Lala Tuku is not only a successful and an inspirational South African businesswoman but is also a proud mother of two. The media maven, who wears varying hats from presenter, actress, voice-over artist and entrepreneur, has graced the South African entertainment industry for over two decades now and is also the co-founder of the Africa Rising International Film Festival (ARIFF) – a film celebratory platform that seeks to “unite emerging filmmakers with established vanguards from the African soil as they pass on the filmmaking baton.”

 

The busy mama to a 15 year old son and an 18 year old daughter spared a few minutes to share with us what the motherhood journey means to her. We hope you find inspiration that ‘women can have it all’.

 

Enjoy!

 

What is your favourite thing about being a mother?  It definitely has to be that fact that I am able to bring up two amazing human beings and leave a lineage. I think they contribute immensely to my sense of purpose and they are really cool. There’s a lot of laughter (LOL). I get to have mini-mes, who are always around me, and bring a huge sense of purpose and focus. 

 

When you look at motherhood, did it exceed your expectations and in what way? I think motherhood has given me more than I could have ever imagined, so yes indeed it has exceeded my expectations. The idea and the modelling that I had was of my mother and my two grandmothers – both maternal and paternal, with their fearless love and support for me. I was those mothers who read all magazines I could get my hands on at the time and I used to ask a lot of questions. So I thought I was prepared but their (children’s) arrival was a whole different experience. Just that moment when you hold them in your hands, I think for me, was overwhelming. It was overwhelming love, overwhelming joy, overwhelming abundance but equally overwhelming fear, stress and responsibility. So it was overwhelming in its totality. 

 

What do you wish you knew about motherhood before conceiving that you now wish new mommies know? I think that once you become a mother, you inherently and automatically are faced with a human being that is totally reliant on you. The fact that they were 100 % solely reliant on me, particularly when they were new-born up until the age of about 13-years-old, meant that they had no one else. So what one tends to do in that situation is to give off themselves fully and that would mean some parts of you can be neglected. And little do you know that you need to be a full cup before you can give into any other cup. What would be great for new mothers to know is that looking after yourself and honouring yourself is an act of love to your children. If you want to love them, you have to love yourself. A tired, groggy, stressed, overwhelmed mom is also causing them stress. One of the things that I would really put at the top of the list is to into yourself as much as you pour into them.

 

 

 

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: “parenting is a thankless job”? LOL. Yeah, it is a thankless job if you want to put it that way but I think that as much as it might appear as one, when you have your child look at you in the eyes and you have that love back and share those special moments, it really is one of the most rewarding jobs. No pay, no bonuses, no leave, and I can say it is one of the most demanding jobs I’ve ever done. But I think for me, how I get my gratitude is in just seeing them thrive, being happy and taking all the learnings from life, and from me where I’ve been intentional and use them in their lives. I always talk about positive affirmations and I always talk about self-care, and these are some things that my children have adopted. Just seeing them live and become great people is the thank you that I get. 

 

How do you juggle managing a successful career and being a mom?  In an interview I did two weeks ago, the question was “Can women have it all?”

 

I think it is a very personal and multi-layered question and what is this all? How do we define the all? So juggling a career and parenthood becomes that family life-work-study balance kind of thing. It’s all about balance for me. So what leads and guides me is how do I balance my life. I juggle these two by being very intentional in all the spaces. So if I am with the children, and yes I may not win 100% of the time, but I try to be intentional when I am with them by putting my phone away. And if I am at work, I am at work.

 

But it is a very very tricky thing. Also our environments at work don’t enable us to be available for our children all the time. As women, particularly as executives, we are consistently expected to show up, at home we are expected to show up 100%. So it is very demanding physically, emotionally and psychologically. But I’ve learnt, over time, to schedule. I plan and plan and plan again. 

 

What are some of the motherhood myths that you only realised are myths once you became a mommy?  One of the biggest myths is that mothers always know why their babies cry LOL. No we don’t, we don’t know why they cry. And I remember even when they were very little I would wonder ‘Oh my goodness, why are they crying?’. A trip I once took with my children, my son cried for three hours non-stop and although I did all the tricks in the world, I couldn’t figure out why. Until I put him in a bath and because we had gone to the beach, he was crying because he had sand in his bums and that caused an irritation LOL. And as soon as we washed that off, he was fine.

 

And even as they grow up, you never know what’s going on with them and you have to be so intentional in being present and with them being able to talk to you. It is also important to remember that it doesn’t mean you are a bad mother when you don’t know what’s happening in your children’s lives. 

 

What are some of the things that you prioritize as a mother?  One of my most important things that I do, and I am very intentional about, is understanding my children and them understanding me so we both come to a place where we can all be sympathetic towards each other. That stems from me wanting to be very vulnerable with my children so they can be vulnerable with me. I think when you understand your children, through the many phases that they go through in life, it has helped me navigate some very tough and challenging moments.

 

 

 

 

 

What is the one thing that you want all mothers to know? (affirmation)  I am happy to share an affirmation that I use as a mother and it has really gotten me through some crossroad moments in my life that were very tough. 

 

I am proud of who I am as a person and as a mom! I am proud. 

 

This affirmation gives me permission to know that I do enough, that I am doing my best and that I can really be proud of myself. It’s not often that we get affirmed, so one has to learn to affirm themselves and be confident and proud of the work that they do. 

 

Complete the sentence… Since I’ve been a mommy, I….

Since I’ve been a mommy, I have learnt the deepest form of love. It’s non-judgmental and it’s safe. It’s my heart outside my body. The love that I have for my children has been unexplainable and that has been one of the most incredible things.