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Saturday, July 26, 2025

Mothers musing

by

Guardian Media Limited
1175 days ago
20220508
Anvar Zia Sutana Mathur

Anvar Zia Sutana Mathur

This Moth­er’s Day, Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed brings you two first-per­son ac­counts on moth­er­ing by moth­ers and grand­moth­ers.

An­var Zia Su­tana Math­ur

My name is An­var Zia Su­tana Math­ur. I was born in Ban­ga­lore, In­dia, and I was raised by my moth­er and ma­ter­nal grand­par­ents be­cause my fa­ther died when I was a small child. 

 I was ed­u­cat­ed in In­dia and Pak­istan in board­ing school. I got mar­ried in my 20s and had three chil­dren. I came to the West In­dies with my hus­band, an en­gi­neer and for­mer army of­fi­cer who had a con­tract to build the Claude Noel High­way. Af­ter the high­way was built, we nev­er went back. Trinidad is my home now. Two of my three chil­dren live in Trinidad. I lost a son to can­cer sev­er­al years ago.

Every­body’s core val­ues are formed from the time they are born to six. I was brought up by my moth­er and grand­par­ents, in a de­vout Mus­lim fam­i­ly in Sa­va­nur, South In­dia, and trav­elled around In­dia with them. 

My grand­fa­ther Ab­dul Ma­jid Khan was a re­spect­ed Nawab of Sa­va­nur British In­dia with sol­id moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues. He was ed­u­cat­ed in West­ern schools and uni­ver­si­ties and army acad­e­mies, but his re­li­gion and val­ues al­ways came be­fore his west­ern ed­u­ca­tion, and he did wise and ben­e­fi­cial things, and I re­called these lessons in lat­er years. 

His hu­mil­i­ty, good man­ners, and strong Is­lam­ic faith were a part of him. He was po­lite and kind to every­body, no mat­ter what their sta­tion in life was. Rank and wealth did not hold val­ue to him. He cared about hon­esty, a will­ing­ness to work hard, the courage to tell the truth even when it could get you in trou­ble, the hu­mil­i­ty to apol­o­gise when you were wrong, to say ‘thank you and ‘please’. He did many acts of char­i­ty, but thought it dis­taste­ful to speak about it say­ing ‘self-praise is no praise.’ He taught me that char­i­ty is the best way to spend your wealth af­ter car­ing for your needs, that there is no need for ex­ces­sive spend­ing and prove you have so much more than your neigh­bours and friends.

In re­al­i­ty, show­ing off does not mat­ter, as when we die, we don’t take any of our goods and chat­tels with us. When my grand­fa­ther in­ter­act­ed with peo­ple in un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances, he said, ‘There go I but for the grace of God.’ Tak­ing noth­ing for grant­ed.

My sin­gle moth­er was strict and said, ‘We are not our chil­dren’s friends. We are here to make sure we cre­ate good hu­mans who ful­fil their po­ten­tial and con­tribute to this earth. We are not in a pop­u­lar­i­ty con­test with oth­ers for their af­fec­tion. If we love our chil­dren, we must teach them what’s cor­rect, even if at the time our chil­dren don’t like it, or at the cost of their af­fec­tion. She made sure I learned the Holy Q’uran, which I start­ed to re­cite at the age of four. In our fam­i­lies, it was known as the Bis­mil­lah cer­e­mo­ny when the child us­es the first word of the Holy Q’uran. She made sure I learned Ara­bic, Ur­du, and Per­sian be­fore go­ing to a con­vent school. She be­lieved I should have sol­id val­ues and be well ac­quaint­ed with the teach­ings of my re­li­gion. 

I found peace of mind and strength in old texts and re­li­gious guid­ance be­cause my moth­er said it car­ries an an­swer to every dif­fi­cul­ty. She was right. Long af­ter my moth­er died, I found peace of mind and strength from the ear­ly guid­ance. I learned to be pa­tient and for­giv­ing and over­look oth­er peo­ple’s ill-treat­ment or un­fair at­ti­tude be­cause hu­man na­ture is frail, and every hu­man be­ing can make a mis­take.

