Live Free: Because of, Not in Spite of, Her Children

A long time ago when I was just a young undergraduate student, I enrolled in a sociology seminar focusing on gender identities across cultures. It was during this time, that I was also reading a lot of Alice Walker. In what has become one of my favorite essays of hers, "A Writer Because of, Not in Spite of Her Children", Walker introduced me to these words.

To my dear children,

Florence, Sylvester, Jake, Christy, and Alice,

without whose sweet background noises

this book would not have been written.

The words come not from Alice Walker but from Buchi Emecheta, a Nigerian/British author and mother. They make up the dedication of a book she authored, Second Class Citizen.

In her essay, Walker refers to Emecheta's dedication as the exact sort of dedication she could never have written. With much admiration for Emecheta's humble Nigerian roots, Walker recognized that she was not this kind of mother - one who could nourish her artistic expressions and mother graciously. No, she needed silence and clear separation from her mothering duties to nourish her own spirit.

At the time, with no thoughts of motherhood on my future's horizon, these words resonated with me. For, I could not help but ponder my own mother's existence. She, a single mother of six, in rural Louisiana, surely let loose a life's worth of her own dreams to insure that her childrens' stories would read differently from hers. Yet, despite her daunting duty, my recollections of her mothering are those of warmth, attentiveness, unconditional love, and respect. My memory recalls a mother's love that was bountiful. Her tasks (though not of the artistic or intellectual sort) left her most content, if we were all together. Her family, together, is how she liked it.

Now, many years later, I find myself still in awe - of these women - of this simple quote - of the enormity that is motherhood. Yet, as I am my mother's daughter, our stories so delicately intertwined, and we are of kindred spirits, I find myself striving daily to be that kind of mother. The one that works with, plays with, listens to, dreams with, laughs with, lives presently alongside my daughter, my own little girl. Not in spite of her, but because of her.

Because of her, my life has more texture, richness, and fullness than I could have ever imagined.

Happy Mother's Day to all women who have helped lift up and nourish the spirit of a child.