What Mother's Day Taught Me
I work in education.
As I sat down to write this, I started a timer earlier for my class of Level 3 children to write in silence. The timer read 4:44. I always like numbers and their capacity to satisfy. 444 in itself is a very stable and solid number. It makes me feel full. It made me feel like the timing was right to write. And so I did.
I write today on behalf of some of the tamariki in our classrooms or online learning at home, and I write today on behalf of the little girl inside me. Mother’s Day has always been an issue for me. As a kaiako, I know the eyes that well up and the hands that wring when you mention it to some. Especially if your hākui isn't really your hākui in the 'nuclear family' way.
I come from a background where my hākui is Māori. Her ancestors travelled from Hawaiki, Scotland, Ireland, England and Spain. My father - what I know of him - is Serbian. He came here in the early '80s. Met my hākui in Picton. Made babies with her. Married her. Beat her black and blue until she left with my brother in tow and me.
I used to think that the woman in my family had makutu placed on them. Nowhere in my bloodlines could I see a stable mother or wāhine toa. I had a witchy crazy Great Grandma – Mad Maggie. I had a Taua who grew up in a cave. I had a Great Great Great Grandma who was forced to marry her Uncle. Their tapu was violated by many. It wasn’t honoured; it wasn’t treasured; it was like a curse.
I used to believe that the makutu travelled through them in their whare tangata, through my sisters and me, where it sat waiting for my nieces. In the care of hākui, in our whanau, tamariki were never safe. I relinquish that existence of makutu now. I have long since salted and saged the corners of my mind and heart. Perhaps the mamae in their hearts, minds and wairua was probably the curse for them, but it wasn't real. Not like I thought anyway.
In her childhood my hākui and her hākui had a very strained and toxic relationship. My taua is of a stoic ilk, marred and scarred by the intergenerational trauma of colonisation. In no way do I blame her for my upbringing. But I do look at her with a bittersweet lens of anger. Especially in what unravelled for my hākui, my aunties and my uncle.
My hākui suffered severe abuse and sexual assault as a child. She grew to have drug and alcohol dependence, along with bulimia. She survived these and is in recovery but suffers daily from its effects. She now lives with a head injury and will never mature past the mental age of 14. While in the care of my hākui, I lived my formative 5-6 years in turmoil.
A small child caught in the net of drugs, alcohol, men, poison, and sex. I was the 'Once Were Warriors' archetype. My teeth fell out before I was five from rot. And my health was probably a two out of five. I was severely neglected. I had damaged kidneys from holding on. I was afraid for a long time of the toilet - but also afraid of what happened when I soiled myself. So I just didn't go.
As an aside: I say this matter of fact because they no longer cause mamae in me. I am sorry for those who have suffered similar things and if they still affect you. I have healed these broken parts of myself and continue to do so. Whenever the little kōtiro inside me starts to have a tangi, I soothe her. I know when she's hurt and can see the triggers. It took years of haumanu and aroha. But in order to live the life I chose, it was a necessary means to an end. Rongoā practices and kōrero have helped me to use these experiences to transform my life. In time, it will help to transform the lives of future members of my whānauka.
I was the first to finish school, first to go to Uni, first to graduate. I have a Master’s degree. I speak three languages. All of these I will not shy away from. All of these, I used the strength of my forebears to guide me. I am no longer hurt by the feeling that they could not transform their lives. Especially because I see the problem now as so much bigger than just myself. Te Iwi Hāpai was the name of one of my ancestors. She has been my guide in everything I have done since I found her. I guess she started the transformation the day she was born.
I see her in my dreams,
Her tail reaches up through the waves.
She jumps out and cries.
Aue! Moko!
Kia kaha rā!
Ka taea e koe te piki tēnei mauka!
Kia kaha rā!
So from my hākui - and her life in a haze of smoke and DB draught – I was moved and raised in state care from age 6. Typically, at kura, I got the 'you poor thing', 'oh she's one to watch out for’, 'just another statistic’. It was gross. But what was grosser was the inability of other people to see me and those of us that don't fit the 'nuclear family' mold.
‘Mother's Day’ made up for some of the shittest days at school I've ever had.
Not the racism by peers, teachers, and principals.
Not the sexism by peers, teachers and principals.
It was this ‘Mummy and Daddy’ rhetoric taught by – and excuse me for saying this, but I grew up in Ōtepoti – white middle-class women with a husband and 2.5 kids. I was so triggered every year. So angry, so sad, so everything. And I'm not saying that these teachers were responsible for fixing that in me. I'm saying that as human beings, we need to start taking a step towards recognising that none of our family make-up is the same.
As Māori, we would NEVER have fit the paradigm for colonial thought anyway. Look at our Cosmology and what Best, White, and Grey did. Why do we continue to fit our mana Māori into their square holes? Why do we perpetuate this cycle by creating sales for ‘Māmā’ but not ‘Aunty’ or ‘Kuia’?
I feel responsible for my kōiwi to admonish these hegemonic ideologies. I feel a sense of duty to uphold the mana Māori in myself to say:
“He rerekē tēnei kōiwi Māori ki a koutou e te iwi, kā uri o kā hau e whā. He tamariki mātou ki a Rakinui, rāua ko Papatuānuku. Ehara mātou he tamariki ō tōu koutou Ātua. Kaua e takahī tonu o mātou mana. Ka tītiro mātou te rerekētanga. Ko tēnei kōiwi Māori, he Māori. Nō mātou te mana me tīkanga noa iho.”
These bones of my people are different to those who descend from elsewhere. We are the children of the Earth and Stars. We are not the children of your god. Stop continuing to stamp on our mana. We will see the difference. These bones of my people are Māori. It is our right and custom alone.
We may be whāngai.
We may only have a hākui,
or a hākoro,
or two takatāpui parents.
We may only have ourselves and our Māori identity to keep us together.
Why not push to recognise ‘Whānau’ and ‘Iwi’ rather than family identifiers that are whitewashed versions of ours?
I guess, professionally, it’s wrong to continue telling tamariki 'Whakanuia tō Māma!' when, for some, like me, it wasn't something I wanted to do. My mana Māori affords me the authority to ignore these calendar days as they aren't even part of my lifestyle. But I still have to teach them. It remains part of our educational system, our commercial system and most of our community systems.
But there is already so much mamae in our Māori people. I cannot stress enough how much of imperative it is to celebrate diversity. I cannot stop standing up on this soapbox and calling out for all Kaiako to be more aware and reflective of Māori tamariki, so they don’t feel so marginalised.
Please don’t read this wrong. I’m not a Māmā hater, teacher hater, or someone who wants to tell you what to do. I concur that the existence and celebration of Mothers, Wāhine, Femininity, and Divine Goddess, is important. Without them, we would not exist. But we can no longer sit unconscious to the expectations, limitations, ideologies and values placed on a specific day in someone else’s calendar. They hold very little importance or connection to the tūturutaka of our Hākuikui.
So, what 'Mothers Day' has taught me about myself is that I am mana Māori and mana wāhine toa. Most importantly, I am enough. I get to celebrate what it means to be a child of a hākui who just couldn't be one. I prefer this to some idealised version of someone that doesn't exist and never will. I know that I'm not alone in this. Like me, those that grew in the ‘Other’ category have voices that deserve to be heard just as much as those that are regularly heard.
Ka tū ahau ki raro i te korowai rakimārie o tōkū tūpuna wāhine. Kā wahine toa, kā wāhine wheturakitia, kā wāhine he Māori. Ahakoa he mamae o mua, ka tū tonu ahau mo rātou. Ka hāpaitia ahau i tāku whānauka ā muri ake nei.