Passions, perils of motherhood: Mrs Museveni shares experience

By Angela Nampewo

When I started having children, we were living in a very difficult environment. We were refugees in another country. Everything was difficult. To begin with, I was a foreigner with no family of my own to back me up or give me advice and teach me how to take care of babies. It was just me and my husband. We got married in England but we were living in Tanzania at the time. That’s how we started our family.

Apart from being a mother, I was doing almost everything else. I was the housekeeper, the driver, the cook and everything else in between. And of course, I was a wife and companion to my husband.

Having children and knowing what to do with them was a whole new experience. However, we managed. This is mostly because our extended family teaches us how to deal with different types of people. As you grow up, you learn what to do with a baby, who may be a sibling or a relative. I believe that is the experience that helped me to cope when I started taking care of my own children initially.

However, there were also elderly people in Tanzania –– some of them from Uganda, who were kind, willing to give me advice and teach me what they knew.
My husband was taking care of the Ugandan problems. That meant that he was away from home most of the time. Therefore, I learned how to manage the home on my own and do all the chores that I have spoken about. I was happy whenever he came home but he would be home only for a brief period before going away again to take people into training or to be trained himself. That was the time when they were fighting Amin’s regime in Uganda.

Of course, my husband used to do the most crucial things that a father is expected to do. He provided a shelter for us, provided financial support whenever he was able to and helped me to make some of the decisions concerning our family. But he left the running of the family to me.

I think I was lucky to have had very good children and I cannot give credit only to myself or to my husband. I have said many times that we have very good children by the grace of God. I don’t think that we have done much more than other parents do. I know that sometimes parents have been disappointed in what their children have turned out to be, but that isn’t always because the parents have fallen short or haven’t done the right things.

I was lucky because our children became teenagers after we returned to Uganda. I believe that that was also by God’s design.
If we had been living in a country like Sweden when the children were teenagers, they would probably have turned out different. I was the only parent living with them and in Sweden, the social environment is different for children. There, the society has a culture that makes it difficult for children to submit to their parents’ guidance and authority. Children in those countries are told, from a very early age, that they are independent; that they are allowed to do whatever they want to, and no one is supposed to correct them. That kind of environment would probably have made my children difficult. However, by God’s grace, that is the time when we were able to come back home just in time.

When a family has both a father and a mother, children become more secure and both parents are there to help and guide them. I was lucky in that the children were not difficult when I was caring for them as a single parent. They never really became difficult as teenagers because their father was with us at the time and we both helped to mold them.

I believe I guided my children like every mother does with their children. I have taught my children how to live. You start with a baby and you literally bring them up to know how to eat, how to walk, how to talk and so on. You guide them in life. As the bible says, I have trained them in the ways they should go, and when they are grown up, they will not depart from them. God has taught them to be kind to people, to be upright and to be humble. I have taught my children the principles of humility, honesty, patience and self-control.

I want to dwell a little on the issue of humility. I believe that when human beings become arrogant, life humbles them. When you grow up as a humble person, God lifts you up. I have also taught my children to be resourceful and endeavour to become economically independent. I think that it is very important to teach young people how to respect work and to work hard. Almost anything you do can make money for you, if you do it diligently.

My mother taught me that it is not good to think too highly of yourself. Let others be the judge of your worth. At the same time, be confident about who you are and what you want to do and be in life. She taught me to be discriminating when choosing friends and the company I keep. She taught me to value and respect people, no matter what their station in life is.

My mother was a born-again Christian and she taught me the important legacy of knowing and loving God and believing that God loves me. I have tried to impart the same values to my own children.
I tell my children that the nature of things demands that when a human being grows up, they get married. That is the natural order of things, although there may be some exceptions. That is what the Christian faith teaches us –– that it is not good for one to be alone. I believe that people –– male and female should not live together without being married. Marriage means commitment. That is also our culture.

I told my children that when they become adults, the natural way is to establish lasting relationships with their friends and, in the process, select their spouses. That the people they eventually marry should have been their friends. I have also told my children that the act of sex belongs within the context of marriage, and therefore pre-marital and extra-marital sex is wrong.

This boyfriend/girlfriend concept is wrong, if it means that they must engage in pre-marital sex. We talked to our children and told them that when you look for a boyfriend or girlfriend, it must be for a specific purpose. Look for a friend whom you are ultimately going to get married to.

A child learns mostly by watching what the parents are doing at home; by practical example. So I was careful to live what I was telling them. I have taught them what to look for in a spouse. You shouldn’t look for someone with money, or a big job, or for wealth and material things. You look for friendship. You love a person and they love you back. You decide to get married because you like this person so much that you want to be with them all the time.

Thereafter, you stay committed to them, through thick and thin; you do not prove to be a fair-weather friend to the person you have sworn to live your life with all your life. This is the virtue of faithfulness.

I am grateful to God that my children have good friends who have become their spouses in marriage. However, even when they are grown and married, you never really think that your children are ‘finished business’. They become adults, then they become your friends but they always look to you to be their mother still, and you always see them as your children. They will always come back to you for advice and fellowship and you will want to know how they are getting on with their lives. You never say as a mother, “now am finished with you.”

This family tie is one of the important characteristics of the human species and it should be guarded and passed on as a very precious legacy from one generation to the next.”