Mothers encounter a plethora of situations, events, episodes and interactions throughout her journey of being a mom. These may start long before her unborn foetus is brought to our world. For her troubles a mother often sheds multiple tears sometimes in torrents. Other-times quiet silent single tears well up in her eyes, on occasion making their way in single file down her cheeks.
Here in The Garden in April, we are focusing on the theme, “The Mother Cries.” This is in honour of my own mother, aka, Veronique, Miss Veronique, Ma Raymond, Sister Dinard, Ms Dinard, Vay, who celebrates her 95th birthday on April 2th 2022. She was a single mother for most of her life. As such, she became engaged in a number of tasks to ensure that her children had the basic needs and a decent life. By the time I came along and was able to understand what was happening, I saw my mother doing laundry, ironing, sewing and “throwing box hands,” to provide for us. Throughout all this though, she remained a woman of prayer and kept us mindful of the power of prayer.
However, I recount her talking about her pregnancies as an unmarried woman being something shameful and which she thought some of her younger sisters sometimes looked down on, making remarks like, “again?” and how they could determine when they wanted children which she much later realised to be as a result of the use of contraceptives, that she for very long, knew nothing about. She believed that her Catholic Faith had played her role in her bringing forth her fruits since she remarked the saying that abortion was wrong and, “where there is mouth, there will be bread.”
As I reflect on the her words, I too recall that when I grew up, the idea of a girl becoming pregnant was seriously viewed as something shameful and dishonourable. The all too familiar words in our vernacular, “Tifille la ancette,” was spat out with disdain. It was used to insult and tarnish, shun and shut out any girl who met her demise in that manner. No one wanted to have her secondary school tenure ended in that manner. No Christian girl wanted to become trapped in that snare for fear of the untold dishonour she would bring on her congregation and God of course. It was not unheard of that many well-to-do- families would quickly whisk their daughter away to foreign lands when the “Ancette” girl was found out. Sometimes too, mothers raised their grandchildren as their own and the “Ancette” girls were forced to later call their fruits their siblings.
“Tifille la Ancette!” The Girl is Pregnant. Little did I know that several years later , as a young woman in her early twenties, I myself would be found in the category of the “Ancette.” The unmarried “Ancette!” And of course the shame, hurt, guilt were right there with me too. I too felt the shun and alienation that had had befallen many “Ancette,” before me. The silent and verbal disdain from some of my older siblings was deafening and far reaching. The alienation, isolation and cutting off from church dug deep and slashed me in very many pieces. The archaic law doused fiercely on unmarried teachers burned me as I was forced to stay home for six months with no pay, no Social Security benefits for either me or my child and no maternity leave once she was born. Internally, I was shattered! The “Ancette” young woman had met her fate.
Luckily for me though, my mother as much as I felt that she was disappointed in my “ancette” status, remained very supportive of me as I went through my trimesters. Not once did she shun, shame or insult me. And on the eve of me giving birth, she listened keenly to my updates on the contractions and saw me to the hospital to give birth.
“Tifille la Ancette!” Mais mama la tay la eveh zahfah’y!
The girl is pregnant but her mother was right there with her child.
“The Mother cries!”
NB: Box Hands – a form of savings done in the Caribbean where a number of persons come together to save a particular sum of money either weekly, biweekly or monthly. once all the monies are collected, one individual is given all at once and the process continues until everyone had gotten that sum of money. The process may recommence.
Ancette– the Kweyol (creole) word for Pregnant. Kweyol is spoken in countries which had been formerly owned by France during colonial times. These countries include Dominica, St Lucia, Haiti, some parts of Trinidad. It is also spoken to a lesser extent on Guadeloupe and Martinique
Garden Conversations with Roze 