Enjoying Motherhood
Devi Skandamata
Day 5 in our Navaratri series of guest posts from “Modern Parivaar: A Dharmik Perspective”
Fetal-maternal microchimerism sounds like the stuff of WhatsApp forwards. But surprisingly, it’s real! A mother and baby are a single entity for forty weeks. During this time, cells from the fetus migrate into the mother’s bloodstream and stay there. Some cells may be found as many as twenty-seven years later. A mother and her child are quite literally bonded for life. Nature has designed a gentle separation. This process takes several years, and childbirth is just the beginning. A woman endures physical, mental, and emotional changes during pregnancy, and many of these changes persist. An adoptive or foster mother also experiences changes in her brain chemistry which help her bond with her child. This is a biological reality. A woman changes forever after she becomes a mother.
Unfortunately, the biology of primates has not caught up with the demands of the modern world. While a newborn still functions with the assumption that he’s just a tiger snack waiting to be grabbed, a mother is told that the clock is ticking. While a mother is still lactating, she is expected to be back at work. Evidently, making enough milk to double the weight of a baby every few months is not work. For women who do not want to deprive their baby of food that is custom made for the infant, there’s a magic invention that allows women to express milk and get back their freedom. As a bonus, the father gets to bond with the baby too!
Is it really as simple as it seems? Not really. On the one hand, women have a choice. On the other hand, choosing one’s baby always seems to be the wrong choice. And taking a break to have a second child appears to be the worst choice. Two career breaks? Might as well stop working! This is precisely what a lot of Indian women seem to do. Our participation in the workforce is among the lowest in the world. Without saying much, educated women choose to drop out of the formal workforce to raise families. To top it all off, studies say that women do a disproportionate amount of housework too. If that’s not toxic patriarchy, then what is?
The truth is a little more nuanced than the dichotomy of free will and oppression. Let’s be honest. Most Hindu men are still learning how to support their wife’s careers. They mean well, but they have no role models. So when their wife grumbles about lack of support, they feel hurt and reply, “But I never stopped you!” But this is a change management problem - one that can be fixed. Most women with successful careers have fixed it. The deeper issue is that women don’t seem to want to return to work. Even after being empowered through education and enlightened about Feminism, Hindu women don’t seem too enthused about participating in the formal workplace. Why is that?
Doubling down on narratives of oppression and patriarchy is not going to help. Instead, we need to understand that everyone - man, woman or child - needs to find work that fulfils them. We need to build families and societies where everyone can shine doing what they do best. And we need to stop feeling sorry for those in lower paid professions. Many choose to be school teachers, nurses, sports coaches, or dance instructors. Not everyone enjoys the demands of the corporate world.
I once had a well-paid corporate job. I was a manager with a team reporting to me. The pay was good, and the hours were flexible enough that I could pick my son up from school two afternoons a week and continue working from home. (This was pre-pandemic). One day, my six-year-old son stopped on his way from school to our car. I was rushing to beat the traffic, so I tugged his hand. But he refused to budge. He wanted me to look at a big group of butterflies in a mud puddle. I’m not proud of what I did next. I yelled at him to get into the car because I had to be home in time for my next meeting. The little boy only wanted his Amma. But the six-year-old boy’s Amma yelled him for wanting to look at butterflies. A few weeks later, I quit my job.
I work part-time now. And I spend some time writing. My husband still works full-time in a job he’s passionate about. So yes, I do more of the housework. As for my son, he’s older now, and he doesn’t need me to pick him up from school. So we grow flowers together and admire the butterflies they attract. Or we cook together. Or do silly things.
My neighbour spends her time volunteering in a mandir. Another friend who has a PhD is pursuing a career in music. Other women I know run classes for children, a tutor from their homes, or run
WhatsApp boutiques. Little to no participation in the organized workforce. When I was working full-time, I was grateful for my homemaker friends. They were the ones who kept an eye on my son in the playground or included him in activities. Without them, he’d have been lost. Now my friends and I sometimes get the kids together for a story session or shloka class or craft hour. None of these activities pays in cash. And we all do a lot of housework. But I assure you, none of us is oppressed. It might be hard to understand. But sometimes, money is not incentive enough for a mother to be away from her child for a major part of the day.
Source: Fetal-microchimerism (http://harvardsciencereview.com/fetal-microchimerism/)
The last word from Hindu Parenting: On the fifth day of Navaratri, we worship Ma Skandamata in the form of mother to the warrior god Skanda. Some modern mothers may be excellent engineers who thrive as part of the organized workforce. More power to them. There may be other mothers who opt for a role where they are irreplaceable (as full-time mothers to their children); they may prefer it over corporate success. We need both kinds of women. If Hindus are to produce warriors like Shivaji, we need mothers like Jijabai.
Every few months, The Economist runs an article about what Indian (Hindu) women ought to be doing, or about India’s “culture and patriarchy problem”… Hindu women need to ask what is the incentive for The Economist to meddle in our affairs?