Women hold Mexico together, but you’d never know it from Mexican slang
¡Qué padre! means “Great! Cool!” but anything to do with madre? Caution: bad language ahead
Socorro pulled four plump chayotes out of her bag, handing two of them to me as a gift. Chayote is one of my favourite Mexican vegetables. Sliced and boiled it is a mild translucent green with a firm, succulent texture.
“¡Qué padre!” I said in response to the chayote, trying out some slang I’d picked up in the classroom. Socorro laughed heartily, as if I were her clever girl. At times, Betty and I drove to the 1-room village school where we volunteered in her shiny red Jeep. “¡Qué padre!” the boys exclaimed, admiring its gleam.
Later that day, when we were in the market, Socorro dropped her bag and onions rolled between the swollen ankles of tourists. ¡Qué madre! I said, before bending to help her pick them up. She practically clapped her hand over my mouth and dragged me behind the nearest bush.
I was mystified. Why did ¡Qué padre! elicit an indulgent smile, and ¡Qué madre! cause her to flush with shame? I had obviously said something completely inappropriate for a mature gringa in public.
Qué padre and poca madre, one meaning a lot of father and the other not much mother, are both a good thing. If your soccer team wins, either will do.
In a country held together by women, and one in which the protective image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is everywhere revered, it’s a mystery to me why qué madre, which translates literally and innocuously as “what mother” should be vulgar. Qué desmadre is even worse, as in “What an effing mess!”
On the other hand, for no reason I can work out, a toda madre is a superlative: Esta fiesta está a toda madre. “This party is awesome.” Every other use of madre seems to range from vulgar to shockingly indecent.
One parent is very cool in Mexican slang and the other definitely not. In my ignorance in the market that day, I might just as well have exclaimed ¡Tu madre!
¡Tu madre! makes ¡Qué madre! look mild by comparison. It’s used colloquially as “screw you!” or “up yours!”. I have since learned that ¡Tu madre! is a short form of ¡chinga tu madre! The verb chingar means to rape. You see where this is going.
Vale la pena means “it’s worth it”, literally “the value is worth the sorrow”. So why wouldn’t me vale madres mean something like “I value mothers”. Nope. It means “Shit!” or “I don’t give a damn”. How would you know?
Since that look of Socorro’s in the market, I limit myself to a gentle ¡Ay mi madre! if I want to respond to a mild upset. Your shopping bag broke? ¡Ay mi madre! “My goodness! Heavens!”
The abuse of madre in Mexico is a good guide to its macho culture. Tough guys rule, and they don’t have much respect for women, with the exception of their own mothers to whom they are tender and gentle, even overtly sentimental. Madrecita, “little mother”, addressed to a man’s mother is a term of endearment, whereas mamacita, “little mama”, addressed to a girl in the street is aggressively suggestive.
Unlike other cultures, Quebec for example, where swearing derives from religion — Tabernac!, Mexican slang is largely based in sexual innuendo.
In Mexico, where men and fathers are often absent for a variety of complex reasons, women and mothers carry the load. Ask anyone and they’ll admit that it’s women who keep family and community together. So why does Mexican slang suggest just the opposite, and how come the more mother in any expression, the ruder it is?
This is the 10th story in the weekly publication A Remarkable Education: Lessons Learned in a Mexican Rural School. The next story describes a breakthrough teaching math in a 1-room village school.
The previous story describes the dedication of Mexico’s overworked and underpaid teachers.
Starting in the winter of 2009, Diane Douglas volunteered three years in the two-room school in the fishing village of Chacala, north of Puerto Vallarta. Since 2012, she’s been working to improve online learning at el Colegio Patria, a remarkable rural school in the poor, agricultural town of Las Varas.
