Importance of Motherhood
Lately I am coming across lot of women who don’t want to have a baby or still unsure of the whole idea of parenting. Well, to be or not to be a mother is everyone’s personal choice and no need for being judgmental about their choices. But it does make me wonder why having or not having baby is a question at the first place.
Some twenty or even fifteen years ago, we rarely came across the people who didn’t want to have kids. Not having a baby was not an option, blame it on the culture of having big joint family around. Agreed lifestyle has changed, perspective for life has changed, we want more freedom and fewer responsibilities. Really, can’t we fit in babies along with us on our journey of life? Yes, they do bring in lot of responsibilities and pain. Right from enduring the pain of labor to minor heart attack you get when you lose the sight of them for a minute in a shopping mall. List is endless, changing nappies, getting up with half sleep, school admissions, securing the future and it goes on. No respite from the jobs that motherhood brings on. And now after the list if we look at the idea of having a baby, I myself feel like going back 3 years and rethink. Suddenly I can see what all might be stopping the young women out there to have a baby.
While we are going through the reasons of not having a baby, I remember someone who can give you a million reasons to have one. I met this woman four years ago during my trip to Chennai for Visa extension and she along with her husband and one year old daughter was staying in the same guest house. In conversation with her, I got to know she had endured eleven miscarriages before being blessed with her daughter. Amazed with her story I asked her “how come you kept trying after eleven miscarriages, didn’t you feel like giving up?” She replied, “giving it up would have meant giving up motherhood and missing on the beauty of giving the birth forever”.
Amazed by her words I would like to answer what it is that still makes millions of independent women to crave for a baby?
What I understood from my experience of motherhood can be summed up in one word that giving a birth and having a child do to you. It makes you “COMPLETE”. May be it sounds little too dramatic and filmy but that’s how I feel when I am lying on the bed with her. After a long bad day at work and with no mood to carry on with the day, you feel the little arms around you hugging you and asking you to take her to the park. And boom, everything is back at place because you get to know the real meaning of your existence. Shocking it may sound but those two small eyes looking at you give you the reason to live no matter how bad things are around you. At night while lying on the bed with my daughter, I feel so emotionally happy when she responds to my complain of being tired by her hands on my head , pulling me in her lap saying “ mamma, I will put you to sleep” and starts rhyming song that I sing to her every night. I can’t help but to feel what I used to feel lying in my mother or grandmother’s lap as a kid. She does complete my life with her smile and gives me a pretty good reason to be happy, content and something to look forward to.
In the end all I can say is I am no one to question anyone’s decision to have or not have a baby. But I also can’t help commenting that all the pains, responsibilities will look useless when you will be cuddling your little one to breast feed him. Trust me nothing looks more beautiful to me than creating and nurturing another human being, a blessing that only women are born with.
With a disclaimer, ‘this was written with no intention to hurt or offend anyone’, I put my case to the rest.
Thanks for reading.
