Mother, I understood you a bit late…
Whenever I upset my mother, she would blurt out, “You would realise when you become a mother yourself”. Though I am yet to be blessed by that opportunity, I think as a woman who works so closely at the intersection of mother and child health and interacts with women across our societal spectrum, I have come to realise the challenges of the mothers and how my own mother so gracefully fulfilled all her duties, without having a platform to raise her concerns and under sole guidance of her own intuition for raising kids.
Motherhood is a journey of a lifetime, other roles come and go but once a woman is a mother, no matter what happens, she strives her best to not abandon that responsibility. I believe that Affection and Mercy are two emotions we learn from our parents and more so from our mothers as we spend a better part of our childhood with them. But if we attempt to take a journey back in into our memories and relate to or try understand some of the times that our mothers had to not only care independently for their own emotional needs but also be as reliant as possible for her children we would be able to realise the strength bestowed upon them. In those days despite the best of education, women pretty much lacked access to resources about managing their journey. Thus, Resilience is one of the most helpful qualities we could acquire from our mothers.
The societal fabric is losing its grip as values have little meaning in our public life, we don’t any longer hold on to them and we are taught to believe anything and everything is Okay, because it is okay somewhere with someone. But mothers have always been expected to perform. I won’t say that mothers of our times have it easier. Despite a more networked and inclusive society, the challenges of the mothers continue albeit they face newer pressures. With rise of broken homes, demanding jobs to take care of, the facilities of the modern times have created different lacunae.
Back in early 90s moving cities every couple of years, living far from your close relatives with two kids was a tough task for most women, like my own mother. And yes many did it and mothers of today also continue to manage the constant movement, settling and unsettling process to ensure their children feel safe and they strive their best to ensure they have stable lives.
The situation for healthcare for mothers is also fragile. The work we do in ensuring better facilities for child birth and nutrition of children highlights the gaps and extra miles we still have to go to cover and ensure dignified lives for mothers from rural and underserved communities. In the urban landscapes, issues like post-partum depression is on the rise due to distant families, affordable access to quality nutrition and social support which impact women and mental well being of their children. To add to that, mothers often are denied full disclosure about the conditions of their pregnancy and options they could choose for themselves for the birthing process. For mothers to raise happy healthier children, it’s pertinent to build an ecosystem of support. It takes a village to raise a child, but when the village has lost its value and the members want to take no accountability, the challenges of newer mothers will continue.
As I reminisce and relate the above challenges with how my own mother, shouldered the responsibilities of raising children, I can understand that each mother relies on her own instinct, spiritual connection and guidance to raise her children. Thus, she is able to still take care of her children be it earthquakes or wars, poverty or prosperity, a lifestyle of privileges or austerity, a mother’s responsibility remains the same. She fulfils her role, with utmost Patience!
