‘Thula mama’: ‘hush, mother’. The title of this chapter represents an inversion of words said by mothers to babies over countless generations, words inspiring many South African lullabies and the famous ‘hush little baby, don't you cry’, originating in Africa and sung by mothers to their children around the world. It has been chosen for the title of this chapter precisely because of its inversion of the subject: the words are surprising because the commonly received idiom is ‘thula baba’. The mother is expected to be the speaker of these words, but not their subject. This chapter takes as its focus the mother's subjectivity from the position of speaking subject. Within this, there is another reason for the title being chosen: ‘Hush little baby, don't you cry’ implies the centrality of the baby and his/her needs and emotions, and thereby the unimportance of the mother's needs and emotions. It is immediately followed, however, by ‘mama's gonna sing you a lullaby’. The lullaby encapsulates one of the central paradoxes of motherhood: in the very moment that the mother is effaced, her voice and her words are there to comfort and also to create. The lullaby creates comfort and beauty for both the baby and the mother, because it belongs to the mother, given to her by her mother. Perhaps lullabies are the beginnings of women's writing. Mama is speaking of her love for her baby as well as of her fears. By stepping into the perspective of her baby, she is most able to be a mother herself.

While acknowledging that the subjectivity of the mother can never be separated from concern for her baby, this chapter nonetheless takes as its focus ‘thula mama’ and not ‘thula baba’. The chapter seeks the HIV-positive mother's identity as a mother and from the mother's point of view – the moments in interviews when women spoke about what it meant for them to be mothers, sometimes selfishly, often apologetically, anxiously, sometimes almost accidentally.