Motherhood vs. Career

Note: this article was published on kathmandu post available on following link http://epaper.ekantipur.com/ktpost/showtext.aspx?boxid=13136921&parentid=12342&issuedate=2962011

Eons ago, my father asked me a very interesting but a contradictory question. He asked whether I wanted to get married or have a successful career. Like a typical Nepali father, he was concerned that should I be career oriented, I may pass a certain age and thus will not be so ‘saleable’ for ‘good’ marriage. And should I get married early, I may not be able to develop career. So, this long discussion turned into a page of a diary and later into an article. I wrote about marriage vs. career dilemma, truly reflecting my own particular situation at that time. I had talked about how getting married before building a career was disastrous for women like us who wanted to ‘be something’ and to create a different story than our mothers ‘housewife’ history. My remedy for the situation was simple enough reflecting my naivety and inexperience of unmarried state. I thought “putting a first step in career and getting married to man who encourages pursuing our career” was the perfect solution. And I was lucky for actually doing that. Now after six years of marriage and five years of motherhood, I feel the need to shift the debate of ‘marriage vs. career’ to that of ‘motherhood vs. career’.

By career, I am of course not talking about any regular job. Career is something that we love to do, even for free. It is something that truly reflects our interest and skills. Speaking truly, from vantage point of this supposedly privileged Bahun woman with higher education, I dare say unlike my male counterparts working is regarded as option for women. That is another reason; I prefer the word career rather than the job. So, this article is based on my own experience and also other several friends and colleagues of mine whom I admire for being able to perform this tightrope act of juggling in between motherhood and career in challenging situations.

Still in Nepal, marriage and motherhood is considered a natural life course for women. So, called ‘modern Nepali woman’ has to juggle in between her public and private lives like a pro. Women are expected to get married, have children and perfectly manage all that with their even more demanding career. If we be too career oriented and put off motherhood, there is constant bickering and whispers behind our back speculating our reproductive ability. And again, there is this whole business of ‘biological clock’ that is constantly ticking on the back of our mind warning date expiry of our ‘eggs’. Taking all these things in consideration, many women become mothers just when they are about to ‘be somewhere’ in the long ladder of career. Then, starts this challenge: maintaining very difficult balance between our motherhood and career.

First thing first, the most important factor for a woman to continue her career is maternity leave.
Unfortunately, only government offices and few private job providers have facility of maternity leave in Nepal. If our office have this facility, great. If it does not, then it is simply ‘ stay back home’ for couple of months or even years battling this constant anxiety of ‘being back’ into the public world. It takes a long time for a new mother to find another job and it is most likely that she will have to make lot of compromises. There is also a prevalent social ideal which puts us in doubt about our decision of ‘being back’. Women who decide to be back in job market before their children reach the first year are usually taunted with being too selfish and career oriented to leave tiny dudhe baccha behind . Obviously we do not need people telling us how difficult it is for new mothers to leave their infants to join work. Every time one’s breast becomes heavy with milk, you feel guilty all over again for being ‘selfish’. But there is little choice. It is either have courage to manage career with motherhood, or just be left behind.

This issue is also a major problem for new mothers; especially those who are breastfeeding and wish to continue to do so even when they are working. Breastmilk is undoubtedly the most important food for infants below six months. When I had my first baby five years ago, I did not know I could continue to breastfeed my child even I was away for work. It was only last year after I had my second child that I came to know about express breastfeeding. When I resumed my work after two months, I practiced express breastfeeding till six months. Though, it was obviously challenging and difficult. However, it helped me battle my ‘guilt’ over leaving my child so early for work.

The second challenge is finding the right caretaker for the infants. Most of the so called ‘child care centers’ only take children below eighteen months. Even if few do, their credibility and quality is doubtable. Many new mothers I know hire a live in household worker, which has its own challenges and complications. Many of us truly take advantage of our mothers and mothers in law’s ‘housewife status’ which brings range of different conflicting demands and situations. One of my friend use to commute every day to and fro Kirtipur to Baneshwor to leave her infant daughter to her mother and then commute back to her office in New road. I have often heard my friends concerns over the differences they have had with their mothers and mothers in law on methods and practices of caring infants. One of my friends always worried about her mother-in-law’s inability to feed her infant daughter properly.

