Motherhood

Today I learnt a lot about motherhood. All the questions that I had about where I feature in the spectrum of motherhood were also answered. I learnt that a mother is more than the woman who carries you in her womb and gives birth to you. I learnt that motherhood meant more than breastfeeding and changing diapers and being a disciplinarian. I learnt that motherhood is a bond. A sisterhood, a covenant of love and companionship, motherhood is a gift.

I also stumbled across a great book- Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo. I walked into an Exclusive Books Store to find some hidden treasures and ended up spending the rest of my day there. True to the tone of the day the book turned out to be about motherhood. So with this piece, happy mother’s day to you strong beautiful, defiant women who consistently triumph in their walks of life despite what the world throws at them.

Stay With Me is a story about a woman whose journey of womanhood is riddled with strife and deceit.  Yejide is born to a mother who is the second of four wives. However, Yejide never gets a chance to know her mother as she dies right after giving birth to her. So she is raised by her father and his 3 wives.  Her father’s wives stop at nothing to make her feel like an outcast who will never amount to anything. Yejide hence grows with a promise to herself to prove them wrong and never be in a polygamous relationship like her mother.

She meets the love of her life in university and they get married some months later. She finds a friend and close accomplice in her mother in law who comes to represent the first present semblance of a true mother in her life. For the first time in her life, she has a woman whom she can affectionately refer to as Moomi. A title her step mothers had tirelessly tried to invoke out of her to no avail. Moomi supports her and welcomes her into her family with an expectant heart. When Yejide realises the amount of time which has passed in her marriage yet she has borne no kids, the brunt of the pressure from her extended families starts to take its toll on her. Her mother in law starts suggesting she sees, healers, priests and priestesses who have been known to curb such barrenness.

Yejide desperately tries everything at her disposal until she ultimately visits a mountain priest recommended by one of her customers who is expecting a child. This happens after her in-laws acquire a second wife for her husband without her knowledge. The priest carries out a ritual and faithful Yejide, in her desperation, hangs on to the belief of the miracle of an immaculate conception that is currently taking place in her body. Against her better judgement and despite not having been intimate with her husband, her faith manifests in the form of morning sicknesses and the gradual protrusion of her belly. This, however, turns out to be a feat of her imagination as countless scans prove her manifestation to be a phantom pregnancy which continues to plague her mind and body for over a year.

Her helpless husband, feeling sorry for his wife, in an act of desperation tries all he can to get his wife pregnant. She falls pregnant by her brother in law, through a conniving ploy by her husband, and carries to full term. They never anticipate, amidst their celebrations, that their joy would be short-lived. After praying and trying and hoping for 4 years their miracle baby dies mysteriously at around 5 months. She discovers during the burial ceremony of her child that she is pregnant again. She does not seem to be as enthusiastic about this child as she is starting to believe pain will not live without her. She resolves to take even better care of her second child as she blames herself for the mysterious death of her first. She believes that; “A mother must be vigilant. She must be able and willing to wake up ten times during the night to feed her baby. After her intermittent vigil, she must see everything clearly the next morning so she can notice any changes in her baby. A mother is not permitted to have blurry vision. She must notice if her baby’s wail is too loud or too low. She must know if the baby’s temperature has risen or fallen. A mother must not miss any signs.”

These are just some of the expectations society puts on mothers, on women. Despite having to soldier through insults about your barrenness and how you are disgracing your husband by not baring him any kids, mothers are also expected to have all the answers a superwoman like power and knowing. Mothers do not only nurse their children but their husbands as well, they are entrusted with the chore of nursing male egos, deciphering what will build their families and marriages even when the same kind of care is not reciprocated.

No amount of vigilance, however, can save Yejide’s second child he dies as well. In all this, she is the prime suspect in talks of the couple’s infertility and subsequent death of any children they bare. Her mother in law is convinced she has bad genes as they discover her third child is also ill and could possibly die. Throughout all of this, no one ever suspects that her husband could be the one with the problem. The burden of bearing a child is placed primarily on Yejide. I like how Yejide responds to the possibility of her child’s death. The defiance with which she approaches social expectations facing her is liberating. Although she comes across as insolent and detached to her child, for the first time we see her standing up for herself and making decisions for herself and not to please others. She breaks free from her husband’s deceit and her mother in law’s manipulation. She abandons her family as she does not want to experience the death of yet another child of hers.

During her breakaway period, she learns that she holds a strength greater than she has ever imagined. That the children she lost are her strength even in their absence. They are her symbol of growth even in a society that believes that a woman without children is inadequate. Her ability to love and nurture does not disappear with the children she lost. She learns to be a better mother than she has ever had or even been, to her surviving child. This story teaches the various dynamics of motherhood and the strives of womanhood. How sometimes you have sisters who can help you lighten your burden and at times advise you from their advantage of experience. How most of the time a lot of unsolicited judgement and burdens are placed on women. This story celebrates the triumph of women from different generations and different world views. It foreshadows a society where women are loved and cherished beyond their ability or inability to be mothers.

This novel is Ayobami’s debut novel at it was shortlisted for the Baileys women’s prize for fiction 2017 you can get it here or at Exclusive Books Stores.