When You Go Hard Your Nays Become Yays — Here’s What I Meant
If your mother didn’t go hard, you wouldn’t be here.
I used this line as the second-last chapter of my book for a reason.
All the other chapters have a line from a famous hip-hop artist. A male hip-hop artist. I use these male and female distinctions as far as genetic sexes go.
However, this one line is mysterious to many who have read my book.
When you go hard your nays become yays — Nicki Minaj
I’ll clarify it here.
You will note that the same song is my females. There’s a reason
I came to win, to fight
I represent an entire generation — Nicki Minaj
You cannot exist without females.
There are many reasons why this is the case.
The obvious is you are a product of a sexual merger. The genetic component you own was shared between your father and your mother. The merger created you. I call this the conjugal handshake.
But genes just don’t cut it.
That girl you fancy is more than the back of her jeans. She’s more than her genes. Genes need context.
So they swim in cellular pools. They exist inside the matrix of fluid called cytoplasm.
With rare exemptions, this plasm is solely inherited from the mother. In terms of volume, your father contributed very little at the cellular level. As far as your mother is concerned, she was the leading investor in your well-being.
I am not talking about the nine months she kept you warm and fed. I am talking about the energy you use every day.
Every.
Single.
Day.
It comes from a small microbe — the mitochondria.
This cellular engine powers the most recent newborn and the ever-changing list of the richest people in the world. They owe it all the mitochondria, and yet, few honor them.
Prof. Nick Lane has dedicated a book to capture the astounding properties of this in-house organism. And I could not think of a better title than Power, Sex, Suicide. These are the roles of the mitochondria, which, need I remind you again, come from the mother.
Sex — it’s obvious.
Power — in whichever form you can think of, and then the biological.
Suicide — cell destruction and death become irreversible once the mitochondria give in.
In short, females contribute a lot. They came to win. They came to thrive. But before thriving, they have to survive.
I came to win, to survive
For the women to survive, they go through 9 months of risk.
Pregnancy is a risk state.
First, you now have to work for two. Eat for two. Breathe for two. Some have to do it for three in the case of twins. Or four.
The pressure can be too much at the beginning. Every morning can be a reminder. A retching reminder.
Morning sickness.
It can get worse because vomiting reduces the flow of essential electrolytes in your body. But that is not all.
For close to nine months the growing child increased the volume beneath your mother’s diaphragm. It could then not flatten as it used to. Besides just kicking your mother, which would bring her joy at times, you would also leave her breathless.
But she had to soldier on.
The pressure can be too much. So much so that she develops high blood pressure. With high blood pressure, it might start knocking down the crucial organs — the kidneys and the brain.
If the kidneys get affected, you might start seeing her legs swell. If it is not addressed in time, she might get lightning flashes. And convulse.
It might have bad repercussions for the developing human. For the growing child. But if she cares enough, she would have started attending antenatal clinics to prevent that from happening.
The same pregnancy state predisposes them to get clots inside their blood vessels. If these clots find their way to your mother’s heart, the only home you could have known would have been inside your mother’s womb.
But there’s good news. Majority survive this state. We are glad that they do.
But I am not done.
See we become alive at the time of fear
The worst time comes when the bay is ready to come out.
If it is not wedged properly, it might have a long red-carpet moment. It might get stuck in the passage, which might result in a lot of bleeding.
But let’s say it passed well.
The mother might still bleed a lot if she has no experienced personnel surrounding her. It might be because of three major delays.
- Delay to make a decision to get to a well-equipped facility.
- Delay en route to the facility.
- Delays within the facility.
Let us say our mother was surrounded by an experienced and well-equipped team. She still might have lost enough blood to cause another brain-related disease.
Pregnancy is a risk state.
With the increasing number of women seeking education, more would want to be sure of a good outcome for their children. So Caesarian sections are on the rise in many countries.
Caesarian sections are one of the bloodiest surgeries you will ever witness. Why? More than 50 percent of the mother’s circulating blood goes to the uterus.
Doctors operate in a blood pool.
But as I said again, females came to survive. Mothers made it long before these facilities existed.
Even after going through the hardships of pregnancy, for a long time, their relevance has been swept under the rug.
When you sweep too much the rug gets smaller. Eventually, what is underneath becomes visible.
The hidden figures and figurines stem out.
Not just the role of mothers, but that of microbes too. Microbes were there with you, forging relationships with your mother. They still stick around even after you start breastfeeding.
Milk creates the right balance of nutrients. It provides the right composition for various intestinal microbes.
Mothers go big.
And they go hard.
And eventually, they prosper.
When you go hard your nays become yays.
Does the line make sense now?
Maybe a little context might help:
Cry my eyes out for days upon days
Such a heavy burden placed upon me
But when you go hard your nays become yays
Yankee Stadium with Jays and Kanyes
With every hurdle they surmount, they move closer to producing their children.
I used the line to capture human mothers. But in the wild, there are many different cases. Some mothers get devoured by their children while still inside their womb. Some mothers decapitate their mates when mating.
But for those who end up surviving, their nays become yays.
I do not belittle any other person who is not female or a mother.
But you have to admit — they came to win.
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