her a mother after the birth of her second son. “I noticed that I had actually been a mother all along, I just hadn’t had a place to send all my love.”
Rowan’s intense story could just as well have been the story of a white woman. Yet it is important to her to speak out on this subject, especially as a woman of Surinamese descent. “Still birth is something we don’t like to talk about at all, let alone in Surinamese culture. But if you never talk about it, you don’t know how to deal with it if it happens to you or someone else .”
Looking for real stories
Rowan also wanted to participate in the book because she herself needs real stories from mothers. “I notice that the stories you often get are somewhat glossed over. The mommy influencers on social media don’t show the whole picture either. You might hear the real stories one-on-one from your girlfriends, but it would be nice if there were many more different perspectives on motherhood in general. Because motherhood has many different forms, I have learned that.”
And yes, specifically the perspective of black women and women of color should be heard more often, she thinks. “We grow up in a society with a lot of inequality, in different areas. Skin color plays a role in this. I am aware that I am raising a black man, whom I will have to give certain tools to deal with I don’t want to instill in him that he is different, but I do want to teach him what to do if he encounters racism. Being part of the larger group gives you the privilege of not having to deal with that to hold.”
No recognition
Former journalist Naima El Maslouhi (43), herself a mother of three children, is the compiler of the book. It was created in collaboration with Dip Sauce Podcast (by and for women of color), of which Naima’s sister Mariam is one of the founders. Naima lacked stories in the existing books with which she could identify, she says. “I remember reading a mama book that received fantastic reviews. I hated it. That mother was a terrible nag and I did not recognize myself at all in her experiences and world view.”
In the thirteen stories of the women in The good mom she found that recognition, no matter how diverse their backgrounds are. “In every story there was something I recognized. Like with Chee-Han Kartosen-Wong, who writes that conversations with her parents invariably started with the question ‘have you eaten yet?’ That that was their way of asking how she was doing. That’s how it is with us. If there’s a disagreement, for example, my parents would never say ‘I’m sorry’, but would ask, ‘Would you like to eat?’ and then it’s good.”
Unabashed interference
The postpartum period of a mother of color also often looks different from that of the average Dutch woman. “As a white woman, if you don’t feel like visiting, you can just say so. That was really not an option for me. My family was just on the doorstep, whether I felt like it or not. Both my parents interfere anyway quite with how I fill in my motherhood. That unabashed interference from parents is a cultural thing, I think, although it is less so in the generation after me.”
In addition to the beautiful sides of the cultural wealth, the less pleasant aspects are also discussed. Because no matter how you look at it, as a mother of children of color, racism is an inevitable part of that motherhood. “Sometimes it’s in the little things,” says Naima. “After the birth of my first son, there was an obstetrician who had been in Africa for a while. She casually commented that she had expected the pain threshold ‘of those women’ to be higher. I didn’t know what I was hearing. Pain is pain after all ?”
‘You are all the same’
Or take the woman in the shoe shop, who was annoyed with Naima’s son and let slip that she knew ‘their kind’, ‘you are all the same’. “He was 4 years old and just fooling around a bit, as so many children do at that age. He waited quietly for a long time and ran exactly one lap through the store. I called that woman to account outside, because something like that you can’t make it. With a comment like that you can draw a child for life.”
According to Naima, boys of color, such as her son, are picked less than peers with a different background. “If children like mine do not behave, they are immediately seen as problem children. Or the mother is the problem and, due to her background, supposedly has no knowledge of parenting.”
Naima, who lives in Flanders, is quite concerned about how her Muslim children will fare in what she calls an Islamophobic society. “I have two boys and a girl. I can worry about the boys in particular. Moroccan-looking boys simply have it tougher than white boys. As a boy with a migration background, you start with a backlog that you have to catch up to get to 0. “
Fewer opportunities
She realized that naming her son Mohamed might have certain consequences. “I did, but I was glad he was born in Brasschaat and not in Antwerp. As Mohamed from Antwerp, you really have fewer opportunities in life.”
In addition, for children of color, identity is something they explore early on, she says. “They notice that they look different from the crowd and start asking questions. My eldest son, for example, noticed when taking a shower after swimming that his penis looks different from that of the other boys because he is circumcised. And our youngest wanted ‘ flat’ hair instead of curls, just like his classmates – until he saw boys like him in Antwerp. You have to guide them in that.”
The stories of the thirteen mothers who struggled with similar things to her, all impressed Naima. “These are stories of women who, each in their own way, were looking for something or lost something. Each story has done something to me.”
2023-06-01 18:59:18
#Women #color #motherhood #Child #quickly #problem #child
