The Murder of Motherhood

Baba meree mama kahan hain? (Dad, where is my mother)

Beta mam apne kam se gae'n hain abhi ati hain... (son she is gone for some work, she will be back soon)...

My 3yr old son often asks this question when her mother, who is a house wife, goes outside for a couple of hours to attend a language class once in a week. The emotions in the question are unexplainable. If I put myself into his place, i would ask in such a way when i would feel that a part of me has gone missing. Parents, specially mothers, make their children feel complete, particularly when they are young, whereas in their absence children feel a terrible sense of insecurity and void within and around themselve (see Stephan R. Covey's 7 Habits of highly effective families and M. Scott Peck's a Road Less Travelled). This I witnessed as well in a young girl, classmate of my son, who had begun to behave aggressively to an abnormal level, to express her frustration which she feel in the absence of her mother, who goes to her job from 9am-5pm, particularly after the maternity leave which she took due to the birth of her 2nd child. This young girl had developed a violent behavior toward her new born son as well.

It might be argued that many children remain normal when left to the daycare centers or at home with their grandparents while both parents go out to work, however the opposite is also true in many cases. It has been scientifically observed that inadequate attention given to children at early childhood can significantly lead to a variety of psychological issues at a later time in life. Just for the sake of argument even if we agree that all is going fine, then how can we justify the act of parents, particularly the mother, to leave their children at the mercy of someone who can never love their children like themselves, even if he or she tries to? Isn't this the natural right of children to be taken care by their own parents? But perhaps as they are too young to demand or complain, or even understand the cause of the pain they experience, it becomes too easy for the grownups to ignore their rights.

But why mother, why can't the father sacrifice his career and let her wife go out and earn a living for the family. A silly question indeed; who will feed the family when she would be on a maternity leave? If this trend starts in the economy, then who is going to compensate for the productivity loss caused by all maternity leaves which lasts as long as 4 months? Besides how many men are psychologically able and patient enough to go along with the challenging behaviour of young kids, particularly when they poop, get sick, or are not willing to eat their dinner etc..

Well definitely there will be exceptions among males; however in most cases fathers wouldn't be able to bear the pressure. A simple observation can prove this point: How many single parents in the western countries, where this trend is high enough to be observable, are male? Something which we call an illegitimate birth in a traditional context, when occurs in a western society, it’s the mother then who eventually have to take up the responsibility to raise the child. The same trend can be observed in all types of mammals, that the female keeps the young till the time they need to be fed. It is a scientifically proven fact that the best diet for a kid before he/she is 2years old is mother’s feed, and there is no such thing as father’s feed. The breast milk is naturally produced in mother’s body when she conceives. This is again the birth right, a gift from nature for the infant. But how mother will do so if she works in a lucrative position in some MNC or local corporation? She would rather go for formula feed, also known as top feed.

If the couple is planning a second child, then a healthy gap of 2-3 years is needed after the first one. Once the mother is done from feeding her first child, which is normally 2 years, it would be then time for the second one. In this kind of a scenario, if she intends to work as well, then this can only be done at the cost of ignoring the natural birth rights of her children.

A clap requires two hands; therefore this makes it crucial for the males to provide complete financial and psychological support to their partner, so that she can successfully focus on what needs to be done.

Of course such roles cannot be enforced as this would make it meaning less to take up the task without genuine ownership, therefore this can only be possible if both of the partners realize their respective responsibilities of their roles and fulfill them with their own free will.

Now if the male are negligent on their part, and doesn't provide a comfortable environment to their wives, then instead of providing female partner a passage to escape from the setup, their husband’s needs to be trained about their duties and responsibilities preferable during their early education or at least before getting married. This is what women empowerment should be about, i.e. she is empowered to perform her natural duty and responsibility which she have toward her children to its fullest, ignoring of which can bring some undesirable results, as discussed above.

In contemporary world, in the name of ‘women empowerment’, women are being taught to get out of their traditional family roles and become a product in the market. Don't be too excited about the term ‘product’. Workforce is itself is a product produced by educational institutions. Even the top management at these institutions literally calls their graduates as products; let it be male or female. And then to encourage other females for their market role, the image of working women is glorified in the media, when she appears as a sports woman, a pilot, a soldier, or when she attempts to reach the outer space. We get headlines like 'First Pakistani woman to step into the space' OR 'dive underwater' etc.

Ask a mother, who has successfully raised her children into good human beings, what is the most difficult though the most psychologically & spiritually rewarding job for her? What reply you think you will get from her?

What’s the fuss then it’s really about, why can't women and men be empowered to become better spouse and parents, instead of being empowered to freely available for market exploitation? What’s wrong in their traditional roles? How they are not well received by the modern world? Well the reason isn't that difficult to understand. In modern secular world, which is predominantly materialistic, everything is evaluated from its ability to facilitate in the process of capital accumulation, i.e. by the degree to which a particular thing is able to make a certain amount of money at an increasing rate over the period of time. Now how a traditional family does fits into this equation? How the traditional role of motherhood does fits into this position? It doesn't! On the contrary being a corporate employee, a cricket player, and an astronaut is, if it helps in the process of increase in capital, wealth or freedom. Freedom includes free access to females, which will be discussed in a separate blog post.

The problems which would emerge after ignoring the children at young age are not really a problem from the materialistic and worldly perspective; they are an opportunity coming in the future for businesses to reap. For example depressed children’s, or those with ADHD in developed countries, are an opportunity for pharmaceutical industry which produces anti-depressant drugs. It is a little surprise the anti-depressant drugs consumption in America alone is equal to the consumption of the rest of the world combine (see documentary Generation Rx). Lonely children are an opportunity for the entertainment industry that produce different products and services to keep children busy, like TV programs, or computer games etc. The violent behavior among the grownups which if they have developed due to bad childhood experiences is yet another opportunity for the security industry to develop products or services to ward off the threat from such individuals etc. etc.... now who is going to produce these extra products and services, the corporate world needs lots of more employees for that purpose... that’s right!!! Women, who use to spent time at home previously, would fill this gap. A vicious circle indeed.

A lot can be written here, however to keep it short, modern ways have external costs which are not put into consideration due to various methodological anomalies, like seeing things in parts not as a whole. If such mistakes are not corrected on time then it might be too late for us to respond and get things back on the track. Those in the developing world, it’s still not so late, therefore let we open our minds and stop blindly following the band wagon of modernity.  

Author is a philinthropist, researcher, author, social entrepreneur, trainer, mentor, holds voluntary positions of Sr. Editor Critic Magazine, Vice President GEAR (www.gear.org.pk) and tweets @javaidomar