Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

The second paper I authored as I began my academic journey highlighted the need to focus on the role of mothers with health. It’s the first paper that centers the primacy of mothers for health and life. It’s also began my journey into understanding the full spectrum of mothers, how we are not only birth givers but live givers. This quote in the paper exemplifies this for me: “First, what is most unstated about motherhood is that it is a lifelong commitment—one remains a child to one’s mother regardless of one’s age. Mothers play a crucial role not only as birth givers but also as life givers, as one needs one’s mother at every turn in life.”

In the middle of the pandemic, I began this blog to pay attention to the full spectrum of motherhood as my academic productivity and parenting were inseparable at that time more than ever. I felt the need to bring it to the front so people know that it isn’t an either or for me but all of me. This experience would lead to the second paper on motherhood I wrote now as a book chapter of a book I co-edited with my mentor and so many astounding scholars. There too I noted how motherhood is supreme and we are nothing without mothers pointing and leading the way.

All this talk on motherhood is finally culminating to why I love this space so much, these narratives of the multiple selves, that make up the full spectrum of motherhood for me these days. It’s also a reminder to keep all our stories. The good, the bad, all. So a little over 2 years ago, I watched in horror as my daughter experienced what I do not wish on any young child. To say 4th grade was hard is an understatement and we witnessed first hand how deeply entrenched these issues of racism can begin even with children who hear about it passively at home. I turned to writing to find healing from our experience both for her and for myself and in the process wrote, birthed and well produced what is now my first foray into children’s book writing, called Bright Star. As a mother, as a life giver, I wanted my daughter and any other child to know first and foremost that they are simply amazing like the children of stars. No one can ever take that from them. And who better to remind her than me in a story now more powerful than the experience itself. Again, our way of narrating our multiple selves for ourselves first and as the stars we are.

So why this weekend and why even speak of all these experience. Well tomorrow, I am doing something different, something bold and with value. I will begin my journey into taking the stories of motherhood as scarves as stories too, to the world. It has been a long journey, one where I remain inspired by my own mother and her own mother and all three of us have this fascinating love for scarves and stories. I have too many stories as can be seen on this blog. They do too. I also have too many scarves. My mother has more and her own mother had so many. They now inspire what is the newest adventure in my life, using scarves and stories to remind the world of why motherhood remains supreme and perhaps a crucial part of healing for so many.

So on this eve of Mother’s Day weekend, we are launching a collection of scarves, hand dyed by local artisans that my own mothers works with in Lagos Nigeria. I have known them since I was in college and I remember sitting in a class they taught that led to my very first experience with hand dye clothing using indigo dye (more on the indigo process soon). What started out of curiosity as a student wanting to learn how clothes are dyed has come full circle now to the scarves I will present to the world tomorrow. They are inspired by a generation of mothers (my own) whose love for life is supreme. No two scarves are alike just as no two mothers are. We are also soft-launching “Bright Star.” I am proud of this book and how we turned that chapter of our lives into something we can be proud of for generations to come. This to me is the power of motherhood, one where we are not just birth givers but life givers, not just scarf lovers but storytellers too, and our parenting and productivity are like the stars, simply Bright. Join us here.