Parenting lessons from mum

By Hilary Bainemigisha 
baihiljoe@gmail.com

Today, most likely, the Catholic Church will get its new pope. God actually knows Pope Francis’ successor, but He still needs a few days and black smokes, to get his favourite through the aged heads of the 133 cardinal electors in the Sistine Chapel. 

So, to give them chance to pick God’s signal in peace, let us focus on something much closer to us than the pope; our mothers. 

Isn’t Mother’s Day this Sunday on May 11, at least in the US? Anna Jarvis, an American champion of this day for mothers, trademarked its title in 1912 as a singular possessive: Mother’s Day and NOT Mothers’ Day. 

She explained that the day is for each family to honour its own mother and not all mothers in the world. 

So, on Sunday, your focus should be on your own mother, the one who keeps you in her heart even after you have flown away from her hands and even her sight. 

The one you should, therefore, keep in your premium files even after she has left this world. Your mother has the divine right to be in your face, even as a grown up, without need for an invitation. 

She is the only human who will not steal your iron sheets, who will miss a meal so that you can have it, who can take your bullet and will stay by you when the whole world has abandoned you. 

Messy affair 

Being a mother is a messy affair, but the women take it all in with grace and self-sacrifice. Motherhood actually starts with the inscrutable menstruation, which then colonises a girl’s life and becomes an inconveniencing companion in life. 

Then, she has to face all manner of men display their seductive baits, to get you a good and supportive father. In the process, she stands a risk of picking out a fraudster seeking a bite-and-run affair. 

And, when it happens, she has to stay with you, fording the swamp alone. Such single mothers are many and I salute them while standing up. 

There are also mothers who have all reason to doubt their husband’s fathering support, but for social and personal obligations, they still allow him to mess up their peace with another nine month’s troublesome journey. 

While delivering you is not such a tarmac road experience, nurturing the new dependent you, from zero hours to final independence, is also a messy affair. 

Even after your independence, your mother is often around backstage, ensuring conducive environments, managing the dad for resources and inspiring you to succeed. Why don’t we pause and give them a standing ovation! 

That is why I find it nauseating when some pastors call for the breaking of parental chains! They claim that prayer can break your ancestral line bond for purposes of stopping historical curses hiding somewhere along your lineage. How can your parents, who gave you life and purpose, be the same authors of misfortune!

And when you break the bond to inherit a new parent from the Middle East, how does the new Jewish mother, who never swam with crocodiles to protect you, become a better blessing? 

We are all cogs in the chain of life as we link the past, populated by ancestors, great men and women, who made it easier for you to be. You become their representative with a mission to make life easier for the descendants downstream. 

This is only possible by virtue of a motherhood process, which is why we celebrate our mothers today.

Hilary Bainemigisha

My mum  

According to the world, my mother passed on but, to me, she lives on in my most beloved memory in a spiritual form. That is why I see her in most solutions of my daily challenges and consult her on a permanent retainer. 

Mother’s Day always calls to mind the night of January 20, 1999, at about 3:00am when I was woken up by a call from Uganda. 

I was in Utsunomiya, a township in Tochigi prefecture, Kanto region, Japan. On the end of the line was Prof. Asingwire Narathius from Uganda. 

I was used to such night calls by Ugandans ordering for cars. But instead, he said: “I am about to break sad news, so be strong; Omukaikuru yaafa! (the old woman has died).” 
At first, I thought it was his mother but then, I wondered why I needed to be strong when it was his mother who had died. Could it be my beloved mother? 

That didn’t seem possible, considering that I had never ever imagined that God could make such a mistake! I had also just seen her Christmas photos, looking healthier than usual. 

Then I put the question: Whose mother? The answer was a terrible explosion in my heart and brain! My mother, my confidant, my friend and mentor, had left this world! I would never see, touch, embrace or argue with her physically again! What would happen to all the stories I was accumulating for her about my Japan escapades and pursuit of wealth? 

Mum had been my greatest inspiration, teacher, confidant, therapist, cheerleader and patient guide. 

She would start up a debate to test my opinion and, even when she realised my arguments were childish or baseless, she still listened to me approvingly before proceeding to show me how unreasonable I had strayed. 

She was almost the only one who understood me when all else were finding me such a bitter mouthful. I recall to mind one particular time in 1984 when Fr. Peter Kyarutaaba dismissed me from the seminary! Somehow, society of that time considered it a failure, an abomination and a shameful exposure of you and your parents’ inadequacy! 

So, the world pounced on me, singing rude songs of condemnation and, I think, mum saw its impact on me. She sat me down and intimately rebuilt my self-esteem in extraordinary ways. 

I remember her words: “Look at me Hilary; am I joking? I wouldn’t mind being the only one seeing success in you if you had the courage of standing by me so that we see it together! If priesthood is not your calling, aren’t there other armours you can wear to take on the world? Choosing to self-pity is to disqualify me as your mother.

I did not nurture you to be a cat; my son is a lion! Now go forth and roar; don’t meow! God wants you to roar! Your dad wants you to too! Your siblings also want you to! And so do I!”

My everything 

Mum saw through me like an X-ray. She always understood my erratic behaviour on either side of the law. She understood me more than I did and always had the right words to explain my circumstances. 

I once overheard her tell my wife: “Hilary can become a problem if he feels ignored or unappreciated. Note that, and you are halfway there!” 

She was a writer, singer, pianist and composer. Those who have praised my writing proficiency now know that it wasn’t the classroom, it was her breast milk. 

Right from infancy, I wasn’t so easy to teach at school. If something failed to make sense to me in class, I would take on the teacher until he explained it logically. 

Often I would exhaust the teacher’s patience at the expense of my buttocks. Then I would refer the case to mum, who was my final court of appeal. She always had a way of explaining things so easily. 

Mum forever 

With my mum gone, I always remember her words: “Choosing to self-pity is to disqualify me as your mother!” And it has guided my low muments. But there are many other consolations from her demise: If we agree that nobody minds your business more than your mother; then, for me, the minder of my business is not in physical form. 

She is spiritual; ubiquitous, immortal and all knowing. She has no limitations of spatial presentation, materiality, temporality, sensory restrictions and physical vulnerabilities.

Her death actually and technically detoothed death of its fangs of fear. The end of this life comes with a promise of reunion with my parents. Even when dad died nine years ago, my pain was cushioned by this belief that he was finally going to reunite with mum. 

Till today, no death, loss or miss surprise me anymore. I imagine that if mum can die; why not anything? There is nothing so favoured that it cannot go! I can lose money, a friend, an opportunity or any valuable item, and it is not a big deal, considering that mum also died!

Do something 

Finally, do something for your mother on Sunday. Anybody who does nothing will not be my friend. The most important is to give her a thank you call, visit her if you can and carry along any of Aunt Porridge products or her most favourite item or food. 

But you can also make it big, and my suggestion is to do with convenience. Buy her a health insurance if she doesn’t have, fuel card if she drives, gas cylinder if she still cooks with firewood and automated kitchen utilities like refrigerators, ovens, microwaves, blenders, air fryers or toasters. 

You can make it even bigger by buying her a car, building her a better house, granting her a title in her names or personal shares in your business. 

Happy Mother’s Day!