A Mother's Grief Shared
By Julie A. Walton
COVID-19 continues to present challenges to the global community, the headlines rage day after day with a new side to the story. Underneath those headlines, however, are the ramifications felt by families and lives that may not always get the same level of attention.
Just ask any mother.
As local, state, and federal officials continue to debate and argue about the various options for children this fall, mothers know best what is plain. There are no good choices. Put them all in school? Could be disastrous. Keep the schools closed? What does that do to lower income families or struggling learners? Mothers feel the weight of this in a unique way and their grief is real and palpable, yet often hidden in plain sight.
The economic challenge to mothers is additionally debilitating. Mothers throughout the west who have labored for years to carefully curate, so to speak, a balance between motherhood and career face new challenges as childcare options dwindle.
One popular food blogger recently lamented that in this new COVID-19 economy, parents face an excruciating choice between having a child or having a career. She concluded that mothers, in particular, may simply not be able to have both.
The grief she writes about is palpable in her piece. But is this really a brand new problem? Or has it just washed to the shores of our awareness in a fresh way due to COVID? Worldwide, the grief of mothers is often hidden in plain sight: in orphanages.
What if I told you that the majority of children living in orphanages are not in fact truly orphans? That upwards of 80% of these children have a living parent or relative? Children that we have often considered to be utterly alone in the world may actually be the children of hurting, grieving mothers who have been facing this terrible dilemma between childcare and work for many years.
We propose there is a much better solution for these children than an orphanage. We believe there is a better way to honor a mother’s grief: by preventing it in the first place. Imagine what could be if we supported mothers in their grief and empowered them to care for their children well.
What if all the anguish moms have experienced during this pandemic could empower moms around the world to come out of hiding, out into a place where this grief can be shared and shouldered together.
Every mother deserves to be the recipient of their child’s first smile, their first brilliant joke. We can change our response to vulnerable children and their families.
First we must examine and understand how we got here. In response to the growing AIDS crisis in the early 1990’s, UNICEF altered its definition of “orphan” to include any child who had lost either parent. This change meant that children of a single parent were now counted as orphans, even creating the perception that they lack a primary caregiver. The western church answered this call primarily by building orphanages, causing the number to rise dramatically during this time period.
But did all of these children really need an orphanage? While it’s true that some did, and some still do need alternative care when their biological family can’t or won’t care for them, it is also true that many of these children could remain with their parents, given targeted support.
I have been working on how to effectively serve children for quite some time. I first began working with orphaned and vulnerable children in Sri Lanka, and now serve at Global Child Advocates. We seek to address the root causes of orphanhood and human trafficking by strengthening the layers of protection around children and families. When I began this work, I naively believed that serving children meant just that: serving children. Throughout years of work and studies, I’ve come to understand that the best way to support children is in fact to support families, specifically mothers.
Consider two stories. On my third trip to Sri Lanka, I met a young woman who had been raised at a mid-size orphanage. She and her twin brother represented their mother’s fifth pregnancy. Lack of quality maternal healthcare hid the existence of a second baby until his birth. Their mother was overwhelmed by the pressure to raise two more children in addition to the four at home, and left her newborn babies at the hospital that day.
Another mother comes to mind, a young woman in Thailand who had two children from a previous relationship. When she became pregnant by her current boyfriend, he was unwilling to continue to help raise her other children. Desperate, she considered what many of us would deem a horrific option: sell her baby for the money to flee back home to Myanmar with her older two children.
These two mothers were served by two drastically different responses. The first was met by the offer of an orphanage. The second was immediately surrounded by community and resources to enable her to raise all of her children well.
As I look back at meeting the young woman in Sri Lanka, I should not have met her merely as an isolated child. My memory should have included her mother when I heard her story. As she told me clever jokes in her second language, and made the whole dorm roar with laughter, I ought to have imagined the pain of a mother who has not gotten to observe her daughter’s wit firsthand. Whether you understand or demonize her decision to leave her twins at the hospital that day, you cannot doubt the excruciating pain she has felt since.
I’m deeply grateful an orphanage was present at the hospital for those two babies. I shudder to consider what they may have encountered otherwise. But if we can support the babies, can we not support the family?
What if there is a better way? What if by sharing the grief mothers face we could prevent some of its destruction? What if the church pushed for measures innovated and implemented that would allow mothers to continue providing for their families without sacrificing the well-being of their children?
Our team’s work enabled a different response for the young woman considering selling her newborn. One of our primary tasks is educating families about their own importance to their children’s upbringing. We regularly do outreach in impoverished communities to teach mothers about brain development and their crucial role in this process for their children. While these may seem like overly lofty concepts, we’ve found that they are lifelines for mothers to remember in moments of being overwhelmed. We’ve helped many mothers keep their children when faced with a seemingly impossible choice.
Our outreach caused this young woman’s community to know what to do when she expressed her intent to sell her child. They called us for help. That phone call sent resources flowing to this woman and her entire family. Not once did we offer to raise her baby in her stead. Neither she nor her baby needed an orphanage, since her baby was not an orphan. Instead, her mother was experiencing economic difficulties. In truth, her baby was a child in need of a mother, and we could not fill that role. This is not to say that this mother’s difficulties are over. But thankfully, she will be spared the grief that the twins’ mother experiences on a daily basis.
We need to see this kind of support offered more often to mothers experiencing crisis and trauma throughout the world. Our one-size-fits all approach of the orphanage model is due for an upgrade and the hour is now.
We can send a resounding message to mothers today, both here and abroad: You are not alone. What if we beckoned hurting mothers to bring their grief forward with the expectation that we would share and shoulder it with them?
A mother’s grief is a powerful force; a mother’s grief shared could change the world!
Every mother deserves the chance to raise her own babies with excellence and joy. Every child is designed to flourish in a family. We can grow, learn and adapt our previous strategies and support children and families afresh.
At Global Child Advocates, we don’t work with “beneficiaries.” We don’t merely support “clients.” Instead, we stand with children, which means we stand with mothers and fathers.
Will you join us as we walk alongside families?
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Julie A. Walton, MA serves as our Strategic Engagement Officer and she is passionate about seeing local practice impact global policy around orphaned and vulnerable children.