I told my mum I was unsure about having children. Her reply opened my eyes | Michaela Makusha

My mother’s own dedication to parenthood has always floored me, but I realised I hadn’t understood where it came fromTo me, my mother is Mummy and Mum; the fount of all knowledge and the source of love; the keeper of the rulebook and the holder of the cheerleader’s pompoms. She’s all of those things, but she is also a madwoman, who on her first night out in England from Zimbabwe was shocked by how cold it was after leaving her flat in a short skirt and heels, no jacket. She was pushed into hockey, literally, by her friend, who shoved her out of the line when the coach asked for a volunteer. I am named after that friend. My mother is both a protester and a nurturer; she has been teargassed at least twice (that I know of) while protesting in the name of human rights. Her life is a series of near misses and question marks, which I enjoy learning about and am sometimes horrified by.Given the obvious richness of her experience, I have asked her many times why she decided to have children. I couldn’t figure out why somebody who had such a full life would want to risk changing it for anything. When I was a teenager, she jokingly responded that she was bored. But as I get older, my curiosity has only grown. Because of her difficulties with endometriosis, the chances of her having children were slim. Becoming an older, black mother sounded even harder, with the risks associated with so-called geriatric pregnancies and systemic racism within maternal health settings.Michaela Makusha is a freelance journalist Continue reading...

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