Sunday, May 8, 2005
Mothers are the most familiar people in the world but also, sometimes, the most mysterious. For Mother's Day, we encouraged nine grown children to seek answers to questions they've always wondered about but never put into words
Azar Nafisi and Negar Naderi
Azar Nafisi, 55, award-winning author of Reading Lolita in Tehran and professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and daughter Negar Naderi, 21, a junior at the University of Maryland majoring in English literature and premedical studies.
Negar: You've influenced my life a lot. So, I want to ask you, did your mom influence you? Because I know you guys didn't have as close a relationship as we do.
Azar: Well, I think I was almost obsessed with my mom, because I so much needed her approval. I needed her to love me. She would want me to be absolutely perfect in everything. I started writing about her immediately after I finished my book, because I was writing the acknowledgments to my book when she died. And I kept feeling, I want to write about loss. But loss presupposes wealth. You must have had something to lose. And that is when I realized how much she had given me. She had never seen her mom. The only thing she remembers of her mom is when her mom died. Only that. And the way she became obsessive with me was because she had never experienced a mother's love.
Negar: Was she proud of you?
Azar: Yes. But she was always proud of me in terms of my outside achievements. But . . . as a daughter, she always felt I fell short.
Negar: Did you feel she wanted you to fulfill some sort of convention? Because I know you're not a very conventional person.
Azar: No, it was just that she wanted to shape me according to her image.
Negar: What was her image?
Azar: She wasn't very sure. It was just that she wanted this complete obedience . . . But now I understand how lonely she was, how cold her world was. I feel so sorry for her. She was so talented and beautiful . . . She was a very, very intelligent woman . . . She always wanted to be a medical doctor. Now Negar is a medical doctor.
Negar: Not yet . . .
Azar: [My mother's] stepbrother became one. But they never sent her after she finished her high school. She became one of the first women in the Iranian parliament. But she always felt she was cheated . . . In a very, very ironic way, I became what she wanted me to be. But I resisted her every step of the way. It's so strange. I'm realizing it now that I'm talking, that that's what happened. I became a career woman in one sense, and I have a very warm relationship with my family. All the things that she wanted and didn't have. And I think I owe it . . .
[ She begins to weep. Negar reaches out and holds her hand. ]
-- Interview by Brigid Schulte
Rosemary Payne and Obaya Achiah
Rosemary Payne, 49, has worked as a nanny since coming to the United States from Ghana in 1996. But Rosemary had to leave her 6-year-old daughter, Obaya Achiah, in the care of a sister while she went to work first in Accra, Ghana's capital, and later the United States. For years, Rosemary says, she sent money and gifts, but Obaya says she received nothing. She says she was so poor that seven people shared one toothbrush and that conditions for personal hygiene were so unsanitary that she contracted severe infections. In 2003, Rosemary was finally able to bring Obaya to America. Now 21, Obaya hopes to study meteorology at Northern Virginia Community College.
Obaya: I want her to explain why . . . she . . . left . . . me.
Rosemary: [breathes in deeply] Okay. You were close to 1 month, 5 years, and your father died. And things was very hard for me. Do you remember they sent you home from kindergarten because you didn't have money to pay [tuition]?
[Obaya shakes her head no.]
Rosemary: So I decided to go to Accra . . . I don't have money. I'm just going there with nothing . . . Because I wanted to give my children . . . What I have been through, I didn't want them to go through like that. I didn't have help. [She begins to cry] . . . So, this was hard. And I decided to leave you to my sister. . . . When I was in Accra, anything I did to get money, I tried to send it to my sister . . . And every time I go there, every three months, and I give her money, not knowing she don't do what she supposed to do for Obaya.
Obaya: My auntie was like my mom. She was my everything. That's why I didn't really care about [Rosemary]. When she called, I never wanted to talk to her.
Rosemary: I thought I have given you to a trustworthy person. I know you get bitter. It's because of you. You my children. It's because, it's because I want good things. So I'm sorry everything you have been through, okay? [She is crying again.]
Obaya: I wanted to talk about it, but I wanted to put it in the past. I've forgiven you. Right? Because I know you were trying to do something for the whole family, right? . . . But what I've taken from all this, when I also have my own children, no matter the situation, I will never give my children to my sister or my friend and say, "Take care of my baby, and I'll be back."
