Superpowers of Somali Mums
Somali mums seem to possess advanced knowledge of Medicine. Even with no degrees in Medicine Somali mums can diagnose and treat a wide range of illnesses. A good whipping or scolding is usually considered to relieve numerous illness. Because children may often fake illness to avoid going to school or doing chores, some mums may use this strategy as the first health care intervention, to sift out the jokers, and often the symptoms disappear afterwards. The strategy has also been used to cure “qooq” (arrogance/chest-thumping). among Somali mothers that qooq is responsible for every form of undesired behaviour in both children and adults, including rudeness, arrogance, disobedience and even delinquency.
Some Somali mums also strongly believe that sometimes fever can be caused by lack of showering. So the second intervention, naturally, is to convince, rather coerce, the patient to shower. If symptoms persist the ‘Mum Kit’ will then be used. For headaches: a cup of good, hot tea and a power nap. For common colds and flu just blow your nose properly. If symptoms persist go to the toilet. A good bowel movement can release toxins and cure any illness. If still unwell, gargle with lukewarm water and take a concoction of honey, lemon, garlic, ginger and black pepper. For malaria take a solution made of the leaves of the neem tree. For anything, literally anything, from common cold to cancer of the bone, drink a glass of camel piss.
Also, Somali mum doctors tend to frequently prescribe the sleep-inducing antihistamine, Piriton, for any and all types of illnesses. One suspects that it might be to tranquilize the patient until symptoms miraculously disappear. They also prescribe any available and unused medicines to cure any illnesses. If the available medication is not meant for the specific illness at hand, this is not a problem at all to Somali mums. It should work just fine (besides why buy new drugs when you still have your deceased grandfather’s diabetes tablets?). Bone soup, sheep’s oil, black seed oil, Robb balm and fenugreek are other mainstays in the Somali mum’s medicine cabinet. They can cure anything. There’s also some consensus among Somalis that something known as “qaras” (toxins in the body) is the cause of many maladies, which might be true to an extent since a detoxified body is generally a healthy body. It is therefore always recommended to drink fresh camel milk to “remove” the stomach.
Sometimes mothers can intuit that a child is unwell even before any symptoms are apparent. She’ll look at you while looking healthy as a horse and remark, “This one is falling ill soon.” The next morning you won’t get out bed. She will not even come to see how you are; she’ll just carry in the honey and black seed oil. Working along with the mum toolkit is Quran recitation and duaa for the patient. In general the rule of thumb for Somalis is don’t take the patient to a hospital unless there is clear evidence that the patient is imminently going to die.
Some Somali mums are experts at emotional blackmail. Every time something frustrating happens a Somali mother might threaten to leave. She may even pack. If the children are unruly she’d go, “I am done. I’m going back to my father’s home.” If someone breaks a plate accidentally, she will threaten to leave. The tactic can be used by both parents, is the promise of blessings or curses if the child does or does not obey the parent’s wishes. This can be used for small favours like fetching a chair for the parent or massaging their tired, arthritic limbs. But parents also use it to rationalize child labour and to enforce unpopular wishes. An extreme form of emotional blackmail is the guilting of young girls into arranged marriages. The young girl is told, ‘In this hand there is a blessing, and in this, a curse. Make your choice.” On close inspection, however, one notices that both hands are literally empty.
When you ask for some favour from her (e.g. money) in return for something you did for her and to which she had agreed to some compensation prior, the typical Somali mum’s reaction is, “What are you talking about?” (Denial and selective amnesia are also some of her superpowers.) Then comes violent shock. Hysterical and with eyes blinking furiously she’ll say, “Children of nowadays! No sense of shame wallahi! When you are done paying me for giving birth to you, you’ll have the right to ask me that again.” At this point the victim is typically escorted with a butt slap, and can only run away, heavily defeated. But when you do something good, she will say, “Thank God I have raised such amazing children. God please protect them from the evil eye. Let’s go buy presents my darlings!” You will naturally be confused whether this is the same person from earlier.
