Mothers Can Work Wonders

OF HOMERS AND HEROES

(Originally published in Common Place Quarterley's 'Character(s) To Live By' column)

I am constantly encouraged by mothers who are creative over-comers in the face of seemingly insurmountable situations. Where an overwrought mother says, "IMPOSSIBLE!" Charlotte Mason says we can work wonders when we know that wonders are required of us (V.1. p. 44). Don't you love the faith Charlotte had in mothers? She envisioned women who know that the Lord is their chosen portion and cup and that they have a beautiful inheritance they can pass on to their children. (Ps. 16:5-6)

I was born into war-torn Rhodesia, a country rife with racism and hatred. I have memories of regular safety drills at school and pictures of my dad arriving home in his military uniform gear. My parents were in an interracial marriage which caused us to be a stumbling block for many people. But, what shines brightest for me is a mother who relentlessly filled our home with goodness, truth and beauty.

Like me, Trevor Noah was born of interracial parents. But he was born in apartheid South Africa, a Nazi-like state that strictly separated people based on different races. He was an illegitimate child of a forbidden union, and born the ‘wrong colour’. I don't know if Trevor's Xhosa mother, Patricia, knew of Charlotte Mason, but while reading Trevor's autobiography Born a Crime¹, I was in awe at how she used every "opportunity to train the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and to drop seeds of truth into the open soul" of her child, seeds which germinated, blossomed, and bore fruit. (V.1. p. 44)

Patricia came from an underprivileged background, but this did not stop her from stepping out and exposing Trevor to other worlds. Despite the enormous barriers of living with a mixed son in an apartheid society, she poured herself into Trevor by taking him to public parks all over Johannesburg and letting him play to his heart's content. She exposed him to beauty in nature and gave him books (his most prized possessions) that she never had as a child. In his words: "I immersed myself in those worlds, and I came back looking at the world a different way…."

Friends asked her why she showed him these new worlds when he would never leave the ghetto he lived in. "Because," she would say, "even if he never leaves the ghetto, he will know that the ghetto is not the world. If that is all I accomplish, I've done enough." That, I think, is the wonder that Charlotte talked of, the ability to step outside of boxes created by our environments, rise above limitations, and press past the hardships of life.

Another world that Patricia opened up for Trevor was that of language. He reminisces that his mother "used language to cross boundaries, handle situations, [and] navigate the world." Speaking the languages of his neighbours was an essential way to bridge the race gap in apartheid South Africa. I get excited about this because it reminds me of Charlotte's main reasons for teaching children a foreign language.

"The nation is obligated to have relationships of brotherly kindness with other nations. Since the family unit is an integral part of the nation, it's the duty of every family to have brotherly dealings and conversations with the families of other nations when the occasion arises. Therefore, learning the languages of neighbouring nations is more than a way to gain knowledge and culture. It's an obligation of moral duty that helps realise the goal of universal brotherhood. For that reason, every family should try to cultivate two languages besides its own from the time the children are tiny." ( V.2, p.7)

"Nelson Mandela once said, 'If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.' He was so right. When you speak someone else's language, even if it's basic phrases here and there, you are saying to them, 'I understand that you have a culture and identity that exists beyond me. I see you as a human being.”

Mothers, you have the gift of opening worlds of wonder to your children.

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that everything Patricia did was perfect. Unfortunately she got involved in an abusive relationship. One day her ex-husband shot her in front of her younger children! As Trevor rushes to the hospital, he has to make a decision that could forever affect her future.

“People say all the time that they’d do anything for the people they love. But would you really? Would you do anything? Would you give everything? I don’t know that a child knows that kind of selfless love. A mother, yes. A mother will clutch her children and jump from a moving car to keep them from harm. She will do it without thinking. But I don’t think the child knows how to do that, not instinctively. It’s something the child has to learn.”

Will the seeds of truth that were sowed into Trevor’s life bear good fruit? I encourage you to read his story and witness the abundant harvest of a mother who worked wonders in the face of overwhelming hardships.

[Unless otherwise stated, all quotations are from Born A Crime by Trevor Noah]

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¹ You may want to read the Junior version as the original contains explicit language and mature content. I highly recommend listening to the original’s audio version however, as Trevor’s different accents are a pleasure to hear.