Godmotherhood: A Role Without Instructions
It is Mother’s Day in America, and in many other parts of the world too. It is also my Ukrainian Godson's birthday...
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It is Mother’s Day today in America, and in many other parts of the world too. I woke early, emotional for reasons I couldn’t entirely identify, and sat thinking not only about motherhood, but about godmotherhood, because today is also my youngest godchild’s birthday. He turned three years old in Ukraine.
I cannot begin to imagine what it must feel like to raise a child in a country at war. To wake each morning calculating safety, warmth, food, electricity, hope. To try and keep a small person entertained and reassured while the larger world behaves incomprehensibly. And in all of this was I being enough of a godparent? (I wrote about this Christening in Ukraine here) And then I found myself wondering: what exactly is a good godparent? I have thirteen Godchildren. Flattering and faintly alarming. Although there comes a point where one slightly wants to announce a formal retirement from godparenting “Due to emotional overbooking, India regrets she is unable to take on further spiritual dependents.” But of course, one never says no. Particularly not when a child is born during war. Then the request feels less ceremonial and more profound. Almost like being entrusted with a fragment of someone else’s hope. Traditionally, godparents existed to guide a child spiritually should anything happen to the parents. In practice, I think the role has evolved into something both vaguer and more meaningful. A godparent becomes part witness, part safety net, part storyteller, part extra adult standing slightly outside the immediate machinery of parenting. I had five godparents myself. Some were excellent. Some entirely useless. One I met only once as a child, at his enormous estate in England. I remember being ushered into a dark library where he sat behind an immense leather desk looking less like a duke and amore like a disappointed headmaster. He opened a drawer, removed a vast cheque book, took out an ink pen and wrote me a cheque for one hundred pounds. At the age of nine, this appeared to me to be roughly equivalent to the GDP of a small nation. I never saw him again. Other godparents were quieter, steadier figures. They appeared at christenings and confirmations. They remembered birthdays and Christmases. They asked questions. They showed up consistently, if not dramatically. When David and I chose godparents for our own children, we didn’t choose only close friends. We chose people from different worlds, different beliefs, different backgrounds. We had one godparent who was Buddist, and before the christening in our small traditional English church we felt obliged to mention this to the priest beforehand, slightly nervously. He did not bat an eyelid. I loved him for that. My mother has always spoken passionately about the importance of understanding other faiths, other cultures, other ways of seeing the world. Not simply tolerating difference, but living alongside it with generosity and curiosity. Raising children to understand that goodness exists everywhere, and that difference is not something to fear. Perhaps that too is part of godparenting. Not simply buying silver mugs or remembering birthdays, although both are admirable qualities. But helping enlarge a child’s understanding of the world. Do children actually need perfect godparents? Perhaps they simply need present ones. Adults who notice them. Adults who remember who they are becoming. Still, when I think of my tiny godson in Ukraine today, turning three years old amidst circumstances none of us would choose, the role suddenly feels less decorative and more ancient. More necessary. To become a godmother to a child born into uncertainty feels like saying: Your life matters to people beyond your immediate family. Beyond your country. Beyond this moment. And perhaps that, in the end, is the real role of a godparent. To quietly remind a child, throughout their life, that they are not alone in the world. Happy birthday, Zakhar.
And Thank you JP Lindsley, the American journalist in Kyiv, who deliveries daily, stories from inside Ukraine, in clear and human terms and recently included me in his ‘Voices of the Fight’
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