I was taught to look with­in and see how soft and weak my own na­ture could be and how eas­i­ly I could have made that same mis­take which I re­gard­ed as some­thing un­pleas­ant in some­one else. So, to over­look and for­give has been my en­deav­our, which has helped me to avoid mal­ice and un­kind­ness in my own life, even if oth­ers did not treat me as they should have.

My moth­er made me play sports as she felt it was im­por­tant for girls to be as ac­tive as the boys. She made me learn mu­sic be­cause she felt we must be all we can be and use as much of our minds as we could. 

When my chil­dren were young, I was some­times harsh with them and scold­ed them be­cause I want­ed them to grow up with a moral com­pass. I re­alise now I could have done the same with­out anger as peo­ple re­spond bet­ter to kind­ness.

I’ve met many moth­ers in Trinidad who have un­for­tu­nate­ly been left by them­selves to bring up chil­dren by hus­bands who don’t pro­vide. These moth­ers show courage. It’s won­der­ful to see in­de­pen­dent, ed­u­cat­ed work­ing women in Trinidad do­ing so well, sav­ing their mon­ey, look­ing af­ter them­selves. To them, I say, don’t ne­glect your chil­dren as they get their ideas about life and think­ing from their par­ents, will learn not by be­ing told but by the life you lead, and that will give them a moral com­pass. Re­main ho­n­ourable no mat­ter the cir­cum­stances. There is no such thing as a free lunch. It sounds sanc­ti­mo­nious, but it’s sound ad­vice.

When we speak of Ji­had in Is­lam, we speak of a bat­tle with our­selves. We should learn to con­trol our sens­es. When we go off the rails, it may give us tem­po­rary plea­sure, but it will cause great harm and hurt to our fam­i­lies. Drink­ing is pro­hib­it­ed in Is­lam, and al­co­hol im­pairs your judg­ment and leads to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and deaths. 

We know in each life some rain must fall. I lost a hand­some, bril­liant son in the prime of his life. We all face dis­ap­point­ments, heartache, the death of our loved ones, anx­i­ety and sad­ness. In these mo­ments, we think, where is God, who is sup­posed to be full of love? In Is­lam, the Su­fi con­cept is that pain is giv­en to us to re­fine our char­ac­ter, to re­fine you, to shine brighter, cut and pol­ished like a di­a­mond. In Is­lam, heav­en lies at the moth­er’s feet.

Al­ways be re­spect­ful to the el­der­ly, re­mem­ber­ing you will get old too. The el­der­ly de­serve re­spect be­cause they built up a so­ci­ety which con­tributed to your well-be­ing. Young peo­ple call me moth­er, giv­ing me the high­est es­teem. 

Don’t be sad if your moth­er is no longer here to­day on Moth­er’s Day. Re­mem­ber, a moth­er lives in your heart and nev­er stops bless­ing you.

Rhonda Taylor

Rhonda Taylor

Rhon­da Tay­lor

“My name is Rhon­da Tay­lor. I’m 54 years old. I was born in Bel­mont. My par­ents are Verville Tay­lor and Doreen Tay­lor, who worked at the city cor­po­ra­tions and had nine chil­dren. I am the sixth. I went to school in Bel­mont. Since I was 19 I’ve worked in a casi­no and as a house­keep­er. I had five chil­dren–four boys and a girl ­–by three hus­bands. I have three grand­chil­dren.

My moth­er was lov­ing but strict. She brought us up to do the right things, ‘don’t steal,’ ‘don’t lie, and ‘go to school’ and get an ed­u­ca­tion. She would give us licks for dis­re­spect­ing peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly old­er peo­ple, not say­ing ‘good morn­ing,’ not say­ing ‘thank you or ‘please’, and be­ing dis­obe­di­ent.

 I was 12 when she left the house and us for two years as my fa­ther was abu­sive to her. My fa­ther was moth­er and fa­ther to us, lov­ing...and thank God nev­er abused his chil­dren.

