Happy mothers day to all the ladies!
By all the ladies I mean everyone who has ever had a hand in rearing a child.Not necessarily your own. Teachers, day care workers, doctors, nurses, aides, psychologists, therapists, care givers, respite workers, grandmas, aunts, stepmoms, sisters, stepsisters, half sisters...
The lockdown is an amazing thing. Some people are growing into it and others are starting to chafe. A stay at home mom I know said she is feeling less anxious now and has somehow started to get used to this new routine. Her husband on the other hand, is irritable and feels like he is sick all the time- a typical symptom of being locked up in a place he used to leave for work in the morning and come back to in the evening.
But a couple of articles I read caught my attention. They mentioned mothers rediscovering their kids. A woman whose 18 month old and five year old are home with her all the time mentioned the fact that she discovered that her little one loved tiny toys. The miniature ones. She didn't know this. Until she spend all her time with her. So the fact that she probably wasn't there for a few milestones her kids achieved at the daycare they are in the whole day, hit her. Another mother wrote about how she now feels that her family almost feels like one single human unit because they spend their entire whole time together, doing everything together. It is like rediscovering what motherhood meant. It is almost like a throwback thing. When women had sole responsibility for child rearing. I am sure we look at this as an antiquated notion. Women, being the sole caretakers of our progeny. This was the norm even as recently as fifty years ago. But in our current times, it is almost unimaginable that women had to bear that load all alone. I stay home, but my husband helps enormously. Around the house and with the kids. Not because I ask, but because he wants to.
But my father was never expected to help around the house. No one in his generation was expected to help. And they didn't. But I am not faulting them.
When women entered the workforce, they were giving up that huge responsibility and it worked because they had help navigating that balance-work and child rearing. My mother was a working woman, and she had help. My ayah lived with us for eighteen years - she brought us up. My mother did not have a choice. A double income meant economic mobility and most mothers opted to give their children that leg up in life.
Women have another purpose now when they work- their identity is no longer tied to their role as a mother.Their capabilities are no longer judged on how quickly they can comfort a crying child or feed a finicky kid. They are assessed based on their talents and potential-outside of that role.
But the downside is, children still need to be brought up - that changing role of the mother does not in anyway change the needs of the child. A child still needs to be looked after all the time, taught to walk, talk, needs to be fed, burped, changed, bathed, cajoled into eating, warned of potential dangers, and when they acquire the ability to be independent, mothers need to step back and watch them take off, but stay close enough to lift them up when they fall.
Now that has become society's responsibility.Which is why, mothers day has become a day not just to acknowledge the person who gave birth to a child, but to applaud everyone who has ever had a hand in rearing child.
So here's to every person who has ever mothered a child!Happy Mothers day!
By all the ladies I mean everyone who has ever had a hand in rearing a child.Not necessarily your own. Teachers, day care workers, doctors, nurses, aides, psychologists, therapists, care givers, respite workers, grandmas, aunts, stepmoms, sisters, stepsisters, half sisters...
The lockdown is an amazing thing. Some people are growing into it and others are starting to chafe. A stay at home mom I know said she is feeling less anxious now and has somehow started to get used to this new routine. Her husband on the other hand, is irritable and feels like he is sick all the time- a typical symptom of being locked up in a place he used to leave for work in the morning and come back to in the evening.
But a couple of articles I read caught my attention. They mentioned mothers rediscovering their kids. A woman whose 18 month old and five year old are home with her all the time mentioned the fact that she discovered that her little one loved tiny toys. The miniature ones. She didn't know this. Until she spend all her time with her. So the fact that she probably wasn't there for a few milestones her kids achieved at the daycare they are in the whole day, hit her. Another mother wrote about how she now feels that her family almost feels like one single human unit because they spend their entire whole time together, doing everything together. It is like rediscovering what motherhood meant. It is almost like a throwback thing. When women had sole responsibility for child rearing. I am sure we look at this as an antiquated notion. Women, being the sole caretakers of our progeny. This was the norm even as recently as fifty years ago. But in our current times, it is almost unimaginable that women had to bear that load all alone. I stay home, but my husband helps enormously. Around the house and with the kids. Not because I ask, but because he wants to.
But my father was never expected to help around the house. No one in his generation was expected to help. And they didn't. But I am not faulting them.
When women entered the workforce, they were giving up that huge responsibility and it worked because they had help navigating that balance-work and child rearing. My mother was a working woman, and she had help. My ayah lived with us for eighteen years - she brought us up. My mother did not have a choice. A double income meant economic mobility and most mothers opted to give their children that leg up in life.
Women have another purpose now when they work- their identity is no longer tied to their role as a mother.Their capabilities are no longer judged on how quickly they can comfort a crying child or feed a finicky kid. They are assessed based on their talents and potential-outside of that role.
But the downside is, children still need to be brought up - that changing role of the mother does not in anyway change the needs of the child. A child still needs to be looked after all the time, taught to walk, talk, needs to be fed, burped, changed, bathed, cajoled into eating, warned of potential dangers, and when they acquire the ability to be independent, mothers need to step back and watch them take off, but stay close enough to lift them up when they fall.
Now that has become society's responsibility.Which is why, mothers day has become a day not just to acknowledge the person who gave birth to a child, but to applaud everyone who has ever had a hand in rearing child.
So here's to every person who has ever mothered a child!Happy Mothers day!
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