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Reflections about mom
Jeanne Ching Cheng 黃晴美女兒
I remember mom as a positive person, who always saw the positive side in life. As a child I knew mom didn’t have much money, but we always ate tasty food, had ok clothes, did fun things on vacations, participated in different activities after school. When I got older, I gradually realized mom used the cheapest foodstuffs, seldom bought new clothes for herself, she often mended our clothes and she still looked stylish. Mom held birthday parties for us and our friends with a small simple cake, but the guests really appreciate and thought fried rice with ketchup, serve as a dome was really festive.
I seldom saw her sad or angry. She had so much patience and handled malice with kindness. Once a boy followed us and teased us by mimicking Chinese and making faces for quite a while. I felt offended, irritated, and upset. Mom´s solution was to walk to the boy with a sincere smile and from her heart, greeted him with a kind voice, presented herself and said: - I heard you tried to speak Chinese. Do you want to learn? I can teach you. The boy looked embarrassed, said no thank you, and left.
Teaching was mom’s passion, she really engaged herself in it and constantly developed the Montessori material she used and made her own as well. Using nice and clear images, logical layout, tactile materials combined with feedback from the children’s interaction when working with the material.
When mom ended her position as Montessori teacher she started to work as a home-language teacher in Mandarin, Swedish and English, teaching students 7 to 15 years old, who didn’t have Swedish as first language. Children who spoke mother tongue with either parent had the right to participate in home-language lessons. Another criterion to hold a class was the requirement of at least 5 students at the same school speaking the same language.
Mom’s task was to maintain and develop the students’ knowledge in Mandarin as well as helping them understand all other school subjects. Often the students in the same class were of different ages and at different levels of language knowledge. This is a big challenge for any teacher. Mom was very determined to help all students and she was a very appreciated teacher. When students’ families were struggling with the Swedish social system, she helped them too, outside her ordinary employment.
When I was in senior high school mom studied linguistics at Stockholm university, with a goal to develop grammar for the Taiwanese language, since there was no formal or official grammar. Her plan was to stay in Taiwan during the Swedish winter to do this work. However, Jay and I were so integrated in Swedish society and mom didn’t want to leave us nor force us to move to a country we had not been to or understood the language. I understood the sacrifice she made.
As an adult I have thought about all the men who put their cause/goals before their children. How did they reason? Did they believe they were unimportant to their children? Didn’t they understand that children also need the everyday interaction and small joyful moments, also with their fathers? On the other hand, if the parent is fighting for democracy or freedom of speech which benefits many more people. Rationally and morally, that would be a more important choice. But as a child you feel less important and less appreciated.
Before mom got Alzheimer’s she reflected on her participation in the N.Y. action and the time after. At that time I was not aware of many details. Mom said she was surprised she had so much fighting spirit within her. Fighting for dad when he was in prison, getting integrated in a new country and society, working to pay rent and food, making sure her kids were ok at school and with friends. That was mom, she saw what was needed, made up a plan to enable the situation and just realized it. Obviously she also had help from many kind Swedish people.
A lot of mothers, like my mom, have causes/goals that benefit many people, but they back off and put themselves in 3rd place. In the future I hope parents who have important causes can find means to be both present in their children’s everyday life as well as working with their causes.