 My moth­er was a strong woman. Af­ter she built a home in Pic­ton, she took us back and was a sin­gle par­ent. See­ing my moth­er be­ing abused, the moth­er or fa­ther fight­ing, I told my­self that’s a re­la­tion­ship I don’t want. I walked away from sev­er­al abu­sive re­la­tion­ships and mar­riages and built my own home like my moth­er.

My ad­vice to young women is to study and work, and when you are in­de­pen­dent and can look af­ter your­self, set­tle down. You should nev­er stay in an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship be­cause of love. You have to love your­self first. You have to know when to walk away.

 My first break­ing point was one Car­ni­val when my hus­band had too much to drink and lashed me in the sta­di­um in the mid­dle of thou­sands of peo­ple when I tried to stop him. ‘No, enough is enough.’ I went to the po­lice sta­tion, made a re­port and took him to court. They gave him a re­strain­ing or­der, and that was it; I nev­er went back.

My ad­vice to abused women is to go to the po­lice sta­tion, go to court, look af­ter your­self, seek help and leave. Keep your dig­ni­ty. There is al­ways work, an hon­est day’s job, an hon­est day’s pay. I see women stay­ing in abu­sive mar­riages say­ing, ‘he loves me­­–that is why he lash­es me,’ or ‘I love him,’ or ‘I have so many chil­dren. How will I feed my chil­dren? If you think of your­self, you seek a bet­ter life. Even if you’re not ed­u­cat­ed, look for a job, and sup­port your­self. You don’t need skills for do­mes­tic work, a se­cu­ri­ty job, or even pack­ing bags in a gro­cery. The po­lice have so­cial wel­fare for bat­tered women or trust­wor­thy friends...You must have some­body who will help you. I would help women like that; I would make room in my house and say, ‘come and stay un­til you catch your­self.’ All women should do that for one an­oth­er.

Two of my chil­dren died. Two were tak­en away from me to live away from me by their grand­par­ents to NYC. I was sad. I was young, es­cap­ing an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship, and un­able to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Melis­sa called me every day, al­ways send­ing a bar­rel for me, and vis­it­ed. She died in 2015 in an ac­ci­dent. I loved her, and she was tak­en away from me. I see Hakim some­times.

My last child, CJ, died when he was 14 years old while I was at work. He died in the WASA reser­voir, jumped in to save a friend, and drowned. 

Shel­don, my lov­ing child, is close to me and is very pro­tec­tive of me. I have three grand­chil­dren, and they are the light of my life. My last son, Kiron, speaks his mind, but I know he loves me. 

I dealt with sad­ness and suf­fer­ing and loss, do­mes­tic abuse and the loss of my chil­dren by putting my heart in­to work, read­ing, go­ing to church and spend­ing time with my girl­friends and chil­dren and grand­chil­dren. When I help oth­er peo­ple, I for­get my own prob­lems. If a girl­friend needs a shoul­der to cry on, I’m there, if some­one needs prac­ti­cal help.

Af­ter my son CJ died, I buried my­self in my work, and when I reached home at night, I was tired. I had fam­i­ly and friends, but there is al­ways a mo­ment when you are by your­self, and af­ter a month or two, you don’t see fam­i­ly and friends, and that’s when you have to have work.

Treat el­der­ly peo­ple as your moth­ers, do the right thing, and you will al­ways find peace and joy in your life even if de­prived of your own moth­er.

Treat your par­ents, es­pe­cial­ly your moth­er, kind­ly be­cause she nur­tures you, sac­ri­fices for you, teach­es you right from wrong, helps you be a good cit­i­zen and pro­tects you from wast­ing this short life.

As a grand­moth­er, I would tell moth­ers, yes, you must live and en­joy life, but for a sta­ble long, hap­py life where you don’t have to de­pend on a man, study, work, get a job and save to look af­ter your­self and make sure you bring up your boy chil­dren to be good fa­thers so they don’t abuse or aban­don women. Hap­py Moth­er’s Day. “

Mothers


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