by Anupama Krishnakumar
Hello World, I am a mother. I work at a construction site. I carry bricks and cement on my head sweating profusely under the sweltering heat, my skin singed recklessly by the blazing sun. My seven-year-old daughter plays by a pool of dirty construction water and my one-year-old younger one sleeps in a makeshift bed under the tree near the construction site. I am torn between two worlds – my work and my children. I work and then run to feed my baby, I wonder what she gets out of my lifeless breasts – measly quantities of milk, that’s all. I constantly keep an eye on her as she sleeps, for I am worried that birds might just land up from nowhere and peck her tender skin. I work under the lecherous gaze of the contractor, who stares shamelessly at my shins and waist when I tuck my saree up to climb the half-done stairs. And even as I climb, I am worried about my older daughter. Would she be in danger? Would she be harassed in subtle ways that she wouldn’t even realise what’s happening to her or loud ways that would make her cry in agony? Every single day at work, I look forward to it ending not with happiness, but without any mishap. That’s all I want. Nights are a different story. I get beaten up by a drunken, good-for-nothing, jobless husband while the entire neighbourhood watches in silence. Later they say, I bear it all because I am a mother to two. I am sticking along for my children’s sake, they opine. I work, I earn, I look after my children, I run the family. Yet, I live a life without dignity.
World, will you stop glorifying motherhood for your own means? Will you just let me be?
Hello World, I am a mother. I am cringing with pain after delivery. I can’t sit. I am bleeding. My breasts are sore because of feeding. My baby doesn’t sleep during nights. I have to sit up with an aching body and a fatigued mind while everyone sleeps. I feel like shouting at the world, I want to ask everybody to get lost. I want to sleep. I want to rest. I am met with indifference, I am told that nothing can be done, I have to live through this. I am supposed to feel selfless, shed happy tears looking at the baby’s face. The rest of the world has to get on with its routine. I need to cooperate. I need to transform. If I scream and throw tantrums, I am called ill-behaved, selfish. Didn’t you see this coming? I am asked. I am a mother. I can’t afford to be unruly. I am meant to nurture.
World, will you stop glorifying motherhood for your own means? Will you just let me be?
Hello World, I am a mother. I have decided to put an end to my career, temporary or permanent, I don’t know yet. Turns out that it was a very tough call, you know. Yes, I wanted to be with the children. I understood they needed me. But the switch has bought in unexpected change. Since I am no longer the career woman, my children, it appears, are my new projects. I am answerable for their behavioural problems, their unexpected illnesses and whatever there is to do with them. Suddenly, the world thinks I have to put my aspirations behind. I have to just set aside all my achievements from the past. Even education, you know. Put children ahead of everything! If there’s anything that I need to think beyond children, it’s the house. Cooking and cleaning. And do it all with a wide smile plastered on your face. Where does the father figure in all this? Suddenly, a big career sacrifice is swept effortlessly under the carpet called responsibility. Adding fuel to the fire, you often need to confront the rhetorical question, ‘You are at home, can’t you do even this?’ Motherhood is very challenging, I am told. It’s not an easy responsibility. I agree. But I must say this argument is inflated beyond what’s needed. For, being a homemaker mother doesn’t mean one stops doing what one likes and stops listening to her inner voice. Does it? Seriously, what really is the problem? There is this particularly annoying song that comes to mind. It goes thus – Any child born into this world is good natured. Whether she or he turns out to be a good adult or a bad one depends entirely on the way the mother brings up the child.
World, will you stop glorifying motherhood for your own means? Will you just let me be?
Hello World, I am a mother. I have just returned to work three months post my second child. My husband and I have decided to share our responsibilities. All seems well. But wait, there are other problems. The homemaker next door, with two of her own children to handle, believes that I am not a ‘good mother’. She thinks I do not know but I overhear her speaking to yet another neighbour as I walk past. She thinks I am being irresponsible, my children aren’t cared for enough and that I am selfish. I wouldn’t like to dismiss her as jealous; perhaps she is, but it is not so much about jealousy as it is about what has been fed into her consciousness by a patriarchal society that thinks a mother who gives herself some priority ahead of her children is a huge blot on the moral fabric of humanity.
World, will you stop glorifying motherhood for your own means? Will you just let me be?
Hello World, I am a mother. I am a mother now, after many years. I chose not to become a mother until I was very sure that’s what I wanted. But nobody really understood, did they? All that the immediate family and neighbourhood aunties wanted to know was if there was any ‘good news’ and when the years rolled by, the foremost thought that wrote itself large on their puzzled faces was ‘why no good news?’. Was something wrong? Were the Gods angry? Should we do pujas? Should we get this woman checked by a doc? Have I seen a gynaecologist yet? It baffled me. This whole barrage of questions. Didn’t the simple thing ever occur to them that I, as an individual, as someone who would bear the child, have every right in the world to make a choice? On whether I wanted to be a mother at all or when I wanted to be one? Is motherhood the ultimate identity for a woman? The very purpose for which she is born?
World, will you stop glorifying motherhood for your own means? Will you just let me be?
Yes, we are mothers. We have spoken. And we care for our children. Don’t glorify motherhood to justify the social and behavioural structures that you have forcefully laid down for us. Respect us instead, for what we really are, for what we wish to be. Empathise with us on what we choose to do and who we choose to be. Just let us be. Before long, you will see how this will lead to much healthier and well-understood relationships. Then parenting wouldn’t be the daunting task that most of the times it turns out to be. We are sure to have better-groomed children. And soon, the world will transform to be a much happier place. For sure.
Anupama Krishnakumar loves Physics and English and sort of managed to get degrees in both – studying Engineering and then Journalism. Yet, as she discovered a few years ago, it is the written word that delights her soul and so here she is, doing what she loves to do – spinning tales for her small audience and for her little son, singing lullabies to her little daughter, bringing together a lovely team of creative people and spearheading Spark. She loves books, music, notebooks and colour pens and truly admires simplicity in anything! Tomatoes send her into a delightful tizzy, be it in soup or rasam or ketchup or atop a pizza!
