It is quite a traumatising affair to hear an infant cry almost incessantly especially when you can’t fathom what is troubling the child so much and can do scant little to make him stop crying! It is little wonder that post-partum depression is so common in the West, where women have absolutely no relief from their baby’s wailing and the consequent stress.
Yet, I find myself rather uncompromising and unforgiving towards women who think their only duty lies in giving birth to the baby and they have little responsibility towards bringing up the child, leaving it to the grandparents to run after the child. Why should the grandparents be responsible for the child’s upbringing? Haven’t they already done their fair share of work when they brought up their own children? I am not saying that new mothers do not need or deserve help – they do. But "help" is different from handing the baby over to the mother or expecting the mother-in-law to run the house for you because you are now otherwise occupied! In an age, when we are so eager to claim credit for every thing we achieve and beat our chests in triumphant independance as soon as we can, is it fair to drag our parents back into the realm of family responsibilities just because we haven’t planned our lives properly and don’t want to compromise or sacrifice anything? It is hardly taboo any more to not have children at all or have just one child, then why must people produce children when they have neither the time nor inclination to look after them?
Perhaps I’m being unreasonable and harsh but I also fail to see light when women these days make it seem like the fact that they’ve given birth to a child and are making adjustments in their life, makes them worthy of an award. Our mothers have all done it, sometimes with far greater responsibilities to shoulder and much lesser help, facilities and knowledge at hand. I don’t see any of them queuing up for the Padma Vibhushan. There are few women these days who I can truly admire as mothers, where I see a certain balance and sense being applied to the whole process of pregnancy, post-natal adjustment and then bringing the child up (J and S being two of them)…and them I truly admire, because I also admit that bringing up a child is no easy task at all! Having said all of this, I must admit that I hope I never live to see the day where I am forced to eat these words and retract my statements.
1 comment:
whoa! what triggered that??
and while i agree with some of what you have said, please do realise that this generation of mothers grew up conditioned to a life outside of home and hearth as well. their reactions have less to do with lack of time and inclination and more to do with TERROR and feelings of inadequacy at being responsible for a small human being who cannot communicate other than through fluent gibberish. also no amount of preparation is enough when a new mom realises that for the next 20 years of her life, she is stuck with the feelings of "is she ok?", "why is she crying?", "why is she not crying?" all the way till the questions turn into "why is still not home?", "is she ok?", "is she happy?" enough to scare the most formidable, eager and willing of mothers, i assure you.
mothers, till the eighties, did it more by rote, by conditioning. next came the generations cursed with 'involved parenting' where there is tons of gyaan on do's and don'ts of parenting, and how well your child is brought up reflects on you.
this generation of moms have paragons of virtue as their own mothers, everything they read / hear/ see adds to the feeling of being inadequate for this huge task...all put together, it is simply an easier solution to depend on someone else.
sorry for the looong comment, but all i can say is,
judge not too harshly ma petite :-)
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