Motherhood Revisited - A Dissenting Prespective

“Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind.” 
― Howard W. Hunter

Come “Mother’s Day” and the internet is full of “inspirational” quotes like the one above. Hallmark and Archie’s gift shop do more than their fair share of “marketing” the essence of motherhood through various merchandise. “Motherhood”, after all, is a once in a life-time experience which every woman is assumed to be yearning for. The desire to give birth and to bring up a child (or two, or several, depending upon your social context) is seen as “inherent” to being a woman. 

The feeling of maternity is seen as an exclusive domain of the female lot, regardless of the species. The notion that nothing less than motherhood “completes” a woman is engrained in the psyche of every girl from the moment she is able to comprehend her surroundings.Becoming a mother is attached  the highest degree of value in any given society, so much so, that in the “unfortunate” event, in which a woman is unable to bear a child,  she is regarded as someone who is “inferior” to the rest of the female population, that has  had the privilege of having a child.  As a society we have placed our mothers and motherhood on such a high moral pedestal that people will do just about anything to achieve this; from visiting a plethora of fertility clinics, to subjecting their bodies to a battery of tests and if you happen to be in the South- Asian part of the world, visiting various  religious institutions and   self proclaimed yogis. One leaves no stone unturned to prescribe to this particular social norm.

Motherhood, in any social context, especially in the Indian one, is treated as a logical extension of a man- woman relationship and not as a conscious choice. Women and men, who treat this matter with the seriousness that it requires and take a conscious decision to limit the number of children they want or not have children at all, are all but ridiculed by people around them. The fate of the latter group is even worse. They are treated as people running away from their responsibility, someone who does not want a child to “interfere” in  her / his  path of reaching the zenith of their career.

The social context that I am a part of, does not  teach us  to pause and ponder on the reason a person would want a child or how a child can add value to our lives, apart from just adding value to the number of members in the family. Perhaps if we did that, we would have children for the right reasons and not just because the biological clock is ticking away.

Motherhood is a measure of a woman’s self worth. It is a certificate of her being “complete”. No woman can achieve the virtues of patience and forgiveness so treasured by the moral watch dogs of our society if she is not a mother. A woman who is not a mother, i.e. by choice or circumstances is someone to be pitied, someone who will forever yearn for the “missing” part and never be completely happy. “Too career oriented and/ or too ambitious” are the words used for a woman who refuses to bow down to the social pressure to have children at the “right” time, as if wanting to advance in their career or wanting to touch the heights in one’s chosen profession is something that only men are allowed and expected to do.

I have had the opportunity to work with women line managers, who have either chosen to remain single or not to have children once married. Excellent, efficient and diligent in their work, these women were always judged on their choices and a direct co-relation was established between their ability and their choice, where none existed. Late nights in office were not because the work demanded it, but because “after all she does not have to take care of children” and an excellent presentation was not due to extensive resrearch and good oratory skills, but because “she had too much spare time to devote to the presentation”.

 With more and more women choosing to go for higher studies and being economically self sufficient before deciding to “settle down”, the age of marriage for girls has gone up and consequently the age of child-birth has advanced as well. This trend is more often than not accompanied by  pressure from the  family and society at large, to have children very early in married life. My contemporaties who are in their early to mid 30s with a married life avergingtwo years, are constantly asked about giving the “good news” ( A euphemistic way of asking the poor couple about the arrival of a child). All of us who have taken an informed decision not to have children, either, now or later,haveto often justify our choice to all and sundry, just because we have decided to take the “road less traveled”.

Each one of us  is complete in ourselves. It doesn’t take a child and  certainly not the notion of motherhood to complete a woman. Let the entry of a child be an event you wanted to happen to you rather than what social norms dictate.