Mothering in Precarious Times

How do mothers navigate ‘colonial inheritances’? How does the ‘burden of persistent colonialisms’ shape our work as mothers, our dreams for our children, families and communities? What genealogies accompany our journeys into motherhood? How do these histories shape our work as mothers? What does it feel like to mother in precarious times?  Under conditions of immense instability, social, cultural, economic, physical, mental… spiritually. How do we entrust the world with our babies? How are we forced to believe in imagined good, hope and justice? How does it feel to be forced to believe in the possibility of life over the catalogue of injustices that are killing our babies (both young and old)?

A week ago, I was getting ready to drop off one of my babies to school, and I came face to face with both my immense privilege and the dangers my babies will continue to face for being who they are. It was “Punish a Muslim day” as proclaimed by white supremacists in the UK, a day to get their revenge. It was vague and infuriating. Anxiety inducing and terrifying. Confusing. One of those many moments as a mother where you question yourself, what are my instincts saying? Am I being overly dramatic? But.
I was connecting this call for violence to one of the most dangerous crisis we face today, the fragility of white masculinity. And then to the groups of people targeting Islamic institutions in my city. Those who tear pieces of the Quran and spit and scream on its sacred knowledge to show us just how much they hate. It. Us. Fears. Anger. Insecurities. Frustrations muddled into emotional rants on the dangerous ideologies it  ‘promotes’ they say.

What does mothering look like in this context? We woke to an email from our school’s administration alerting us to the additional safety measures they were taking that day. We messaged each other, sharing our fears, comforting each other, encouraging each other to be brave, to trust in that ‘imagined good’ we are forced to believe every time we let our babies out of our grip. The school told us of their plans to monitor the situation closely. They would audit the security system and maintain rigid entry policies, and they had alerted the local police, who would increase their patrol in the area. Okay, I thought. They are taking it seriously. I pushed myself. I questioned myself, are you overreacting? I was thinking of how many mothers in the America have lost their babies to military grade assault weapons ripping through their children’s schools. I watched as male teachers and administrators paced the premises, on the look out for suspicious people or vehicles in the area. I had to consider the possibility. This fear is not unfounded I told myself. I could not deny the very real possibility. Is today the day a coward comes to an Islamic school to hurt our babies, to show us how much he has been taught to hate? How will I teach my babies about these people? They want you to know how much you are not welcome here, that you don’t belong here.  Hmmm. Peculiar premise. Remember when your ancestors rounded up Indigenous children, and ripped babies from their mothers and forced them into a system where they are stripped of their identities, and violently sexually, physically, mentally and spiritually abused, all under the sanction of the state, and will full support of the law? But you’ve reconciled that you say. The government apologized for God’s sake, and they don’t even have to pay taxes. Do you know how much free stuff they get? (lies.).

I was afraid to leave my baby. But I had to do that thing that all mothers have to do. I had to remind myself that even though I am apart of their story, I do not write it. I can not control everything that happens in their lives. Even though I will never stop worrying about them. Even though I will fight with every ounce of my being to protect them. As painful and fruitless as that may be, I cannot stop.  As I dropped of my baby, I thought of the police presence they promised. Where are the cruisers? Privilege. It woke me up.
How do Black mothers fare in these times? How have they survived generations of exclusions, in a system based on denying them their humanity, through institutions set up to segregate and police their bodies? How have they raised proud, outspoken, compassionate babies in the face of such immense historically embedded violence? How can they raise their children to respect these institutions, and to feel protected and safe in the presence of those same institutions who continue to senselessly murder their babies without any consequence? As I hugged my baby extra tight, but not too nervously, making sure she heard my “I love you”, I thought, what if every single time you sent your baby out into the world, wait, I take that back. It doesn’t matter where they are. It doesn’t matter what they are wearing. It doesn’t matter how educated they are. It doesn’t matter how much you warned them. They can not escape the ‘fact of blackness’ that leaves their bodies riddled with as many bullets as they have lived years on this earth for playing on their smartphone in grandma’s yard.

