Elder and daughters compare mothering

Page 9

Times were hard when Eliza Potts first start raising a family back in the mid-1940s. As the wife of a Peigan Reserve rancher, living on an isolated farm, she had to haul water, chop wood and help look after the animals s well as cook, sew and wash, all by hand.

And with eight children, there was a lot of cooking and sewing.

I didn't even have a sewing machine," she remembers. "I made patched quilts and sewed their clothes all by hand. When I first got married, I was a bad cook and my husband would sometimes go home to his mother's house to eat. My mother-in-law helped me learn to cook, even to butcher a cow the right way, so you didn't waste a lot

of meat. Now I'm a real good cook," she laughs. "One of the best."

A lot of people in southwestern Alberta will agree about Eliza's cooking skills. Among her biggest fans, of course, are her own children and their families, a sizable group in itself.

Eliza now has 40 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren and all still live in the Brocket-Pincher Creek area west of Lethbridge. Family gatherings are common, with big get-togethers on holidays. But visits with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are an everyday occurrence.

As an active elder, concerned with helping both Natives and non-natives understand the Peigan culture, Eliza has also given many demonstrations of Native cooking and housekeeping skills in the community.

"I try to teach people about the traditional ways," Eliza says, "but only if they want to learn. Now my grandson is learning about the Indian culture at school, even the Blackfoot language. That's good to see."

Eliza is still learning about her heritage. Her own mother was raised in a boarding school from the age of seven and lost most of her Native beliefs and culture, but her grandmother still knew and believed in the old traditions. Eliza learned from her and

since then, from other elders.

"I had very low self-esteem when I was young," she says. "I was too busy just taking care of my children to think much about their future. I taught them how to work and help out and I worried about them later, when I had to send some to the boarding school. I really missed them, too."

Eliza says that being a mother today is very different from when her children were young. But while she sees some of the changes as negative, she thinks many good things have happened, too. Men are learning to share more of the chores around the home and life's a lot easier for women."

Eliza's daughters, Beverly and Karen Potts, agree with their mom about life being

a little easier, though both say it's largely because of things like disposable diapers and washing machines.

"We don't have to worry so much about mending the children's clothes," says Karen, the youngest daughter and a mother of four. "When they get torn, you go and buy new ones."

"But the women are still most responsible for the family," she adds. "That's the hardest thing about being a mother--being responsible for your children all the time. You don't have time for yourself. You can't just go out and do things."

Her older sister Bev, a mother of two little boys and a child care worker at the Peigan Day care Cente, agrees, though she jokingly adds that the "hardest thing about being a mother is being a wife. Seriously, it's hard to even agree about disciplining the children."

Both women also say it's a very different world now from when they were growing up.

"You're afraid to let your kids to out to play, to go anywhere on their own," says Karen. "I worry that my children will learn responsibility and know when to say no. You have to worry about their friends and about drugs and alcohol."

"I miss knowing about the Indian ways of doing things and speaking my own language. I think my children will have more opportunities than we did, but there aren't

a lot of jobs."

Karen echoes her concern bout work but also feels more recreational opportunities are needed.

"If there aren't things to do, the kids get bore and that's when they get into trouble. But my kids will be prouder to be Natives. My mother taught me about some of the traditional ways and I can make good bannock and dry my own meat. I'll pass this along to my children."