October News

One of our proudest achievements of this past year has been the establishment of our breastfeeding support group. This group has been tremendously successful in Macassar. It runs every Friday between 10 and 12 and has grown enormously since its inception in June 2011. To be entirely honest, the first few weeks were quite disheartening since, more often than not, I waited in the library for the 2 hours with not one woman arriving. But word of mouth has proved tremendously successful and within just a few short months, we now weekly have 12 to 15 women and their babies attending. This past Friday was our record with 18 moms there!

Let me tell you about some of our regulars:

Michelle and baby Raquel. Raquel is now 2 months old and Michelle has been attending the group for about 6 weeks. Raquel is the most gorgeous little girl! Michelle has two older daughters, one a teenager and a 9-year old. She is a wonderful mother, so full of love for her daughters and shares her experience and knowledge willingly and kindly with the younger moms. This is, after all, the purpose of a support group: not for the facilitator to do a lecture, but rather for the moms to share and relate their own experiences. As facilitator I merely guide the conversation, I advise and correct, but for the most part it’s a two-way conversation.

Jolene and baby Jerome. Jerome is a 6-month-old boy, already wanting to move around. Jolene is 17 and Jerome is her first child. Jerome’s father is not on the scene anymore. According to Jolene, he is a tik addict and does not support his child. Jolene wants nothing to do with him, because since her pregnancy she has stopped doing drugs and has made a break from her old life. She is supported by her parents. I so admire this young, courageous girl.

Geraldine is 24 years old, married and pregnant with her first child, expected in December. Huge excitement and anticipation accompanies this pregnancy!

Jo-Anne is 43 and has 5 children, the eldest of which has 2 kids of her own! Jo-Anne is humble, kind, shy and friendly. She always has a gentle word for the younger moms. Her baby is now a month old and she will be sterilised at the 6-week check-up. She is so enjoying her last baby!

These are just a few women I spend my Friday mornings with. You can see why I totally love it. If you love women and mothers, this is very much the right environment to thrive in. What a privilege to teach and support these women and how much I learn in return!

Guilt? Do something!

Feminism, by definition, implies that women are equally as strong as our brothers, on every level and in every sphere; we can do anything that men can do. I will agree with this statement, of course, but I’d like to add that there is one weakness: our children; pregnancy, childbirth and the mother’s instinct. By far the majority of our ‘clients’ are unmarried, single women, bearing the burden of raising their children and grandchildren by themselves. Most of them struggle to claim maintenance support from their children’s fathers with little help from a legal system that is sluggish and difficult to comprehend. We don’t hear of a ‘father’s instinct’. Fathers have honour, pride, you get a father’s love, but for the mother it is referred to as an ‘instinct’. This, to me, indicates that the mother will instinctively do everything in her power to love, protect and provide essentials for her children. And, in fact, this is true, looking at the majority of the mothers we meet, a few have honourable husbands, are married to good men who love and provide for their families. The rest, sadly, have moved on and leave the women to toil for survival.
The unempowered woman, who has not been taught about birth control and sterilisation, who has never thought about equality or anything other than survival, who is raising one, two or eight children – this is the woman we serve, who we can influence, teach, love.

So, can we construe that the bags we give to the women are a very patronising, condescending move on our part? A hand-out for a woman who cannot provide these essentials for herself? I don’t think so. I believe what we do is providing a small appearance of dignity, a gift from one sister to another to celebrate the birth of her baby.

I have been criticised that the stories I write about, the real stories of real women we meet, women who live barely 5km from our suburban homes with pools, two or three cars per family, two or three bathrooms per house, washing machines and dishwashers, maids and nannies, that these stories are a bit depressing. I heard from someone who complained that my telling of our sisters is a cause of guilt. I would like to respond in this way: if you did not know what is happening down the road from you, how your domestic or the girl who bags your groceries lives, then it is about time for this very real eye-opener. We don’t need to feel guilty for what we have, but what we do need is to have sympathy, compassion and understanding for those that don’t. If your nanny needs a day off work to go to the clinic for her birth control injection, give her the day off with pay plus transport costs, if she is pregnant – give her paid maternity leave and allow her privacy and time to express her breastmilk for her baby once she is back at work. Better yet, allow her to bring her baby to work with her for 6 months. Allowing this ensures the baby is well, properly breastfed and will guarantee that he gets sick less, which means less days off for the employee. Talk to the women you meet, ask about their families and children. Give advice where you can, perhaps about birth control, perhaps about parenting, school, whatever. We’re moms, we have that in common and we all love without borders, the way the woman from the township loves her child is no more or less than the way you love yours. Before you criticise – remember that.