Honor Your Mother

From The RampartsJunious Ricardo StantonHonor Your Mother“No amount of gratitude can repay our debt to the African-American mother. She has stayed the course through times both good and bad-always keeping her eye on the prize. She has made endless sacrifices to preserve the black family. Her selflessness for our people is legendary. Without much acclaim or praise, she has often served as the moral compass for our race... When we consider our mother’s historic contribution to the Black community, we realize no praise is too great.” The Wisdom of the Elders Inspiring Reflections form the heart of African American culture. Page 155In the United States the second Sunday in May is the day set aside to celebrate and honor mothers. Of late it has become a time to promote retail consumption, to get people to spend more money. This year let us pause and take time to honor our women and our mothers; those living and deceased for their stellar contributions to our people, communities and homes. Let us not get caught up and bogged down in the crass consumerism, retail one upmanship and trying to outdo siblings and neighbors in ostentatious insincere buying. You honor people with your thoughts words and deeds over time, not just with a one time gift once a year.In this culture women have been denigrated, turned into a commodity used to sell just about everything. In the popular corporate culture, scantily clad, alluring females and sexual titillation are used as a marketing ploy. Little or nothing is promoted in the corporate media that inspires respect, veneration and honor for our women let alone our mothers. There was a time when the television situation comedies and series portrayed the mothers as the stable element within the family. But in today’s media we see an all out assault on the image and idea of womanhood, femininity and motherhood. We have allowed our oppressors to dictate the ideas, values, ideals and images of what it means to be a human being, and we are paying a heavy price for our acquiescence. In fact now we are outdoing the oppressors in our own degradation and demoralization.This year while we are thinking about Mother’s Day, let’s look beyond the superficial and reflect upon what it really means to show appreciation, affection and bestow honor on our mothers. It is a blessing to have your mother in your life. My mother has been dead for twenty years and I miss her influence in my life. As much as I loved and appreciated my mother it wasn’t until I grew older I really apprecaited what she and other women in my community did for me. I was genuinely blessed because there were women in addition to my mother in my life who stood out and served as shining examples of motherhood who nurtured me and cared for me: my Great Aunt Sarah, neighbors and countless relatives. I grew up in a different time, when you showed deference and respect to elders and you were courteous and mannerly. We went to church and Mother’s Day was a big occasion at the churches in our community. Even in the poorer congregations, folks wore flowers to honor our mothers and signify whether she was living or deceased. We had women in the church we called Mother so and so, it was an honorific title because they exemplified the best in nurturing, support and wisdom. Often these titles carried over into the community at large as a sign of respect and appreciation.This year let’s be thankful to our mothers and the mother figures in our lives who helped us grow up, shielded us from the ravages of a hostile environment, who greatly assisted in our development and maturation. Often these women weren’t our biological mothers. Maybe it was a maternal or paternal grandmother, an aunt, family member or a neighbor. Often a family member adopted a child or took a child in a raised it as their own, without state or county aid. Nevertheless they reached out and took us in whether it was physically giving us a place to live or it was the psychological support that helped us through some rough times. Often they were there as role models showing us what it meant to be a caring, supportive person.I can remember several women in the neighborhood who when I was younger, I thought were just busybodies sticking their noses in other folks business. Today I appreciate their concern, their involvement and intervention. I wish we had more like them today doing what those older Sistahs did in my community when I was growing up. Because of them (and the men in the community) I grew up in a safe, caring, encouraging environment. Because of them, I had role models who demonstrated daily what it meant to be a man or woman. My father died when I was three years old. But I had male relatives and neighbors who pitched in to show me what manhood was about. I also had plenty of women who supplemented my mother’s efforts who served as surrogate mothers to me and the kids in our neighborhood.Those days are long gone and values are much different today. In many ways we have lost the sense of community and collective responsibility we had when I was growing up. Now we live in communities where we don’t even know our neighbors’ names or interact with them other than on the most superficial basis. Nonetheless we can still honor our mothers and the women in our lives. We do this by showing genuine appreciation for who they are and what they do in our lives and communities. Everybody wants to be loved and appreciated, it is one of the basic needs of all human beings. We can do that and it doesn’t cost a lot of money. We can easily show our love and appreciation, it isn’t inconvenient or an imposition. Best of all, we don’t have to wait for the second Sunday in May to do it.-30-
Votes: 0
E-mail me when people leave their comments –

You need to be a member of TheBlackList Pub to add comments!

Join TheBlackList Pub


https://theblacklist.net/