That thriving Ministry of Unending Advice, to plagiarize a recent phrase, works at its optimum when it comes to women. With motherhood, the giving of advice increases. It goes on to overtime if one is a working mother. By the time it reaches a single working mother it is on an overdrive. And since I belong to the last and final category, I am subject to much unsolicited advice on a regular basis. Come Mothers Day and I find all these happily forgotten, deserted pieces of advice revive themselves, coalesce into bright, fluffy, virtuous messages of felicitation and mushroom all around me.
And I am beset with an ideal of motherhood that is linear, unidimensional, starts and ends with a smiling, self deprecating, self sacrificing vision of motherhood that has no resemblance to my lived experience of it, which is almost always the exact opposite. These are times then, that we need to stand in solidarity and proclaim to the world what our true experiences and perceptions are.
I present to the reader today a few examples of my perceptions of such advice. And trust that these three descriptions will help you identify many more pitfalls and steer clear of them on that joy filled, unbound, wonderfilled, humbling journey of motherhood -
Advice: Children need their mother’s time. Hence she should be home and looking after them.
The actual fact: Children need a set of inputs. These include routine, stability, health, food, discipline, values, education, a clean and comfortable home, love, hugs, holidays, friends, family, hope, a belief in their abilities and a few hundred other things.
It matters that they get these things. It matters less that these come only from their mother. Thing is if you are a lousy person, the advent of motherhood does not, by default turn you into a fabulous mother; you remain a lousy person. Having you at home to supervise an infant and assuming that your continuous presence is the best thing to happen to the child is a dangerous fallacy. It may quite possibly be the worst.
Or you may be a nice person, but either unprepared or unwilling to be a mother. When this happens during examinations, we fail the exam. Similar things happen in motherhood.
And so, when the world turns on the “Children need you” button, I listen politely (mostly) and then go ahead and un-listen. My children belong to the world. And the world is theirs. If I limit them to myself, I do them a great disservice.
I have been told so many times that parents do not wish to have care givers looking after their children. That I should not leave my children with maids and go off to work. Of course one must be lucky enough to find good care givers. But if you do find them, as I did, they have given so much love and care to my children, so unconditionally, with such commitment that my children and I have always held ourselves blessed to have them as part of the family. And no, I was not “lucky” to find them. I worked very hard to find them, and invested seriously in helping them stay with me.
Advice: Women need to find their work life balance.
The actual fact: Work is part of life and vice versa. Actually if you don’t have life, you can’t work. Technically it’s called being dead. Now if both values are on the same side of the equal sign, what is there to balance? But, ah, there is so much pleasure to be found in guilt! And so we women run around in circles trying to balance 2 things on the same side, which is impossible, which is what the world wants.
And so, when I am given the “Work Life balance” advice, my response has been “ But you see, I consider being a mother work and my work I consider an integral part of my life. What then do you suggest I balance against what?” In general an amount of angst is expected in answer to this advice. But try answering it with a counter question. It usually turns off the advisor and one can go about one’s business undisturbed.
At the end of it both the work place and your children are relationships. Each can be negotiated to be sensitive to each other. Of course it’s not an easy thing to do. But then why did you ever imagine it was easy to be a mother?
Advice: Women should look after children because they are better at it. Because mothering comes naturally to them.
The actual fact: The only thing women are better at is bearing the child and giving birth. One cannot deny instinct, but for human beings, mothering lies way beyond instinct. It requires incredible amounts of courage, patience, ingenuity, discipline, a powerful moral compass, love, and a few hundred other things. It has required a person like me to learn to cook, and cook well. Not once, not twice, as in a battle. But every minute, every hour, for a lifetime. Nature doesn’t give all of these to women - we make the effort to find them. We choose, we prioritize and we learn to be good at them. And, unlike a battle, we get no knighthoods or medals or promotions for doing all of these. Our lives are not subsidized by the tax payers monies. We simply get up the next day and go on being a mother.
And the other side of this argument has also fascinated me - if women should look after children because they are better at it, how about getting women to do all the things she is better at? Why only child rearing? And if this argument extends to the men, and if men are excelling at being chefs and tailors, why then, women should stop doing both these at home. Let the men do what they excel at, I say. We are a generous lot, us women.
I suppose one must thank such things like Mothers Day because it reminds us of battles that we sometimes forget to fight. I wish you all many battles well fought, many victories to savor, many cups of tea shared on sunlit verandahs with family and dear friends to celebrate motherhood.
