Mothers are a pillar of strength not only for their children but for everyone around them. They provide warmth, kindness, and love to everyone, but, most of all, they are protective — protective of not only their children but every child around.
That is exactly what 26-year-old Lottie DeSouza has been doing for almost one decade since she became a mother. The Kildonan Village, Corentyne mother of six spends at least 18 hours working every day so that she can care for her children and provide them with the life they deserve.
Tony DeSouza, grandmother and three of the kids
DeSouza’s children are aged 17, 16, 13, 13, 12 and 9 and most are in school.
One may question how is it the 19-year-old can be the mother of a 17-year-old, but the answer is that three of the children are her husband’s from a previous marriage and she came into their lives after their mother abandoned them.
Now she works as a security guard and vends at the Port Mourant Market to subsidise whatever income is brought in by her husband Tony DeSouza.
In addition, she has taken in her grandmother, who raised her.
Lottie DeSouza
“I brought my grandmother to live with me, because she brought me up and I want to take care of her myself. I lived with my husband at his mother’s house until my grandmother who brought me up helped me to build a small house from there; we worked together to extend it little by little,” she said.
When Sunday Times Magazine caught up with the ambitious young lady, she related that she was only 17 years old when she got married. However, she became a mother to her first child when she was 16 and one year later, she was the mother to five.
When she started living with her husband, he had his three children and it was somewhat of a difficult process for the children to accept her as their new mother.
“It was difficult at first when I met him with three children, but then I got my first child and then it became even more difficult being a mother, being a young mother, with two young babies. It was hard for all of us. Me and the children and so,” she recounted.
The house which the De Souzas say needs extending
But DeSouza’s 42-year-old husband sees things differently. According to him, there were no challenges with his children accepting a new mother and also no challenges with his wife accepting him with three children when she had one which belonged to both of them.
For him, the challenges he faces were when he was a single parent.
“Before I started living with the woman who is now my wife, there was not too much that I could not manage. At that time, I used to work with the Local Authority and it was hard, because I had an eight-month-old baby and two other kids,” he noted.
17-year-old Vanessa and her mother at their vegetable stand at the Port Mourant Market
“She left the children on the street and just went away when I went to work,” he added, recalling how the mother of his older children abandoned.
Meanwhile, Lottie says things went quickly after she started living with Tony.
“After I take he, I got a second one (child) so fast, but nevertheless I never give up,” she says.
Lottie does not view her husband’s children any differently than hers. In fact, she works extra hard to make sure that they feel no different.
“… It is very difficult to get them to school. The first one is writing CSEC and I still have three more going to secondary school and my second daughter wrote the National Grade Six [Assessment], so it will be four attending secondary school and the last one will be in primary school,” Lottie explained.
Also, if one looks at the children, they would immediately know that they’re from different mothers but she reiterates that they are her children and no one can say otherwise.
“I would see him in the afternoon o n the road with the three children. Two in his hands and one on his neck every day. So, one day I asked him why it is that he is going on the road every afternoon with the children, because you never took them with him every afternoon and he explained and told me that she [their mother] left saying that she wanted to be free,” Lottie recounted when speaking about the events that led to her marriage to Tony.
Tony fishes and plants a kitchen garden and when it is available he works as a labourer on paddy trucks while Lottie works at a school as a security guard.
“Somebody told me that the company has vacancies and they took me on the same day that I went. The next morning, they called me and I turned on to work,” she said, while adding that she also sells fruits and vegetables at the Port Mourant Market daily.
According to her, she would leave home to get to the Market at 04:00h Monday to Saturday, and return home just in time to get to her security guard job.
“Life is very challenging, and even though it is not enough we are still trying to manage to provide the best life for our children,” she says.
The children, she says, are being deprived of some of the things she wishes she could have provided for them.
“Everyone normally use the Internet to do their school work and I cannot provide that service for the children. I wish that they had enough space. We have three rooms, two on the upper flat and one downstairs. The back room has two beds. My grandmother sleeps in the bedroom downstairs with my eldest son,” she detailed.
She added that all the children treat each other as equals and would get along great. They care for each other and ensure that they are kind and respectful. In fact, her youngest child spends more time with her husband’s eldest daughter.
“I have a very small shop that I opened in my yard and I trying to sell a little bit of everything and the children help me there a lot. Each one of them fights for their own day to sell,” she told this publication with a smile of satisfaction on her face.
For now, Lottie intends to continue working hard to meet the needs of her six children, and she is sure that one day they would be in a position to afford all the things they want.
