Motherhood today and yesteryear; A chat with Mrs Theodosia Okoh
It is Mother’s Day this Sunday and in memory of our mother, Mrs Theodosia Okoh, who passed away recently, this column reproduces a chat with her exactly three years ago, just one month before she turned 90. May her soul rest in peace.
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The period of celebrating motherhood is here again. As we prepare to mark this year’s Mother’s Day on Sunday, I sought to find out from the legendary Mrs Okoh, the designer of Ghana’s national flag, who should be celebrated on an occasion like this.
Heading for her 90th birthday in a matter of weeks, the woman who could easily be described as “Mother Ghana” believed that every woman should be celebrated on Mother’s Day. Her reason is simple. Every woman capable of looking after a child is a mother.
To her, it did not matter whether the woman was a biological mother or not, for as long as she could play the role of a mother, which is looking after and training a child, she qualified to be called a mother.
Making reference to her time, Mrs Okoh said those days, many women looked after other people’s children who were not necessarily their relations.
That apart, any woman could discipline someone else’s children if they misbehaved and it did not matter where; it could be in the neighbourhood, on the street, at church, in the cinema hall or in the market. Performing such a corrective role is akin to what a biological mother would do.
Comparing mothering over half a century ago to today, Mrs Okoh said mothers of today did not spend quality time with their children. She refused to accept dictates of economic pressures as any excuse for mothers to delegate their God-given roles to others. She used herself and some of her friends as examples to buttress her point. She told me that she was a teacher and also played the demanding roles of a housewife and a mother.
In all the three roles, she made sure she apportioned quality time to each, particularly with the training of her children. She followed closely their school work and made sure that she knew who their friends were.
No amount of convincing would get her to accept that I was a good friend of one of her sons simply because she never heard the son talk about me or even mention my name. She passed my reality check with distinction.
In our conversation, I sought to know what she thought was the significance of motherhood today and during her time. A deft Theodosia Okoh gave me a lecture and drew my attention to the distinctive qualities found in a man who was trained by his mother and one who was not.
Most often when one heard women discussing men, the usual refrain was that all men were the same and that they behaved as if they were all born of one woman. I was meeting one woman who thought otherwise.
In our conversation, the mother of three (two boys and a girl) and grandmother of nine explained to me how boys whose mothers took interest in their upbringing behaved differently as grown up men. According to her, such “mother-trained” men were well cultured and showed special respect and affection for women.
My eyes have since been opened to Mrs Okoh’s assertion. I have already counted the number of men I have come across who were “trained” by their mothers. With the same yardstick, I have also drawn conclusions about men who lost out on classic upbringing by their mothers. Over the last few weeks for example, we have read about some unfortunate headlines in the news about gruesome murders and maltreatments by some fathers and husbands. Were such men “mother-trained”?
Incredibly agile for her age, Mrs Okoh, who has some problems with the way some mothers are bringing up their children today, took me through mothering during her time and mothering today. Making snippets of references to her own mother’s time, she also went ahead to predict motherhood in the time of her grand children as well as that of her unborn great grand children.
According to her, mothering came naturally to every woman and so mothers should try and build on the responsible role their creator had given them.
As she puts it, after nine difficult months of going through the life changing experience of pregnancy, the precious little thing that a mother holds in her hands, whether for the first or tenth time, always comes with a proud feeling of wanting to repeat it. At that moment, the bonding of mother and child begins.
That is why she finds it troubling when a mother shows signs of rejection for her children. In her own words, “such a mother must be clinically disturbed and should be given medical attention”.
So, as we celebrate another day set aside for mothers, what advice does the famous mother and grandmother has for young mothers of today?
Mrs Okoh is a strong advocate of the Bible saying that we should “train a child the way he should go and he will never depart from it”. For this reason, she strongly advised that mothers should never leave the training of their children to others , particularly inexperienced people such as house helps adding, “Most of the time, such mothers live to regret it”. She shared with me a regrettable story of how a maid used the wrong feed for a baby who was left in her care and the consequences thereafter. Unfortunately, it got too late for both mother and child by the time it was found out.
Mrs Okoh’s advice is that if mothers have to leave their children for any longer time in the day, their best bet would be to send them to day nurseries. At least, at the nursery, the children are not only looked after by trained adults but they also have the opportunity to learn to be in the company of other children and learn how to share things with others.
She advised that no two babies were the same and so mothers should stop comparing notes with their friends or copy one another because what worked for one baby could be a disaster for the other.
As a former teacher and a mother, she referred to a new development that she felt was unhealthy competition. Some mothers of late were indulging in the practice of organising expensive birthday parties at school for their children. Mrs Okoh was of the view that the practice must either be stopped or brought to the barest minimum.
As we celebrate all older women capable of looking after a child this coming Sunday, one advice has left imprints on my mind. Mothers, train your children, particularly the boys so that they would shine out as men “trained” by their mothers. Happy Mother’s Day to all the women out there.