Is a person’s gender inevitably chained to their position as a parent?
The word ‘Mother’ is the most precious and meaningful word in the dictionary and its deep meaning makes it more special and divine.I once asked my mother - who is mother? I still remember her words, she said “God couldn’t be everywhere to look after his children, so he made mother”. Her words very well explained the importance of mother even in God’s eye. God is omnipresent and omnipotent, yet where his power is undermined, the work of God is done by a mother. I believe God made mothers to make the world a better place to live.
Traditional meaning of mother is someone who gives you birth, feeds you, cares about you and so on and on.. but I believe being a mother is an emotion, a feeling that anyone irrespective of gender can have.
Now the question is - if being a mother is a feeling than why person’s gender inevitably chained to their position as a parent?
Our patriarchal society has stereotypes everything and parenting is no exception. I believe these stereotypes especially negative stereotypes contribute to a dysfunctional class system. Statics have proved when a child is born, it’s the women who has to leave her job if have no help at home. Since ages women play the role of primary caregivers and the responsibility of a child is titled more towards the mother. A newborn has no expertise to distinguish parent’s love. For him if he has seen an absent mother and a warm father doing all the motherly responsibilities, the father becomes an epitome to love and care. Child needs unconditional love no matter from where it comes.
Do you really feel that women are inbred with some superpowers that prepares her for motherhood. I am of the opinion that mothers are not biologically more compassionate and kindhearted than fathers. They aren’t inherently equipped with modus operandi of child- rearing. I still remember my sister saying when her first child was born that “I still don’t feel any special so called motherly feeling” and now she can’t live a day without them. This purely manifests that just bringing a child out of your body doesn’t make a woman a mother. I have many friends too who have confessed bluntly that they were not prepared for motherhood and the transition to motherhood took time and now they are confident mothers. You need to have a sense of care, compassion, sacrifices, tenderness, empathy and sensitivity. In my view, these are human traits not gender traits. To be true, I see these traits more in my husband than in me. I could remember my father walking into my room during night times to see whether we have blankets over us or not?
Delivering a baby is taxing both physically and mentally. There is no doubt that giving birth to a life which was once inside you is the most blissful feelings of the world but it leaves a woman with irreversible physical and emotional changes. She struggles with negative feelings about her post- pregnancy body image which even hampers her self confidence. She experiences noticeable hair loss, body aches, stretch marks, breast change, heavier periods, bulging stomach, melasma, back pain, memory-loss, depression and even doesn’t share the same bond with her partner. Science has confirmed that you are a different person after giving birth. This much sacrifice was not enough that society started fawning over women as some kind of nurturing goddess.
Child care should not be a ‘job’ but a ‘calling’ and this calling should be gender -free. We have been told these things from the beginning of time that adjectives like tender, selflessness, love, care are uniquely ingrained in women. This notion prevents kids from seeing men and fathers as tender nurturers. It even denies fathers the depth of emotional bonding with the child. This further creates a new school of thought which glamorizes “good mother” and disparages so called “bad mothers” (the one who don’t possess maternal instinct).
Men are not biological blessed to experience the miracle taking place in woman’s body but they can surely remunerate that by building a special bond with the miracle walking around them. Raising a healthy human is not an easy and one person's job so its important to give your child a loving and safe environment to bloom beautifully.
In nutshell, I believe child needs unconditional love and care and mother has no gender. Its just an image that stands as an epitome of unfiltered love from deep recesses of soul. To become a mother, you need not give birth to a child biologically. If that was the case then there wouldn’t be any thing like adoption and surrogacy. A child can be lucky enough to have two mothers. So, for the better emotional and physical development of child it is important to nurture the child together by sharing all responsibilities equally be it taking care of child or the home chores. It will surely create a healthy environment around the child which makes him confident and emotionally strong. I would love to end with a rhyme which we teach our kids but the home will a better place to live if we adults too comply with it…
Sharing makes us all happy
Sharing is caring and sharing is fun.
We can all share together
Be kind to everyone.
Dr. Ranbir Kaur
4th October, 2023
