20 minutes agoAuthor: Shelly Acharya
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In the movie Deewar, Shashi Kapoor belittles Amitabh’s car, bungalow and bank balance by saying, “I have a mother.”
Similarly, a mother also has infinite love, harmony and dedication for her children. It is said that becoming a mother is the most beautiful feeling in the world. Robert Browning has said that motherhood is where all love begins and ends.
But what if a woman is deprived of this happiness. Some women do not become mothers due to health reasons and some do not become mothers by their own will. So are these women inferior? ‘Selfish and incomplete’ on the parameters of social conservatism. Are these things true?
Birth rate is decreasing rapidly in India
You must be wondering why we are suddenly talking about the choice of becoming a mother or not. Actually, the birth rate in our country has declined in the last few years.
According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2019-21, the total fertility rate (TFR) in India has declined from 2.2 children per woman to 2.0 children per woman.
This figure is less than the replacement rate of 2.1. Actually, replacement rate is the birth rate in which there is a balance between birth and death and the population remains stable. If the birth rate of a country falls below the replacement rate, then the population of that country starts decreasing.
This is the reason why in the last few years, questions are being raised on fewer children being born in countries across the world including India. Women who decide not to become mothers are being questioned. The conservative section is also advocating strict laws on abortion. As if the entire responsibility of running the earth and increasing the lineage lies only with women.
Today ‘Relationship‘ In this column, we will talk about motherhood and those women who could not become mothers or who decided not to become mothers.
Some people in our society say that a woman becomes a woman only when she becomes a mother. Does this mean that a woman who cannot become a mother is not a woman at all?
Dr. Amy Blackstone, a sociology professor at Maine University in America, is also one of those women who decided not to have a child. After this, she had to face a lot of taunts.
Dr. Amy has also written a book on this – ‘Childfree by Choice’.
When Dr. Amy tells people that she does not have children and does not want any, people look at her with judgment, pity, or even condemnation.
But she is not alone in making this decision when it comes to children. Today, the number of people around the world who do not want children is growing rapidly. This includes both men and women. They are openly accepting this and talking about it. Yet this choice, and its personal and cultural implications, is still often misunderstood.
What Delhi-based sociology research scholar Shinvagi Patel says on this, see in the graphic below-
Ruby Warrington, a well-known journalist and author and former feature editor of the Sunday Times, UK, has written a book – ‘Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood.’ Ruby asks what if being a woman without children actually becomes its own kind of legacy?
In this book, Ruby explores major social and cultural questions related to motherhood through her personal story and journey. She writes that there is no official place in our society for a girl who does not wish to become a mother. She is marginalized.
She writes that instead of labelling childless women as unhappy, narcissistic, what if we looked at them boldly and accepted them as they are.
Is a woman incomplete without becoming a mother?
In our society, there has always been pressure on a woman to become a mother. She has to tell the society that she is perfect, there is no deficiency in her. In India, a woman is expected to become a mother, but not because she has to become one herself. Because motherhood is included in her duties.
As a mother, the role of a husband and wife, caring for children and home, is intertwined. But that is what makes her a good woman. She does not believe this, it is what society says. A single mother or even a single woman is only accepted into a community beyond her family if she is seen as a ‘holy woman’.
Change is difficult, but not impossible
Overall, society wants to follow its old traditions and established patterns. It finds it very difficult to accept any kind of change. But at the same time, it is also true that change is the ultimate truth of the universe. Everything is a part of continuous change.
Just like water that stays stagnant in one place rots, a society that rejects change and refuses to adapt with time also slowly gets destroyed.
Women moving from traditional roles to modern roles is also a part of the same continuous change. If women are saying no to motherhood today, the biggest reason for this is that they have now tasted economic independence. Now they are not dependent on men and family for two meals a day and a roof over their head. Now they are earning their own money, paying their own bills, building a roof over their heads themselves and taking every small decision related to their lives on their own.
Women are not against motherhood. They just say that motherhood should not become a wall in the way of their career, freedom and equality. Motherhood should not be the responsibility of a woman alone. Family and society should also have equal participation in it.
The pace of change is slow, but it is happening. The pace of society accepting this change is also slow, but that is also happening. That is why one should never lose hope.