The third challenge for working mother is inhospitable working environment which fails to understand the fact that women, especially new mothers have duty and responsibility beyond office hours. Many of my friends who work in banking sectors face greater challenges to manage their motherhood due to long working hours, often more than 11 hours a day. It is perhaps due to this culture that new mothers feel so guilty every time they pick up a phone to ring for absence due to sudden illness of an infant who needs immediate medical attention. Women often have doubts over their mothering skills when infants fall sick, which may happen often enough. So frequent absences also poses a danger of being tagged as incompetent and unprofessional.

Mothers who are especially working in areas which demand lot of extra office hours constantly battle their feeling of ‘not being good mother’. In our society, the ideology of intensive motherhood is very much strong. Most of us believe that mothers are the best caretaker of her children, which is undoubtedly true in most situations. So, in times of pressing deadlines, mandatory meetings and extra office hours, we tend to feel guilty when we are not there when our children need us most. The feeling hits hard especially when your kids are not feeling well. Sometimes we are not able to attend functions and celebrations at school and among relatives. And when our kids ask ‘why you were not there mama, so and so’s mothers were there’. Then at that time, we just wish that we were not so career oriented.

So, managing motherhood and career is challenging yet very rewarding too. After all, our present determines our children’s future. So, we need to battle off our guilt by understanding that the ‘quality time’ we spend with our children is far more important than the quantity of the time. We need to seek support from our husband, relatives and neighbors. We should always be aware about our limitations so that we do not take career decisions that are impossible for us to manage along with our motherhood.

Most important of all, we need to increase our skill in multitasking. I am writing all this while my little one (11months) is attempting to slam his fist over the laptop and lo! Just now a peculiar yet very familiar smell hit my nostrils. So, I better end this article here. Hope you understand!

Is motherhood a choice for Nepali women?

For Nepali women, motherhood is both a source of agency and subjugation. It is a source of agency because as it is only through status of a mother, specially that of son, a Nepali women can enjoy a higher status in her family and society. I am speaking from vantage point of middle class upper caste women like myself, based on my personal experience and observations. This may not be true for every other Nepali women.

How far Nepali women have a choice when to become mothers or be mothers at all? There is very little choice. It is because motherhood is so much seen as an ultimate fulfillment of femininity. Every women is somehow considered a natural mother. It is regarded as an ultimate goal for every woman. Looking at motherhood as an individual like myself, it is full of contradictions. The first contradiction on general belief of motherhood is that it is natural. It is regarded that every woman when given birth to child, acquires the art and craft of motherhood. However, motherhood is learnt by social behavior, norms, values and also the generational knowledge handed over by previous generation. Reflecting on my own journey towards motherhood I see that it is a life long course which I have partly learnt through my mother's lessons, friends counsel, neighbour's heresay, mass-media, literature and to some extent my own lived and embodied experience. Thus, I claim that I am not a natural mother, I have learnt to become a mother.

Another contradictions which I have faced constantly due to my life choices is belief in 'intensive motherhood'. Intensive motherhood ideology preaches that only mothers are the best persons to look after their children. It believes that mothers should be available to children all the time especially in their early years. The lack of that will consequently lead to serious psychological effects on child. This is a sensitive topic for me to dwell on. My decision to come to Melbourne for further studies led me to leave my 18 months old son in my parent's care. Several times, I have been branded as 'over ambitious' and 'career oriented' and sometimes even cruel. I was caught in between my ambition and motherhood. I knew that opportunity does not knock the door twice. I was in crossroads of my career which was again mediated by my motherhood. After I became mother, I chose to work only when I could. Thus, I saw myself being stagnant in my career for couple of years. Thus, I either had to choose this or be prepared to be stagnant for some other years to come.