They also believe that children should not be idle. If you come back home tired after going for a game for a couple of hours and you ask for food, your Somali mother would likely go, “Why are you hungry waryaa? You were busy herding the devil’s livestock the whole day, weren’t you? You are out of the fingers.” Dubious chores will be made up instantly so you compensate for the fun you’d had all day and which you’ll do while starving.
Even on days when there was no school or nothing in particular to do, your mum (this applies to fathers as well) would wake us up if you sleep past fajr. You’d be livid, barely able to open your eyes or to understand why this person who brought you into this world without consulting you and who is supposed to love you, is working actively against your happiness. You wonder, as you oscillate between sleep and waking, why she does not want you to enjoy such sweet, sweet post-fajr sleep. She’d say, “Just be awake.” The American humourist H.L. Mencken once wrote: ‘Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.’ I counted that perhaps parenting, at least in the Somali context, or in the African context, is the haunting fear that your child is somewhere having fun instead of being miserable.
The idea that kids can’t be idle is especially worse for the girls, though. Somali mums take it as a personal failure if their daughter is found sleeping or idle at any time between 5 a.m. until bedtime This is a bad reflection on the mother, and cannot be tolerated. Moreover the girl is unlikely to be married and will therefore die alone at her father’s house if she just chills. When all chores are done new ones will typically be invented to keep the poor girl busy and thus marriage-worthy.
There’s also the idea that girls aren’t supposed to eat much or at least shouldn’t be seen gobbling down large quantities of food as boys shamelessly do. It’s immmodest and is un-ladylike. Of course the rule does not apply to hooyo. Mum can comfortably and without any shame put away, in a matter of minutes, and all by herself, a full birimo with a side of alesso which she washes down with a full pitcher of watermelon juice.
They are also expert professional exaggerators. To deal with difficult kids they’ve had to develop strategies to get their wishes obeyed and their message across. Naturally, Somali mums are masters of the hyperbole, perhaps because accurate description of facts would not get the attention of lazy, stubborn children. So truth must be as flexible as a Russian ballerina, if the job is to get done. For example, when the frustrations of children become too much, you might hear a Somali mum saying, “I am not alive.” “I am dead.” Moreover, she’ll say it with a straight face. “My head has been turned into an empty tin wallahi.” “My bones have been crushed.” “My blood has boiled.” “Only thing left for me is a funeral.” The despair then becomes existential: “I don’t know what I’m to do with myself.”
Another example. When little children do something childish people typically find it cute and interesting. Not an African or Somali mum. If you an older child and and you tell mum to buy you a toy, she’ll say, “Olloho okibor! People come hear what is coming from this grown man’s mouth. This big man whose pubes can tie five camels!” She’ll clap her hands and look from side to side. “I have heard you let no other Muslim hear you, boy.” But when she wants you to do something for her: “Come here my cute little child, my wittle wittle cute baby... so small and cute...” You’d be thinking, “Crazy lady, yesterday you said I’m a grown ass man today I’m little baby? Kinda getting mixed signals here.”
Somali mums can also cuss. You do not want to be within the vicinity of an angry, frustrated Somali mum, especially if you are the cause of the frustration. She can cuss better than a sailor. Stay as far away as humanly possible. And do not speak. If you so much as say “Mum...” she’d go, “Who are you calling mum? Who told you I’m your mother? Did you see me give birth to you? Did you?” You go, “No but hooyo I think...” She’d say, “So why are you calling me mother?” You say, “But mum...” She’d, hit you with a frying pan and cuss you curses I can’t recount here because of modesty.
Another superpower of Somali mums is that they do the most tasking of jobs with grace. The job of raising children. Kids are hard to raise and frustrating. And Somali children are not the most obedient of children. Raising them must be a truly difficult job, and this is the true superpower of Somali mums, and all mums, really. We are forever indebted to them. They raise the children of this world and no one can ever repay them for that. A moment of labor pain is more than any of us can ever handle, yet mothers endure hours, days, of constant indescribable pain, just to bring life to the world. Some mothers raise children by themselves, balancing chores, work and taking care of the children.
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