Hello Friends,
This blog is my response to the task assigned to us by our teacher Yesha Ma'am on The Joys of Motherhood, novel by Buchi Emecheta. So read, understand and enjoy. Happy Learning!
Click here to view Teacher's blog and Presentation in it.
About the author
Buchi Emecheta
Florence Onyebuchi "Buchi" Emecheta (21 July 1944 – 25 January 2017) was a Nigerian-born novelist, based in the UK from 1962, who also wrote plays and an autobiography, as well as works for children. She was the author of more than 20 books, including Second Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Most of her early novels were published by Allison and Busby, where her editor was Margaret Busby.
Emecheta's themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education gained recognition from critics and honours. She once described her stories as "stories of the world, where women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical." Her works explore the tension between tradition and modernity. She has been characterized as "the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948".
Glorifying Images of Mother
In Joys of Motherhood, despite her intense longing to be a mother, and all that she does to become a mother, Nnu Ego never experiences the "joys" of motherhood that she has been taught to expect. These joys include being taken care of in her old age, being surrounded by grandchildren, and being honored as a wife and mother. Nnu Ego struggles with infertility in her first marriage, and consequently feels like a failed woman. Not surprisingly, she is delighted when she gets pregnant immediately after marrying Nnaife, her second husband.
Child after child is born over the ensuing years, and each time Nnu Ego is grateful, until she realizes that her children are the chain around her neck. She ekes out a living through most of her life, investing in her future by paying for her children's education. But her children fail to reciprocate their mother's sacrifices, even though she does her best to set them up well in life. Because of the conclusion (see "What's Up With the Ending?"), we can assume that Nnu Ego regrets having children.
Fertility is an extremely important aspect of any African society. Children are not only an important social security system, but are also an important source of labor power. In West African societies, people are wealth and are more valuable than money or material items. Because it is difficult to clear land for farming, and because farming is essential to survival, West African societies evolved an intense need for people. The more access you had to people, the more labor power you controlled and, thus, the greater tracts of land you could successfully farm. Anthropologists use the term "big man" to describe those men in West Africa who commanded political power by accumulating the labor power of people through marriage, slavery, and having children.
The ending of The Joys of Motherhood underscores Emecheta's ironic intention. At the end of the novel, Nnu Ego dies, and her children throw her a lavish and expensive funeral. She had suffered all her life, had frequently been on the verge of starvation, and had lived out her final days alone and broke in Ibuza. Her only desire had been to be a complete woman, and to have many children, so that she could be an honored woman in her society.
But during Nnu Ego's lifetime, her children fail to help her financially. Now, when she's dead, her children honor her. They create a shrine so that Nnu Ego's descendents can pray to her and ask her to bless them with children. But in death, Nnu Ego refuses to answer the prayers of her children. She has decided that bearing and raising children is a thankless task, and she is unwilling to help those who struggle with infertility.
The Ambiguous Rewards of Motherhood
In The Joys of Motherhood, motherhood is the source of not only Nnu Ego’s greatest joys but also her greatest defeats. As a girl, she is taught that her sole functions are to bear and raise children. Her initial struggle to conceive and her utter self-defeat when she is unable to exemplify how strongly she believes in this uniquely female destiny that her culture has prescribed. The idea of motherhood informs her fantasies and her dreams. Yet when Nnu Ego actually becomes a mother and struggles to raise her growing family, her idealism begins to change. Nnu Ego ultimately regrets having so many children and investing so much of her life in them since they seem to have little concern for her well-being. She forces herself to accept a vision of motherhood that has been radically modified from the ideas she once cherished. Instead of an honored and revered figure, Nnu Ego becomes a sacrificial lamb, one who gave to her family selflessly while receiving little, if not nothing, in return.
Motherhood and Its Challenges
The word mother means a female parent who brings up a child, takes care of her and loves absolutely by putting the needs of her children over her own. A mother takes the whole duty of parenting with both her words and her actions. Being a mother can be extremely fulfilling but it has got its fair share of challenges; it has got far-fetched highs and the demanding feeling of affection and protectiveness that comes with it has to be well balanced. The most magnificent and satisfying of times of motherhood is just the quality time you spend with your kids and just simply watch them grow and be happy.
A mother usually offers a warm, selfless and an understanding environment and to most mothers, the particular moments spent with their children are not comparable to any other moment. Explicitly, the period of being a mother is the most thrilling moment that life can present to a woman. Motherhood involves being a capable wife and mother, to be an affectionate and a kind friend to all members of the family and above all, to keep the house operational.