Another big factor in motherhood of Nepali women is son vs daughter debate. Recently I had got hold of Chinese calendar which gives a list of best year and month to conceive daughter or son. Some of my friends had used it and become successful to bear son, they never tried it for a daughter. I sometimes hear that ' It is women themselves who want to bear son'. I say, they do because we have to look at how women with daughters only are treated. I remember one of my friend whose first born was daughter. Her husband was only son in the family. She was afraid that her husband will be marrying another woman if she does not bear him son. That is why, Nepali women, even so called educated career oriented women sometimes opt to have a son rather than daughter. However, there is some other debate going on which argues that ' daughter are much better than son, as son leave their home anyway these days' . One of the main reason for son preference in Nepal is our tendency to see them as our insurance for old days. The present trend shows that this belief is gradually crumbling down. I wish that Nepal abolishes its heir system in which only sons can inherit parental property. It is an irony that parents work hard to earn property which ultimately passes over to their sons. It will take a long time when ultimately Nepal could have a will system of inheritance.

Thus, there is a long way to go for Nepali women in having agency in their motherhood. It is still debated whether one needs to become mother at all to be fulfilled. There are women like Mother Teresa who choose to remain barren but became mother of millions of improvised children. It is

Me and my mother

Sometimes, I just wonder how I have let life slip through my fingers. Am I indulging myself too much. Should I be more duty conscious? Should I be more responsible. But again, these are such ambiguous terms. Especially these all lamentations come, when I see my role as a mother. I am a mother, who is so different from my own mother. My mother, whose sole purpose in life was to look after her husband and children. sometimes she tells me, ' oh, life is so easy for you girls today. You no longer have to do chores like we used to. You don't have strict mother-in-law like me'.

When I compare my life with my mother, I see times have indeed changed. She is one driving force behind this change. Everytime when I wanted to enter the kitchen to cook something or just fool around, she would say' I could not study, I have nothing else to do apart from this. You have to study, so that you will not end up like me'. She always encouraged me to be something. Apart from other mothers of my friends, she never was interested for finding good husband for me. but rather she beleived that I should be financially independent. My father was a patriarch in true sense. He controlled me, but in such a way that I reach my goals. I make the best of what I could do. I still remember, almost a decade ago, he called me for a serious meeting. I was about to graduate then. He asked ' what do you want in you life. If you want to marry and have kids and be housewife, now is the time for that. But, if you want to study more and make a career, you could do that. But you have to be ready to accept that you may not find a good husband. As you know that in Nepal, men don't want to get married with women who are more educated or career oriented than them'. I said, what my father wanted me to say and knew that I would say:' I choose career'.

Thus, now, I am in this lop sided balance of motherhood and career, which is not vs but somehow complements each other. It is a difficult balance that many women choose or forced to choose. Just few weeks ago, I read buchi emecheta's ' Joys of motherhood'. The first book I ever read that discussed about the daily lives of black women. The central character in the book had to become mother to be accepted as a woman. But again, sometimes her motherhood became a chain that she could not break free from. At the end, struggling through out her life for her children, she dies. But none of her children are able to look after her in her most difficult old age. She dies, alone. But then, her sons perform the most expensive funeral ever. What is the point?

The blog post, does not make sense even to me. It is a series of uncordinated ideas, which has been happening a lot while I write thesis. I come to blog, when I just want to write and not being cared about providing a good argument. It is my friend, who would listen, even if i have the most silliest thing to say. I am happy for discovering this outlet

Coffe club with Shubham

Shubham today joined the rank of monash postgraduates. I took him to MPA coffee club that my buddy organizes. He has always been passionate about 'monash' at his tender age of 3. Everyday, when he sees his stroller leaving the way to go to monash, he laments ' i want to go to monash, take me to monash'. He will be happy just to go visit library, pick movies and sometimes to play with library computers.

Earlier days in January, when semester did not start, we used to put him over in one of those high chairs of Multimedia library and he would watch cartoon. He would put headphone in his head bigger than his head and watch like a very good boy. But later, he started to shout and cry and started treating monash like home. Then, it started become risky and we no longer do that.

Anyway, these experiences shows me that children learn so much more from exposure. I made a wise decision to bring him over to Melbourne. Now, he knows the distinction between Nepal and Australia. He misses his grandparents. Sometimes, when he is angry with us, ( he does that a lot, he twitches his eyes, flexes his cheeks and declares ' I am angry' ) . Then, he declares" I will catch a train to southern cross, then take a sky bus and then go to airport and take a plane to Nepal'. What a big threat!!!

