Her South African daughters call her Mama Oprah.
What an honor to be called Mama by such an extraordinary group of young women. It's a fitting tribute to pay the honorary mother figure who has become the girls' hero.
In 2007, at the age of fifty-three, Oprah Winfrey, became mother to one hundred and fifty
daughters. Two years later, she invited twice the number of girls to The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. The Leadership Academy came to fruition after Oprah pledged to former South African Prime Minister, Nelson Mandela, that she would build a school in South Africa.
Oprah speaks often about having Aha! Moments'. That moniker is widely used by many in pop culture today when referring to ones own personal revelations, acts of self-discovery, or spiritual awakening.
Conceiving The Leadership Academy concept was perhaps Oprah's brightest Aha! Moment,' and she turned it into something big. Having no biological children didn't stifle one of her biggest dreams, which was to help other women help their own children. Asked on numerous occasions why she didn't start a family of her own, Oprah's response has always been reflective, that she had a belief in something greater than herself.
The Leadership Academy expresses what that belief entailed. In her daughters, Oprah recognized herself in their faces and stories. These daughters experienced the same fractured, less than ideal, home environment that Oprah grew up in. Many girls, orphaned early in life, were being raised by older siblings; others were looked after by aunties and grandmothers who desperately struggled to support them.
Perhaps the need to help her daughters (who lived in impoverished circumstances as she herself did in childhood) might have been less important to Oprah had she borne her own children. Ultimately, she chose to become the girls' surrogate mother.
How curious is it that the unlikely figure who has never raised a child of her own can become the mother to so many?
For starters, Oprah tapped into something that was missing from her own life motherhood. And, like mothers everywhere, she wears many hats. She is also everything a mother is. Oprah teaches, she mentors, she nurtures, she liberates, she entertains, she gives, she embraces, and she loves. Being a talk show host, she's also mastered the art of listening.
Like her daughters, Oprah has felt the painful sting from being shuttled from one home to another. She has lived with her struggling mother, her strict father, and her loving grandmother for a time. But Oprah always remembered the wise counsel told by grandmother Hattie Mae Lee, about always giving back what she received. And, with her giving spirit, Oprah has given back, in droves.
Grandmother Hattie Mae Lee's wise words about giving back were crucial. The Big Give (the defunct reality show), Oprah's Favorite Things, The Angel Network, and The Leadership Academy are all strong reminders of what Oprah gave back at HARPO.
HARPO Studios (home of the Oprah Show) is run by a tight-knit group of female staffers including an executive producer and nine producers. For over twenty years, Oprah has worked with a large team of women who held enormous responsibilities by coordinating hectic work schedules with marriage and family.
From these women and countless other female friends (who are mothers themselves), Oprah has learned first-hand about motherhood. She's been front row and center studying her friends' lives and living vicariously through them. Oprah has also learned in her supporting role of godmother to Kirby, the daughter of her closest and dearest friend, Gayle King. Oprah is also stepmother (so-to-speak) to Wendy, the daughter of her longtime companion, Stedman Graham.
Oprah gets it'. She understands the trials and tribulation mothers endure. A popular phrase of hers is motherhood is the hardest job in the world'. When her former senior producer, Mary Kay Clinton, left the Oprah Show to stay home full-time to raise her daughter, she resigned with Oprah's full support, blessing, and complete understanding. Oprah has remained extremely close to Mary Kay, and her daughter, Katy Rose, another of Oprah's godchildren.
Oprah has become a mother, not through pregnancy or adoption, but by understanding a mother's heart. Her desire to help parents become better parents for their children's sake confirms that. She has disclosed that devoting time to motherhood herself would be an impossible task because of the size and scope of her empire. Musing jokingly, she has expressed "that's why I have dogs."
To the families of her daughters, Mama Oprah affirms "your daughters are now my daughters and I promise you I'm going to take care of your daughters. I promise you."