Rosemary: I know. It hurt. Now, if we discuss it, I cry and say, "Stop!" It feels like somebody's taking a knife to cut my intestines.
Obaya: I've shed tears enough. I can't cry any more. I can't forget about it, but I'm trying to . . . I've had so many infections that the doctor told me that having a baby is going to be a very, very big problem . . . That will make me remember. That may, like, destroy me.
Rosemary: That one hurts me most . . . [Now], even though it's sometimes hard for us, it's much better. She calls me Auntie.
Obaya: Mama is hard for me. It's too big for my mouth. No, Auntie is better.
-- Interview by Brigid Schulte
Tomasa and Sandra Gomez
Tomasa Gomez, 53, immigrated from El Salvador in 1986 as a young woman pregnant with her first daughter. She now cleans offices in Washington. Sandra is 17 and has a 3-year-old daughter of her own, whom her mother is helping to raise. Sandra is a senior at Bell Multicultural High School in Northwest Washington and hopes to become an architect.
Sandra: How did you feel coming to the United States pregnant with your daughter?
Tomasa: [She begins to cry.] Look, I came to this country because the situation in El Salvador was so hard, Sandra. So I came for the future, the future of my children . . . I was brought by my [godmother], who was a resident of this country . . . When she gave me the [immigration] papers, she said to me: "Leave Mario, your child's father, because this man hits you a lot, he treats you terribly." My mother said: "Daughter, this
man, this boyfriend, is no good for you, daughter . . . You didn't listen to me, and you went out with him . . ." If I had stayed there, I would have suffered al-ways . . . But just as one suffers, daugh-ter, joy comes over time. Because eventually I found a good man, your dad. He's not your father, but he has raised you . . .
Sandra: What advice do you give me for raising my daughter?
Tomasa: [She ignores the question and begins to talk about Sandra's boyfriend.] He has dropped out of school. I'm old. I have lived my life, daughter. I know the kind of man who is good for you, and the type of man who isn't . . . A man can promise Heaven and Earth, but over time, his true colors come out . . . I don't want a man to mistreat you, daughter. Because you are the daughter of a mother, and your mother loves you, more than your husband will, more than anyone else in life.
-- Interview by Mary Beth Sheridan
Linda and Allison Cropp
D.C. Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp, 57, and daughter Allison Cropp, 32, an emergency medical technician.
Allison: [Referring to the boos and the applause her mother received at the Nationals' exhibition game against the New York Mets at RFK Stadium on April 3] How do you feel about the negativity?
Linda: I knew that when I decided to take the position I did with baseball it was not going to be a popular position with some people. But I did not know, and I was surprised by, how popular it was with a lot of people. What I usually hated about my job, when I had to make tough decisions . . . was that you all would get upset about it . . . That is why I started not taking you all to certain things, because if it was a decision that was really controversial, when you were a little girl you would start fussing. You know, you have a mouth. [They laugh.]
Allison: I do.
Linda: You all would take things more personally than I. I have learned to have thicker skin when people aren't positive.
Allison: So how did you do that? How do you not take
it personally?
Linda: When we went to the game, before I hooked up with you all, there were so many positive comments. There were positive vibes from people, going down on the elevator, walking through the crowd. Some people said, "At one point, I was angry, but you did the right thing," or "You did the right thing, and we still got baseball" . . . I
had so many of those positive things prior to the boos that it helped me feel good . . . When I heard the boos, I kept thinking about those positive things. Also, your Daddy had warned me. [They laugh.]
The very first time I campaigned for office . . . someone said something nasty to me. And I swung around, and I started letting them have it. And the people who were my supporters said, "Come here. If you ever do that again . . . I don't care what they say to you." That was a lesson for me. And they were right. People say things . . . You just let it roll off. Don't let it affect you. You know who you are.
-- Interview by Deneen L. Brown
Alice and Maureen Chua
Alice Chua, 88, a former physical education teacher and champion basketball player and swimmer, and daughter Maureen Chua, 61, an obstetrician and gynecologist.
The Chuas are natives of China who emigrated to the Philippines. Maureen Chua came to this country as a medical student and, one by one, brought her parents and siblings over. She has supported her mother for years.
