Our Mothers Are Many: Big Sis

A reflection from a first-born daughter

There’s a Twitter proverb that resonates so deeply I had to really sit with it and write about it.

“The strongest man you know is a first born daughter”

I am first. I am eldest. I am the only.

Thus, I must possess three times the strength of the strongest man.

I care. I care deeply. From a young age, I knew the care I desired would not be available to me in my childhood or adolescence. The tender, gentle nurturing I saw on television screens or in other families was not my reality.

I only ever wanted to be wanted. And the only way I knew how was to be of use.

Please use me. I am good enough to be used and still be enough.

In this, I became the sister that mothered.

I also simply wanted to help my mother. We’d just moved from Burkina Faso where relatives were always at arm’s length to now being in Brooklyn with no aunties, no cousins, just creating family by the friendships of our parents. Their friends became the aunties and uncles, and their children became the cousins. But by blood, it was just us.

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This piece is part of Our Mothers Are Many, our series exploring the expansive nature of motherhood — how we are nurtured by villages, mothered beyond biology…and how we mother ourselves and our communities in manners both visible and unseen.

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I always knew I was the quiet backbone of the family. My excellence in academia gave my parents praise. My silence which was often mislabeled as obedience became mirrored for my brothers. But they were still boys and they played rough. Oh how I wish I had the opportunity to play.

For me, it was always made clear that I am the example by which they will lead. I mastered being the perfect daughter—silent, excelling in school. I washed dishes, cleaned the house, helped with laundry, and picked my brothers up from school. I was inquisitive about their being. I became a therapist. I became the point person when they got in trouble because I was also the translator of the house. I even helped save money.

They learned freedom as recklessness.

I learned freedom as discipline.

My being a mothering-sister didn’t really bother me until I also wanted to be the child that I am but was not given permission to be that. I wanted to be able to get in trouble in school and simply get my ears pulled too. Or go to the park and play all afternoon after school but I either had to babysit or help braid hair in the family African hair braiding salon.

I can never take away anything from my mother as she did her damndest in unfamiliar territory without the help of family either. So, I definitely take pride in helping out in the best way I knew

possible. Being a mothering-sister and making sure I wasn’t one to be worried about. But the little girl in me, she still wishes she’d received softness. Gentleness. And that is why now, I require gentleness.

I have begun to mother myself. I realized recently that the care I always desired—and always gave to others—was care I had available to myself all along.

The ocean never goes thirsty.

It is in me. That is why I have always had the desire.

I have love and give love therefore, I am love and loved.

I require gentleness and I make it known.

I tell Mother Nature everyday, woman, I require gentleness.

I demand kindness of myself to myself and I mother myself for myself. I hold baby me dearly and all that I do now, with love, is for me.