In my last blog, I spoke about our fathers and the role they play in our lives. One reader made a comment that I overlooked the mothers' work. I did not. I just wanted to treat each of them as a different topic.
Our mothers spend the most time with us and I daresay they know us better than we do. There will be debates on why someone would leave behind their own life and become an SOS mother. In my opinion, what makes them stay is what we should wonder about. It is still a mystery to me given the challenges they face. I never quite understood how much they went through on a daily basis until I spent an afternoon minding my siblings after staying away from the village for sometime. It was a ruckus and I had a headache at the end of the day. Many mothers complain that two children are a handful, imagine having to look after ten children without a nanny, or any outside help. Now that is a major challenge.
Minding the children in their care is not the only challenge our mothers face. They also have to worry about their children when they go off to start their own lives; they also have relatives looking up to them and so many other issues they have to face in their lives. Today, an additional challenge to our mothers, just as we do when we come of age is; leaving the SOS village community and living in the community after retirement.
As of today, there is no set support strategy for the mothers when they retire. This may be because in the previous years only one mother retired at a time. This time, many mothers retired at the same time. We need to look for ways we can be of assistance to our mothers. A small task, considering what they have done for us, or the lives they had to give up to be our mums. My question for all my SOS brothers and sisters is, are we going to step in and help our mothers in their retirement? Will we join hands and seek the best solutions for our mothers to have a sustainable life after retirement, or will we leave it to one or two siblings in the family house to follow up.
Today’s challenge.
Our mothers have been our support from childhood, on their retirement we should be their support. Some experts call it reverse motherhood; I call it “kurudisha shukurani.”
Please look for your mum in this photo, call her today and tell her you love her.
Our mothers spend the most time with us and I daresay they know us better than we do. There will be debates on why someone would leave behind their own life and become an SOS mother. In my opinion, what makes them stay is what we should wonder about. It is still a mystery to me given the challenges they face. I never quite understood how much they went through on a daily basis until I spent an afternoon minding my siblings after staying away from the village for sometime. It was a ruckus and I had a headache at the end of the day. Many mothers complain that two children are a handful, imagine having to look after ten children without a nanny, or any outside help. Now that is a major challenge.
Minding the children in their care is not the only challenge our mothers face. They also have to worry about their children when they go off to start their own lives; they also have relatives looking up to them and so many other issues they have to face in their lives. Today, an additional challenge to our mothers, just as we do when we come of age is; leaving the SOS village community and living in the community after retirement.
As of today, there is no set support strategy for the mothers when they retire. This may be because in the previous years only one mother retired at a time. This time, many mothers retired at the same time. We need to look for ways we can be of assistance to our mothers. A small task, considering what they have done for us, or the lives they had to give up to be our mums. My question for all my SOS brothers and sisters is, are we going to step in and help our mothers in their retirement? Will we join hands and seek the best solutions for our mothers to have a sustainable life after retirement, or will we leave it to one or two siblings in the family house to follow up.
Today’s challenge.
Our mothers have been our support from childhood, on their retirement we should be their support. Some experts call it reverse motherhood; I call it “kurudisha shukurani.”
Please look for your mum in this photo, call her today and tell her you love her.
Click on the photo to enlarge it
