Friday, May 23, 2008

This Breaks My Heart


I had the pleasure of meeting and spending some time with Rebecca Walker a few years ago when she was one of the writers invited to the conference I was involved in.

She was pretty cool. This was when her first book came out. I heard about her second book sometime back and it is on my 'books to get' list.

I was so saddened to hear that her and her mother Alice Walker were estranged.

And today I read the saddest thing written by Rebecca. I hate when dirty laundry is aired but I guess they both feel like they need to be heard.

Here are some excerpts:

I love the way his head nestles in the crook of my neck. I love the way his face falls into a mask of eager concentration when I help him learn the alphabet. But most of all, I simply love hearing his little voice calling: 'Mummy, Mummy.'

It reminds me of just how blessed I am. The truth is that I very nearly missed out on becoming a mother - thanks to being brought up by a rabid feminist who thought motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman.

You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale.

------

When Rebecca told Alice she was pregnant:

Instead, when I called her one morning in the spring of 2004, while I was at one of her homes house sitting, and told her my news and that I'd never been happier, she went very quiet. All she could say was that she was shocked. Then she asked if I could check on her garden. I put the phone down and sobbed - she had deliberately withheld her approval with the intention of hurting me. What loving mother would do that?

Worse was to follow. My mother took umbrage at an interview in which I'd mentioned that my parents didn't protect or look out for me. She sent me an e-mail, threatening to undermine my reputation as a writer. I couldn't believe she could be so hurtful - particularly when I was pregnant.

Devastated, I asked her to apologize and acknowledge how much she'd hurt me over the years with neglect, withholding affection and resenting me for things I had no control over - the fact that I am mixed-race, that I have a wealthy, white, professional father and that I was born at all.

But she wouldn't back down. Instead, she wrote me a letter saying that our relationship had been inconsequential for years and that she was no longer interested in being my mother. She even signed the letter with her first name, rather than 'Mom'.

That was a month before Tenzin's birth in December 2004, and I have had no contact with my mother since. She didn't even get in touch when he was rushed into the special care baby unit after he was born suffering breathing difficulties.

And I have since heard that my mother has cut me out of her will in favour of one of my cousins. I feel terribly sad - my mother is missing such a great opportunity to be close to her family. But I'm also relieved. Unlike most mothers, mine has never taken any pride in my achievements. She has always had a strange competitiveness that led her to undermine me at almost every turn.

You can read the entire article here.

I sound like a broken record but mothering and parenting are so, so important and everything affects children for a lifetime. This scares me so much.

I hope these phenomenal women, each in their own right can find their way back to each other and find peace.

3 Comments:

At 12:31 PM, Blogger P said...

WELL.

Though I don't believe that these women should remain estranged, things that tend to haunt people come out in many different ways.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy said that you only have one time ro raise your children, and that if you don't do that right, pretty much nothing else that you do matters.

In so many ways, this situation actually reminds me of what is going on with Jesse and Rak. But I won't digress, and I will try to stay on track.

Feminism has been a blessing and a curse. This is not the popular point of view, but it's the POV that I take as a human being.

I believe, that in Alice Walker's (who I am a fan of) desperate struggle for equal rights for all, her only child was lost in the process. And, In that, Rebecca almost lost who she was, being a feminist AND Alice Walker's mom.

Her mother may have believed that what she was doing was right AT THE TIME. And I don't fault her for that. But I do believe that nothing exceeds like excess. And in her passion, in her voracity, and in her diligence, she lost who she was in the process, which is a wife and mother. People do it all the time. I don't condone her actions, but unless she has an iron heart, perhaps, even she, has a reason to be away from her daughter. Maybe it's too painful for her to see who she is, and more importantly, who she isn't.

I don't believe that Rebecca should be airing out the dirty laundry. But I do believe that, despite her enormous popularity, this is a wounded woman. This is someone, who even in her accolades, who, took her mothers surname because she believed it represented culturally more of who she was, as well as her father's side of the family not particularly embracing her, so to speak.

I don't think she is airing her laundry more than she is crying for help.

Just my humble opinion.

 
At 7:23 AM, Blogger Stephen A. Bess said...

Sad story.

Hello Mwabi. How are you my sister.

 
At 3:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow! I love P's quote, BTW.

This is heart breaking, especially as I near that motherhood age range myself.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home