You can travel up and down the world and will find no two cultures are alike. But the mom is always The Mom.
In Senegal it is not a rare instance to be raised by a woman who’s not your biological mother, even if your mother is alive and well, you know her and have a steady and loving relationship with her. Children don’t grow up with their natural parents for many reasons: they can be sent to live with the grandparents at the village because life is cheaper there and it’s safe to assume they will get a more traditionally religious education there, as opposed to the city. Or they can spend a certain amount of time with the extended family, away from their parents, for a variety of practical reasons.
Any woman who raises one or more children, regardless of the biological relationship and whether she has legal custody, is considered a mother; it is common to address a woman as Maman and not Madame because it is assumed that one way or another she’s raising kids.
At the beginning of my Senegalese adventure, 30-years old would call me Maman and I was pissed (did I really look that old?), now that I am old enough to be the mother of a 30-year old, I am in fact the mom of a very young girl and being called Maman doesn’t bother me anymore.
The wolof word for mom is yaay and it is used mostly for the biological mother, all other mothers who have a role in your life are called maman+their birthname. The biological mother, in Senegalese culture, is the one who gives you all your fortune (to succeed in life) and that’s why she is almost idolized. My husband has a hard time talking about his mom because each time he thinks of her (who departed from this world a long time ago) he has tears in his eyes.
Some Senegalese mothers, God bless their heart, besides their own offsprings, raise or help raising without much as a complaint children that their husband had out of the wedlock, before or during their marriage. (Gulp).
Oddly enough for western culture, it can happen that a girl can actually be named after the lawful wife, as a way to ask for forgiveness, and also reinforce the bond with the child. (Gulp. Gulp).
This is still a thing from the recent past. Today in the cities wives’ patience is rapidly declining but at the village things haven’t changed much.
When Margot was born my querulous female neighbors kept insisting telling me that they would hear her cry and each time they met me they would start their “Gosh does that poor baby cry, poor you” and I would get pissed off big time.
Each day I would come back home and nag about them with my husband, until one day the revelation came and he explained me that commenting on the vast quantity of tears and cries coming out of a newborn is actually an oblique way to celebrate the mother, because she sucks up all of that with no complaint. And it’s always another mother who says that. It is like a secret code that means “come on, hang in there, it sounds like a torment now but it will get better and you will always have gratitude (and financial support)”.
Senegal is still a country where having kids, especially for women, is essential. Social pressure is great, one child is not enough, birth control is a delicate subject matter. Each child is sent by God (although not always a gift) and a marriage without kids call naturally for a second wife (the nightmare of any childless white wife).
Even more oddly for the western woman that I am, it is not unheard of that a couple decides to give their newborn to a childless woman for her to raise them as hers. It’s an act of generosity to alleviate social pressure on her and certainly it’s not considered child neglect.
It is true that Senegal is changing: big families with lots of children become rare, both parents have a job and house help is expensive. Young adults don’t necessarily live with their parents anymore and the supply of grandmas happy to babysit is shrinking, but the difference between a woman and a mother is still blurred.