Maureen: Mom, you played basketball with the boys. You traveled around the world . . . You were so unconventional. Why were you so different from other women of your time?
Alice: I don't know why. My mother had bound feet. She was a very traditional Chinese woman.
Maureen: I remember. We used to laugh--her feet were so tiny.
Alice: I went to school away from home when I was little. The Chinese always wanted their families to stay together. However, my mother gave me permission to go studying abroad. Because one of my friends went to [the town of] Jimei in China to study, she let me go also . . . So I wasn't as bound to family traditions. I wasn't like other girls who just stayed at home, doing housework and gossiping all day.
Maureen: Why didn't you have bound feet?
Alice: Although my mother had bound feet, she was very open, very optimistic and hopeful, progressive, even. She sent me away to college, which was rare . . . My mother wanted me to have a better and much different life from hers. Her life was so restricted.
Maureen: Growing up in the Philippines, it was so prestigious to go to medical school. All the best students went. Did you want me to go to medical school?
Alice: Not really. It's because the Philippines had "Philippinization" back then. Everything was nationalized. We had to pay an "alien fee" to send you to school because we were Chinese. My husband [Maureen's father] had a degree in engineering, but he couldn't practice engineering. The one exception was medicine. There would have been no future for my children if they majored in another field. Medical school was their only choice.
Maureen: Do you have anything you want to tell me?
Alice: You were the eldest. Everything we have is because of you -- this beautiful house to live in, the refrigerator always full of any kind of food. You were the trailblazer, coming to America first. You are a good daughter. I'm very lucky.
-- Interview by Brigid Schulte, translated from the Fujian dialect by Catherine Chen
Susan and Porter Shreve
Susan Shreve, 66, a novelist and professor in the MFA program at George Mason University, and son Porter Shreve, 38, a novelist and director of the MFA program in creative writing at Purdue University.
Porter: I was kicked out of nursery school, sixth grade and college. How did you react to my being an impossible child?
Susan: Unfortunately, from the very beginning I thought you were right in a way that really no parent ever should. I was very proud of the fact that you didn't adapt to institutions. At my age, I think there's a case for institutions, but this was the '70s, and I thought that institutions ground people down to a kind of mediocrity. So I admired this in you. I had a little of that myself . . . But what surprised me was when you were first kicked out of nursery school . . . There were two teachers and 14 students and [your] father was headmaster of the upper school . . . To have that happen seemed to me to take an extraordinary amount of ingenuity. [So] there were a lot of trying moments . . . My mother [who] was a much more orderly person than I [said], "Trust him, don't trust them--for the rest of your life."
Porter: In my latest novel, the protagonist is a mother about your age whose three adult children live far from home. This upsets her so much that she does something drastic to bring them back. When you read Drives Like a Dream, did you feel that the mother in the novel was you?
Susan: I didn't feel from the beginning that it was me, but as I read on, there [were] some gestures that were similar, there was a similarity of my own intense desire to have my children living next door, and there was some particular line that I used when I was a single mother of four . . . It was, "I'm at the end of my rope" . . . The kids, of course, would make fun of me, but I'd say it again and again. In any case, I was visiting with a friend of mine whose opinion I respect, and she said: "This couldn't possibly be you. You never would have thought to give your children granola for breakfast."
-- Interview by Patricia E. Dempsey
The Shreves will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at 1 p.m. at washingtonpost.com/liveonline.
Gladys Covington and Vicki Meade
Gladys Covington, 85, assisted living resident, and daughter Vicki Meade, 51, owner of Meade Communications in Annapolis.
Vicki: You've been widowed twice. You never expected to get divorced, but recently you split up from John [third husband]. And I'm separated, too. We are in parallel situations. Would you ever consider marrying again, and is life better with a man in it, and why?
Gladys: I wouldn't rule it out. But it would have to be what seems to me a 50/50 thing--make him as happy as he would make me. Then I would say, "Why not?" Having a companion is always a wonderful thing, but if you are at a stage where it's more of a drag to take care of someone because he can't hold up his end, I would say, "No" . . . It's got to be a happy thing . . . I personally like men, and I love to have a man, and, actually, I always do. I have one now. Of course, we're not married . . . but we eat together, and we laugh together . . . At this age a good mate is someone who still has a sense of humor. Number one--it's very important. Sex appeal is something that no matter how old you get, it's not a matter of the sex itself, it's the idea that the man has a certain something that makes you feel that you'd like to put your arms around him . . . You have to have a feeling that you would like that person to be close to you. The feeling doesn't go away. In fact, you don't have to have twin beds-- you can have a double. You wanted the truth. You're getting it.
