Bio
Lesego Linda Plank is currently a Researcher at the Chief Albert Luthuli Research Chair at the University of South Africa (UNISA). She worked as a part-time lecturer at the University of Johannesburg for the Academic Development Centre (2019-2022). She was awarded her master’s degree in 2018, from the University of Johannesburg, for a study titled The Experiences of Single Black Middle-Class Women from Soweto of Intimate Relationships. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Johannesburg and her PhD is focusing on Black motherhood. In 2018, she was a visiting emerging scholar at the University of Maryland in the US. Ms Plank is also a co-author of the book entitled: Does the Black Middle Class Exist and Are We Members (2020). Her research interests are in studying the Black African society from a Decolonial standpoint. Ms Plank has published articles and has presented her papers in various academic conferences. She is also passionate about community engagement, and she has started an initiative called GrassRootFamily (GRF), an initiative of giving back to the community through crowdfunding efforts. Ms Plank is also the Vice President of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa Fellowship of Youth Convocation (National).
Abstract
Growing up I defined my biological mother as an absent parent, as I was primarily raised by my biological father and paternal grandmother. My mother not raising me has never made me feel like I do not know the feeling of being mothered. This is because my biological father had the best support system, which was his mother, my maternal family, my father’s partner(s) at the time, my teachers or women from the church who were mothers to me. Hence, I resonate with scholars such as Amadiume (1987) Oyewumi (1997), and Collins (2000), who argue that motherhood is not biological, because mothers have often had the support system from other mothers/social mothers. These are women who would assist the biological mother with nurturing her children. In cases where the mother has to go to work, the mother would leave the children with other women (Oyewumi, 1997). However, because of capitalism and patriarchal notions enforcing nuclearism in Black African families, biological mothers are expected to be the physical parents of the child; they are expected to not choose themselves and to focus on their children. Mothers like my mother would be classified as “bad mothers.” When I started on the journey of my PhD, I asked my biological mother what had happened for her to not raise all her four children. My mother stated various reasons and experiences. One which resonated with me was the lack of a home. My mother was also not raised in a nuclear environment; her mother often worked as a domestic worker, and they had to live with relatives because they had never had their own home. As a Black South African woman, for me home is a place of belonging; it is safety, it is communal. My biological mother’s absence provided that for me. I was raised in a loving warm home, and I was mothered by a village. As I have grown up to do the healing and writing work for personal and academic purposes, I have realized that despite the pathology and the noisemakers about my mother, her absence was an act of selflessness. She was selfless because she allowed my father and grandmother to raise me. This reflective paper includes examination of collected family stories, literature reviews and analysis of African Zulu proverbs as well as my own creative work, and seeks to reimagine my biological mother’s absence as an act of selflessness and an act of love.
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