All these, mothers are expected to do in a single stride and still remain the most self-controlled member of the family because more often than not, mothers should build great friendships with their children and husbands. The unconditional love that mothers offer should carry with it self-responsiveness, beauty that comes from inside and refinement coupled with high aptitude. All these images are not very easy to keep up with but all the same, the society expects mothers to achieve all these. Against this background therefore, it is no little truth to emphasize that motherhood is generally a big challenge.
Body: Measuring your achievements as a mother is not an easy concept; the challenges present themselves each single day and the solution is just in having the right attitude and striving to solve a predicament by finding fresh ideas in making things smooth sailing. The positive aspect is achieved by understanding the reason you became a mother in the first place and realizing that it is still in existence; this is important because with time, mothers realize that the challenges do not go, they only change forms.
The hitch is that by viewing things from this angle, most mothers identify their shortfalls and deal with them while providing the proof that the challenge is adequately dealt with, this can be well achieved by having a feedback mechanism. The rationale behind this strategy is straight forward: since things that can not be quantified tend to be given less consideration, the gist is to focus more interest and time on the quantitative aspects because they can be planned, registered and evaluated, this therefore enables one to easily come up with solutions
In comparison, juggling motherhood with employment or business can be trickier than managing motherhood as a full time mother. To every mother, the family is the most important thing and is so fulfilling to give attention to, on the other extreme, ones personal accomplishments are equally important and should therefore not be sacrificed at the expense of the quality of the family unit. This makes the whole issue very difficult contrary to what the society has always believed that multitasking is manageable to mothers.
According to Elraviv Yung, a social scientist at the Beijing school of law, “the potentials of women have not gotten the appreciation they deserve, women add a lot of value to the society and the very fact that they can juggle up their roles as both entrepreneurs and mothers should be a great motivation to the society” Elraviv 56. The best strategy for this group of women would still be to come up with a workable formula on time management and do a feedback mechanism after a certain specified duration.
This is mostly by dividing your time in such a way as to have time both for the family and work and to ensure no time is spent on the extreme. The feedback plan helps mothers to asses their achievements in the timelines and correcting any deviations from plans. Research has revealed that being a mother in the present day has more to face up to and is more difficult than it was twenty to thirty years in the past. Dealing with busy schedules, coping up with pressure in the society and teaching children to acquire acceptable values are just a few out of the scores of concerns that the society presents.
Infact, standards have deteriorated as compared to how they were in the past. Controversially though, the society judges mothers more harshly than fathers and when it comes to instilling values in our children, a lot is expected from mothers than is from fathers (Rosenberg, D. 80-82). The effects of motherhood challenges can be far-fetched: mothers often sacrifice too much to an extent that they end up not having time for their own ambitions. This is very costly than beneficial because in as much as a mother feels that her ideal objective of being a mother are achieved, self fulfillment is overlooked.
Another effect is that motherhood-especially full-time- is so devastating-due to fatigue- that in the long run, it leads to different illnesses that may be chronic. These illnesses may be less affordable to treat and this leads to difficulty in achieving these goals in the first place. Achieving the set goals and assessing the deviations from plans at times may be unrealistic especially considering that time in itself may be limited. It should be understood therefore that motherhood is difficult-but at times fulfilling- and trying to live up to the society’s expectations may at times be unachievable.
Conclusion:
Overall, the role of a mother although difficult, is the most important in her life. Motherhood ,as generally expected in the society, is supposed to be characterized by self-denial, fostering and unrelenting, on the other extreme, a mother is more often than not expected to feel on the wrong side of the law if her standards are not as high as is generally acceptable. Motherhood as an occupation is expected to embrace social, physical and emotional sides.
The social characteristic entails the expectations that a mother will put together the family structure and ensure that the family relationships are functionally healthy. Apart from this, the mother has to guard the way the family and the larger society views her achievement, that is to say, are they up to standard? Emotionally, a mother should be there for her family and to ensure her presence is felt: dealing with a child’s achievements and disappointments as well as their feelings and teaching them how to cope with their emotional challenges.
Motherhood also involves meeting the expectations of the larger family in giving them adequate attention and time. Left to one person to deal with single-handedly, striving to achieve these expectations can be overwhelming. Works Cited DiQuinzio. P. The impossibility of motherhood: feminism, individualism, and the problem of mothering. Routledge, 1999. Rosenberg, D. Motherhood without guilt: being the best mother you can be and feeling great about it.
Works Cited
"Motherhood and Its Challenges." Free Essays - PhDessay.com, 26 Jul 2016,https://phdessay.com/motherhood-and-its-challenges/
"The Joys of Motherhood Themes." Homework Help & Study Guides For Students | Shmoop, www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/joys-of-motherhood/themes.
"The Joys of Motherhood: Themes." SparkNotes, www.sparknotes.com/lit/joysofmotherhood