Motherhood is not “JUST” about babies
As a woman you get judged at every step. Society judges with their expectations, men judge you with their man invented concepts and alarmingly your own kind, other women, judge you and the actions you have done or you might not have done. As girls turn into young women, the clock is ticking until they meet their Prince Charming and enter into wifedom and eventual motherhood. If a woman chooses to surpass her ‘marriageable years’ and alas pursue a life of career then obviously, in the eyes of society, there is something amiss. The same would not be frowned on if a man was to follow a similar course of action. Driven, determined and successful are how people would refer to him. But say the doe eyed twenty something does meet her Prince Charming and enters into marriage. Then of course till she has little ones of her own, her family and friends will be questioning the arrival of the ‘stork’ on a daily basis. And if she chooses not to have children and just be married to the man she loves and pursue her career which she has ‘mothered’ garnering the right education from the time she was in elementary school, you can just hear the communal laughter at the absurdity of it.
Yes it’s tough being a woman. I say that not in jest, but as a woman living the ‘judged’ life. In all fairness, I have followed societal expectations, education followed by marriage and then kids. You think at this point you can throw up your hands and say ‘OKAY I’ve done my bit, let me go live my life now’. But as you enter motherhood you tend to give rise to another team of critical evaluators, your own peers. It starts from the moment your beautiful child enters the world. They’ tut’ in disbelief when they hear you didn’t opt for the 18 hours of labour but instead had a caesarian instead, you can hear the ‘doesn’t count you failed as a mother’ tone in their voices. Your mothering gets questioned if you don’t breast feed your child till such and such a date, only to then get criticized if you breast feed them for too long a time. From the issue of whether your baby wears diapers versus environmentally friendly nappies, from the type of formula you use to how you bring up your child, us mothers are vehemently harsh on each other.
So why ladies give ourselves such a hard time?. The existing views of society on women and marriage and children are age old notions, that we are trying to shift, but it is a slow process. To be such critical of each other is unnecessary. If the child misbehaves in public it is not the ‘mother’s’ fault, lunch boxes not being packed with homemade food does not immediately labelled us as delinquent mothers. As working mothers and stay at home mothers we have a lot going on, with looking after extended family, to our own family, running the household working on careers, the list is endless.
In our strict evaluation of each other we forget the one commonality that draws us all together we are all MOTHERS. So instead of finding fault at each other, should we not unite and take strength in number? Being a mother is not easy, unlike the jobs our husbands have we cannot go home at five or take weekends off. It is a 24/7 commitment on our part. We cannot be ‘fired’ as mothers, we are mothers for life so we have to get it right all the time. Saying this we also tend to forget what motherhood really is, it’s not just about the children we raise. The dictionary defines Motherhood as the kinship relation between an offspring and the mother. With all the external hoopla we forget that we are privileged to be in the most beautiful relationship in the world, mother and child. Motherhood is to love, to protect, to nurture to give of yourself unconditionally to another human being. It is not all about the right foods, the correct behavior and the academic success of your child. Do not forget the ‘YOU’ in this situation, for if we do motherhood tends to become a chore rather than an attained dream.
With three daughters at home I wish only the best for my girls. I hope society is kind to them and they are strong to not bow down to expectations but follow their own dreams and desires that bring them happiness and fulfillment. As a mother I hope that they become mothers too, so that they too can experience the beauty I have seen in their eyes, as my children, the unconditional love I have felt with their sweet kisses. Motherhood is beautiful, it's just not about raising babies.
By Mayuri Jayasinghe
Photographs courtesy Google
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