As I leave the parking lot, I scan for suspicious cars. My friend told me she drove by her daughter’s school four times that day. Don’t be so dramatic creeps into my mind. I admire the bravery of my Hijabi sisters. But at least it’s not America. But wait. No. What does that even mean? Isn’t this the country, the same place where a shooter open fired in a Mosque murdering people while they prayed? Quebec is five hours away, not an imagined, “this type of stuff doesn’t happen in Canada” distance away. Wait. Isn’t my city the place where a group of people stood outside a high school screaming at children for their worship of a God they claim instructs them to … wait, what is that again thing we are doing? Oh. It’s those dangerous ideologies they are being taught. Mamas, we are on the frontlines of raising our babies into those warriors they fear. Those beautiful Muslim babies whom we hope to raise into powerful, outspoken, humble, compassionate, dignified, just and kind heroes. I will do everything in my power to equip them with the relentless determination to exist, persist and triumph. And I will do everything in my power to love them with all of that ferocious and  frightening determination you imagine I am aiming at your ‘freedom’. And everyday I will send them out into the world, terrified for them, but never allowing them to be scared, only bravely holding their heads high as the bold warriors they are in my eyes. How are those Palestinian mothers raising those babies under occupation? Under  those not only stealing land, but rewriting history in their favour, and those mothers who must continue to endure, not only physically through the pain and force of occupation, but the psychological and spiritual struggle of those who face attempts at being erased, attempting to destroy their very will to exist. How do they raise those Ahed’s of our day, proud, firm, afraid but brave? How are they forced to raise these babies into fighters, in order to survive, from their very first breaths?

I think of my son. My sweet brown boy who will be raised in a world that is afraid of him, who believes him to be a threat. Because I can only hope with everything in my being that he will humble himself to prayer, he will give charity, and show compassion and free himself from the destruction power of ego and the forces of vanity and consumerism that will try to kill his spirit. What is that dangerous to? Who is that a threat towards? What kind of ‘freedom’ does that challenge? Today I stopped at a grocery store to grab some coffee pods. I passed by a locked case of medicine in the middle of an aisle. Behind the plastic shields and cold locks I saw Children’s Tylenol for cold and fever, Advil, and  Motrin. What about those mothers who have been forced into a situation to take Tylenol or formula for their sick or hungry babies. We have some very real problems we need to collectively face if this is our reality.

In the hours before I picked up my baby I thought of all those mothers who have to make the choice of filthy water, or none at all, sending their children to school under bombs, letting their babies play in the street where they could be killed by police for being the wrong colour, in the right or wrong place, for having something or nothing in their hands, for covering their heads or not, for speaking back or not being able to speak, or God forbid having a mental health issue. Where mothers must persevere when their children are committing suicide at crisis levels because of generational trauma that they can not escape, or where our babies can be killed by military weapons in their elementary schools, or families who live in fear of being ripped apart because of their ‘status’, or for our turban wearing brown bodies who can be beaten for reminding them of our otherness, or all of our babies who are judged, dismissed, bullied, erased in their everyday lives. Oh Mothers. I pray for you. “May every tear that has every fallen from your tired eyes become a river for you in Paradise”. That generational trauma, those inheritances we have to choice but to face. I feel it. I am anxious for all of these realities for our children, but I also feel the painful loss of our fathers, brothers, husbands, friends, our men. I mourn the generational trauma that forced my father, a child of internally displaced peoples on the move courtesy of colonial division, to drop out of school and find ways to survive. To migrant for that ‘better live’ that he suffered and drank through, everyday except Sunday, my mother’s favourite day of the week, she tells me. And who beat the mother of the children he loved more than anything, relentlessly. And who died rotting and decaying surrounded by the vile filth and vermin we allow to trample the people most vulnerable and desperate amongst us. But wait. Those newest government funded research projects that have created innovative programs to help. We can help! They cry. They fund. They study. They fail so many of us. Maybe we need to ask why so many of us are ‘falling through the cracks’… How can we rely on those same institutions that were created through our exclusions? To be more direct.  I am fed up with waiting to be saved by the very same institutions set up to kill us. I don’t know what comes next. But I know that we need to start showing up for each other. As mothers we know the struggle of feeling each ache and pain alongside our babies, and we cry in pain over having to entrust the world with our children. Knowing they were never meant to thrive under these conditions, and hoping and fighting for them to survive. But. We can teach our babies to stand up for what is just. To take responsibility over leaving the world in a better state than we received it. To live righteously, honestly, compassionately, especially towards that which they do not understand. If this is radical then so be it. I have no other choice. I am a mother, I can not stop believing.

“Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then [let him change it] with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith.” (Sahih Muslim)