Reflections on Parenthood

I recently read Morning Song: Poems for New Parents, a poetry anthology edited by Susan Todd and my aunt, Carol Purington. I enjoyed the variety of poems from traditional to modern, and I plan on reading a few of the poems in their original Spanish form during the Mothers’ Day ceremony here on December 8th.

The poems also led me to reflect on what parenthood means where I am currently living. During training when I started studying Ngaberi, I learned that the word bren means bad, sick, and pregnant. And when I arrived here in the community, I realized that pregnancy is never discussed, even when the woman is obviously rotund in the midsection. I quickly learned not to bother with the typical American banter about boy vs. girl or choosing names or the due date.

I estimate that puppies and kittens in my community have a 80% “infant” mortality rate due to malnourishment, parasites, and diarrhea. I assume that a few decades ago, without modern medicine and hospitals, the situation for human babies was almost as devastating. The Comarca Ngabe Bugle region still has the worst infant mortality rate in Panama (27.2 out of 1000 babies died in 2007, according to Atlas de Desarrollo Humano y Objetivos de Milenio Panama 2010). Thus it makes sense that soon-to-be parents are still weary to express any attachment to a baby before it is successfully born.

When a woman is going to have her baby soon, people say “soon she is going to be free”. Once the baby is born, the behavior towards the baby seems much more familiar. The whole family welcomes the baby into the home. The only difference is that babies here prefer hammocks and woven bags to cribs.

Here are two of my favorite poems from the book.

Expect Nothing

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
Become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human giant
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

-Alice Walker

Mother to Son

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor –
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now –
For I’se still goin’ on, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

-Langston Hughes