Mother’s Day Gift

May 08, 2011 Editorial

If there is one truism that should escape any form of argumentation, it is that everyone has or had a mother. We may want to assert that from the laws of biology, we each also have a father but in practical terms in Guyana, all too often that is more of a category rather than a social reality. Few indeed are the mothers that would desert their children: many fathers have no such compunctions.
So today, let us celebrate with our mothers and give thanks for all that they have done to make us what we are today. We shared from their very blood, of their food and indeed of their breath and every other necessity of life for our first nine months. And then we were cast into this world through a wall of pain as their bones and flesh were literally split asunder.
It has been said, not entirely facetiously, that if a man wants to experience the pangs of childbirth someone should grab his bottom lip and pull it over his head. We should be reminded of how many mothers still perish in Guyana, in the act of childbirth.
And then we were nursed and nurtured by our mothers for a period longer than that of the young of every other species on earth. Bruises were washed and bandaged, fevered brows were wiped and a hundred mishaps were taken care of. In our most patriarchal of societies, it is invariably the mother that wakes up in the middle of the night and remains awake for the remainder of the night to ensure that all is well.
At the very best, the fathers bring in money but expect that whatever the quantum the mother must ensure that food, clothing and shelter are provided. Let us not speak too much of having to also supply the wherewithal for “drinks and sport”. It is rather extraordinary that most men still insist that the mothers of their children must indeed be thankful for them bringing in the “dough”.
The work that mothers perform from dawn to dusk and beyond has no value in that wonderful science called economics. Something surely is rotten in the kingdom of man.
To a large extent it is this lack of value for what they do being unacknowledged and unrecognised that is transmuted into a lack of respect for them as persons. In Guyana, there is scarcely a day that goes by that some mother or other is beaten, brutalised, maimed and even killed by their husbands or partners. They are seen as chattel. And we know of only the exceptional instances that are reported in the press. One shudders to think of the true picture.
But slowly (and even more slowly in Guyana) the world of our mothers is changing. However, as in everything else power – and its oppressive deployment even when couched in flowery language – is never conceded but through struggle. After the unceasing bombardment of the evidence of violence against women in general in the media in the last decade, some laws have been enacted to offer a measure of protection.
Unfortunately, the wheels of justice turn exceedingly slowly when women are involved: at the primary level the police still refuse to acknowledge that women and mothers are deserving of equal protection.
We have deliberately ventured off the well travelled and beaten track of platitudes that are usually de rigueur on Mother’s Day.
We know that many children, including sons, will trudge over to their mothers on this day bearing the usual gifts of perfume or chocolates. Some that can afford it may yet bring gold and diamonds.
The point we wish to make is that while these gifts are certainly welcome, they are transitory in the wider scheme of things.
A more lasting gift, especially from sons, would be to become sensitive to the immanent plight of all women – most of who are or will become mothers – and to pledge on this Mother’s Day to do something to alleviate their lot. Happy Mother’s Day!

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Mother’s Day Gift

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