Immigrant and Single Mother Parenting - by Darylynn Starr Rank
April, 2005

For the last fifteen or so years, I’ve had a small sculpture from the Amazons sitting on a shelf. It’s a statue of three women sitting in a row. The woman in the middle is pregnant. The second woman sits behind the pregnant one, her hands holding the pregnant woman’s belly. The third faces the mother-to-be, her hands on the middle woman’s shoulders. It is an ancient birthing scene, Amazonian Aboriginal style. But it’s more than that.

I have a friend. She’s only lived in Vancouver a little while. Her husband got a job here. Her family and his live far away.  Most of their friends as well. Too far away to spend much time here. 

She has a two month old baby. 

We talked today for a very long time about the way things are supposed to be when you have a baby. About the generations of mothers sitting in the room – grandmother, mother, new mother – sharing experiences that came from their mothers and grandmothers. Sharing wisdom. Sharing childcare. Even the fathers and grandfathers, in their own “manly” way, sharing through grunts and raised eyebrows what to expect.

The extended family of sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, surrounding you, caring for you, listening half-eagerly, half-bored (in the gentlest of ways) to the endless details of the infant’s life. The littlest cousins running around, being pointed at to explain how he fed when he was two months old. How little she slept. How often they cried.

Validation. Reassurance. Recognition. Comfort. Endless advice, some asked for, some not. Some wanted. Some definitely not. Suggestions. Shared experiences.

Thus builds, in part, the identity of a mother. The fount of knowledge and wisdom, solutions, observations. People to lean on, to be with, to teach you, to help you.

It takes a village to raise a child. And also, in some ways, to create a mother.

But if you’re alone, or a newcomer, or an immigrant, or far away from home, far away from the people you know and the world you grew up in, if you’re a single mother, there may be no village. There may be no world supporting you and showing you how to do this amazing, miraculous thing. This being a mother.

I made my friend take the sculpture home with her for a while. The statue of the women sitting in front and behind, supporting the birthing woman. To remind my friend when she’s feeling lost, that she’s got good reason. Alone is not the way mothering is supposed to be. And alone is what mothering definitely needs not to be. It’s just a not a thing to do alone.

It really does take that village.

Take care, all.

Darylynn Starr Rank (psychologist/writer) works part-time for Family Services of Greater Vancouver as a group facilitator. Her articles appear bi-weekly in The Record (New Westminster) and the Richmond Review.

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