May 8, was recognized as Mother’s Day. It is my personal conviction that every day could be celebrated as Mother’s Day, mainly because of the multitude of roles Mama is required to live out.
I can identify with them as most of us can. Mama was housekeeper, chef, nurse,, wife, secretary, a financial expert who had to stretch a little bit of money, seamstress, laundress, educator, physiologist, philosopher and in too many situations performed the dual role of mother and father.
Yes Mama was often required to make much do with a little.
The now generation has no idea of what Mama had to endure, there was no welfare, no food banks, no organizations to help you with the utilities or clothes or section 8 to pay your rent. If Mama worked she often left early to help her employer’s children prepare for school by cooking breakfast and other things.
I will always remember the time I worked as a narcotics detective that 90 percent of the time it was Mama, who came to inquire about the son or daughter, very rarely did the father show up, not even at the trial.
Mothers generally had limited education, because society believed that women, particularly Black women had extremely limited opportunities. I recall when I was a student at Fifth Avenue High School the school counselor would state emphatically that there was no need for colored females to even dream of going to college because they were going to work in White folks homes as domestics. About 30 years after graduating from school I was at a meeting with the former school counselor and I was able to remind him how mistaken he had been, because a number of Black females had graduated from college including my sister who had graduated from Fisk University, one of those he had sought to discourage from taking a college preparatory course.
About Post Author