-- Interview by Patricia E. Dempsey
Gail and Tim Paster
Gail Paster, 60, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, and son Tim Paster, 27, a bond trader at Goldman Sachs.
Tim: I've chosen the financial world for my career. Were you surprised or disappointed that I took a different track from you?
Gail: No, not at all. It's been pretty clear for a while, Tim, that the working world is a whole lot happier place for you than the school world was . . . You're now where you have to work for people, and the challenge really is processing a lot of numerical information in a very short period of time and acting on it quickly. I think that is something that energizes you and excites you in a way that nothing else has, except maybe the blackjack table, which is the same thing. One of the things in Tim's last year of college, he decided he wanted to learn how to count cards. He wasn't taking many credits, so in his spare time he was going to the casinos pretty often, and I was terrified because I thought somebody was going to kneecap you . . . Anyway, I'm glad that you've . . . put your gambling energies into an appropriate avenue.
Tim: When I was growing up, I remember you reading and grading papers while I was watching TV. Since this job gets you out of the house a lot more, would you have taken the job when I was between the ages of 8 and 16?
Gail: To do this job properly there are a lot of evenings out. It would have been a hard choice, for sure, and I personally don't think that teenagers need parents less than little kids--I think in some ways they need someone to be in the house, on call even, more . . . I would also say that another important part of our family life is dinner . . . To me, a lot of your ability as an adult to resolve conflicts and to know how to talk to your kids absolutely comes from hours spent at the dinner table . . . I remember at the dinner table once, when you played [junior varsity] football . . . and I said, "Timothy, how about instead of actually playing football . . . the two teams would just take testosterone measurements on either side, and whichever team had a higher testosterone level would win the point?" And you said, "How about if we see which of us can punt a feminist over the goal post?" It was growing up with a feminist mom . . . that made you say that, I would say.
[They both laugh]
-- Interview by Patricia E. Dempsey
Cora Masters Barry and Tamara Masters Wilds
Cora Masters Barry, 60, the wife of D.C. Council member and former mayor Marion Barry, is founder of the Recreation Wish List Committee, a nonprofit group that provides donations and funding to D.C. recreation programs. Tamara Masters Wilds, 30, who is Cora Barry's daughter from a previous marriage, is working on her doctorate in American studies at the University of Maryland, where she is also an instructor.
Tamara: How did you manage to get through the difficult times as a single parent without letting us know about them?
Cora: Oh, God. I was raised by a woman who could do a lot with a little.
She is now 92, raised six kids by herself--college-educated, every one. She finished college at 67, went to the University of Oklahoma, got a PhD, ran for president of the United States, listed among the minor candidates. She was fiercely independent and big on education. She was a revolutionary . . . We were never told we couldn't do anything. Never had roles related to gender.
My girls, well, you were in workshops, acting and dancing. I was a professor at the University of the District of Columbia. I had a good job . . . And I had a great big kitchen and a support system . . . We never had bad times. I always had money for food and housing. I was able to take us traveling . . . I wanted to expose you guys to other cultures because if you know about other cultures, you can't make fun of them.
Tamara: We didn't want for anything. The older you get, the more you can appreciate that.
Cora: I think childhood should be about building memories . . . I had friends who struggled. I was always going to have
a job. All I had to do was manage the money. [Tamara and sister Lalanya
Masters] had great fathers who were very much involved. When I traveled all over the world, they were with their fathers.
Tamara: It's amazing how she had a plan. When I think about having my own kids, I think, "How in the hell am I going to do that?'' . . . Do you think I will be able to handle kids?
Cora: You are strict, really no-nonsense. But you'll do a good job. Me, I'm in the grandmother mode. I want to love them and spoil them. It's a mother's responsibility to build character. But they will come to my house, and they can watch TV and eat all the candy they want.
-- Interview by Deneen L. Brown