We celebrate Mother’s Day on the first Sunday of May. It is the day of the guardian of the family hearth, the nurturer of children, the first teacher of diligence, language and kindness, the guardian of customs, songs and fairy tales, and the mother-creator. Mothers shape our personality more than anyone else, pass on the experience of previous generations and the wisdom of the nation; they teach us about life, and how to love our homeland. A child must get three lessons from his mother every day: love, wisdom and health. According to Vincas Kudirka, a famous Lithuanian doctor, prose writer, poet, and the author of the Lithuanian national anthem, moral foundations also contribute to success in children’s life. We are going to talk about the miracle of personal and “professional” motherhood, about love in our home and our “academic” home with Prof. Vaiva Hendrixson, the Vice–Dean for Studies at the Faculty of Medicine of Vilnius University.
Dear Professor, Mother’s Day is one of the most beautiful spring holidays. It has deep traditions not only in Lithuania, but also across the world. This is the day when our warmest feelings, words and flowers are dedicated to the person closest to us – our mother. Happy Mother’s Day to you! What does this day mean for you?
I associate Mother’s Day with spring, the awakening of nature, flowering, love and returning home. Wherever I am, on the first weekend of May I try to go to my hometown to visit my mother. As far back as I remember, no matter how busy I am, I always spend Mother’s Day with my mother.
Where are you from? Who is your mother and how did she influence your personality? What family traditions do you continue to uphold?
I was born and grew up in Rokiškis, in the north-east of the ethnographic area of Aukštaitija, however our home has always been full of the spirit of the ethnographic area of Dzūkija where my mother comes from. My mother has maintained the traditions and dialect of her ethnographic area and even my father, originally from Aukštaitija, learned some of the nuances of her dialect.
Both my parents were historians who graduated from Vilnius University and were sent to work at the regional museum in Rokiškis. My mother was a long-standing director of Rokiškis Regional Museum and dedicated her entire career to it. Even today she gets invited to conduct educational events and to give tours of the museum for special guests of Rokiškis.
I love my mother very much and I am extremely proud of her. My mother is a very charismatic person and probably everyone in Rokiškis knows her. She is also incredibly modest. She may have inherited it from her dad, my grandfather, who used to say: “Don’t get in anyone’s way, be smaller than the grain of poppy, but always listen to your conscience, and know that such people will be noticed by the world sooner or later.”
I have been learning to be tolerant, to be able to listen, to be patient and love a person and work from my mother. I grew up in a family which nurtures such values as honesty, morality and respect for the other, which some may find “outdated” today. Since my mother is particularly interested in ethnic culture, folklore and customs, we have always observed traditions in our home. Even in Soviet times, we celebrated Christmas Eve at the table covered with a white tablecloth and 12 dishes and played games; we dyed and rolled eggs at Easter, we made masks and fried pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, and we cooked omelettes at Pentecost. These are some of my most wonderful childhood memories.
My mother is very resourceful, she would think of a variety of tales and stories which were part of my beautiful childhood. I am the only child in the family, so my mother has always been my best friend; I can confide all my secrets, share my joys with her and comfort her. I try to nurture the traditions my mother has passed to me in my family and to involve my children in them. Although I don’t think I am doing very well, because my children look forward more to their grandmother’s Christmases.
What are you grateful for as a result of motherhood? Do you have a recipe for happy motherhood?
It is a great joy to be a mother. At the same time, it is a worry and a responsibility. I have a son, Adomas, and a daughter, Mėta. My son is a second-year student at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and my daughter is in tenth grade. I love my children very much. I cannot imagine life without them. They bring fullness, joy and meaning to my life. I think every mother would sacrifice her own life for her child. One of the most difficult moments was to see my son go off – I was very tearful. But I realized that these were tears of joy that Adomas had grown up and was becoming independent. It is good to see your children grow, mature and make their own life choices. Although I feel sad that they are not at home, modern technologies allow us to see our children and chat every day. We do this with Adomas, we even fry pancakes via messenger.
The recipe for happy motherhood is a happy mother. If the mother is happy, then the relationship in the family will also be happy. And the mother is happy when the children are happy, when the family are together, and when family members share love and friendship. Then you rush home after work, you fly back from far away because love and longing for loved ones takes you back.
What, in your opinion, teaches one to be a mother?
Motherhood is encoded in a woman, it is a woman’s instinct, it is a woman’s existence and essence. Purely physiologically speaking, it is oxytocin. I think that we learn to be mothers from our own mothers. We each carry a “picture” of our mother, which we consciously or subconsciously transfer into our relationship with our own children.
Do you think it is more important in a mother’s life to climb the ladder of motherhood or the career ladder?
It is a difficult question whether to prioritise motherhood or your career. It seems to me that it is possible to combine both if you make an effort. So it is important both to be a good mother and to climb the career ladder. In order to achieve this more easily, you need a good father who will help you be a good mother. I am really lucky in this case. Of course, sometimes I have sad thoughts, a feeling of guilt that I am not always there when my children need me. I remember how sad I was when I had to miss my daughter’s Christmas performance due to a business trip. You always wish to spend as much time as possible with your children. Although, I think, it is a mistake to “own” them or “interfere” in all moments of their existence. After all, children also have their “secret” lives, their secrets, their friends and desire to be alone.
What is the ideal day for you as a mother?
An ideal day would be to spend the whole day with my family, for example, traveling. We love traveling. However, my career as a lecturer and a researcher, allows me to have such “ideal” days only during the holidays. The plus side is that my holidays are long (smiling).
For me, the best day is Saturday. On that day I try not to do any work as a lecturer, researcher or deputy dean. It is dedicated exclusively to my family. Then I am just the mother. All of us do something together, watch movies, play board games (my children love them, the more complicated the game the better) or just talk about everything.
Have there been any funny stories, decisive moments and unique incidents related to motherhood in your personal and professional life?
There are always some funny stories involving children. Both my children are wonderful, they are opposites that cannot be apart: Adomas is precise, specific, logical-mathematical thinking. He is excellent at strategic games. Mėta is very creative and full of dreams, an artistic soul always with a pencil in her hand.
Most stories involved Adomas, who has had an uncompromising opinion from an early age. On one occasion I nearly had to explain to the child rights protection officers. This is what happened briefly. It was maybe October or November, the weather was nippy. I needed to go to the shops. Since my husband was away, I took my three-year-old son with me. We had just come back to Vilnius after one and a half years in Singapore where the weather was always warm. Back at home in Vilnius, Adomas did not want to wear warm clothes. I could not make him wear a jacket however hard I tried. I had to go to the shop, because we had nothing to eat. There were no home delivery services like Barbora today. Finally, I lost my patience and thought that if he goes out wearing short sleeves, he will get cold and will get dressed. And it will be a good lesson for him. I took his jacket with me. And so we left: I wore a jacket, a scarf and gloves, and my son wore short sleeved clothes. Adomas, however, refused to put on his jacket on a cold autumn day. We were on our way to the shop when a woman saw us and she called the Child Rights Protection Services. Now, when I look back at it, it is funny, but it was not funny then.
You are the Vice–Dean for studies of the Faculty of Medicine, the largest at Vilnius University. The students (especially foreigners) love you and call you “mother”. Our alumni remember the warmth of your heart, sensitivity and desire to help as an integral and most beautiful part of their studies. What is the secret of your love for your “academic” children?
I have no secrets (smiling). It seems to me that the most important thing is attitude and the communication culture. I always try to communicate with students in the same way as I do with colleagues. I try to listen to them and give advice. Not to criticize or judge. To listen, hear and respond. These are the basic principles I observe. And communicating with foreign students, the aspect of intercultural communication is very important. I think I am a very tolerant person, I admire cultural differences, other traditions, ethnic and linguistic diversity. I consider myself a world citizen and I appreciate that the Faculty of Medicine has become a welcome home to foreign students, children from many countries and cultures.
What would you like to say to all our beloved mothers at our Alma Mater?
Firstly, I would like to wish all mothers good health. May they be loved and loving, caring, sensitive, able to comfort and forgive, welcoming and welcomed. May they always have only the best memories. May those they are waiting for always return home.