This is something i wrote long time ago, in my ' lonely abroad days'. I rediscovered it suddenly shuffling pages of my old diary. My eyes are still moist!

In this train
that goes somewhere
I am going nowhere
reaching nowhere

Without you
There is no journey
I am travelling towards a big void

I came from somewhere
to reach nowhere
It seems my life is
just standstill

It is just same morning
That I don't want to wake up to
I don't have your loving embrace
to refresh me

I have no one
Here, in this 'abroad'
To share, to care

This long distance love
based on emails
and occasional minute calls

I live only in these moments
your words ,
news from home.

I see shubham in your words
I am hugging him through your words

My son far away
from my bosom,
from my embrace

I am just a far distant voice
for him in a mobile phone
I see his childhood growing
in my husband's emails

Suddenly, this came over me, while writing my data when my participants discuss about their labour pain. I was astounded by the fact that how reluctant Nepali women are to admit how hard it is to give birth and face labour pain. It is because I argue that we are always taught to embrace pain. As one of my participant says, ' you have to accept pain, you are a woman'. Hence here is a poem, or rather a ranting about pain!!

It is a pain

to be a womanand

yet to pretend that

there is no pain

Every month

for four days

Pain comes in different forms

impurity

untouchability

It seems

women are saddled by whole world of pain

Women, are said

to be lucky to be able to give birth

Some women, on pretentious voice

say, 'it is wonderful'

to be pregnant

to have labour pain

to give birth

But we never admit

It is pain,

To carry a bulk within you

being responsible for it always

because 'child always comes first'

Hundreds of 'ante natal' classes

yoga

breathing exercises

would never prepare you to face

pain during labour

However it is lessened

when you join the chorus

of other women who are crying with pain

In hospital room

Where it is ignored

Shouted at

Suppressed

Bullied

But we cry from pain nonetheless

We form sudden empathy and support

Us, who chose to

And who did not chose to

somehow are united

with this pain

that we carry with us.

It is pain all over

that happens in our body

That happens within us

and around us

It is pain in raw level

And yet, we need to embrace this pain

Understand it

Accept it

That way, it becomes

Part of us

Then, it is no more alien

No more different

Difficult but yet acceptable

Motherhood: Academic and Personal

I have always believed 'personal is political', being a feminist. But taking that to next level, I am now experiencing 'personal is academic'. While mulling over research topic for my master's theses, the topic of motherhood appealed so much to me because I was a mother and I was facing difficulty in coming terms with it, because in a way when I decided to go ahead with further studies, I left my son. I was 'imperfect mother', 'selfish', 'career oriented'. But still, I craved for my son, I wanted to be with him but yet I knew within that i need to pursue my dreams.

That is why, I was searching for topic relating to 'difficult motherhood' like myself. Then, I came across some articles relating to Maoist women being mothers. I was immensely interested how these women experienced motherhood. They were not conventional mothers, the epitome of love and care. These women, who were combatants often went to the battlefield carrying their babies. How did they do it, how did they feel about it. I wanted to explore. It was one important way for me to make sense of my own feelings towards motherhood.

I did 10 in-depth interviews with Maoist mothers and now I am analyzing my data. I feel that I feel so closer to myself when I am working on this topic. I feel comfortable. Something rings true when these women speak to me about their experiences of leaving their children with their relatives, sometimes even strangers to ensure the safety of their child. I am still figuring out, how they see themselves as mothers. Do they face the mental battle of 'am I a good/bad mother' as most women do. How does the social beliefs about Nepali motherhood impact upon their thinking? How does the Maoist party's discourses and propoganda shape their thinking and practices of their motherhood. Well, I am going on, moving on.....................

Complexities of Parenting

This whole morning, I did not read and write a single word. We had to take Shubham to the doctor with guilty thought that he may have serious injury in his leg. We stopped trusting our instincts, we sort of blamed ourselves for what happened. My husband even had a similar dream. What a big burden parenting is at times, being totally responsible for someone so little and tender!

I am now back in my room with a great relief that he was absolutely alright and there was no serious problem. I can now work perhaps. I still haven't got my lunch. I will write and read something first and then get a go on my thesis. What a day it has been! whew!

SEARCH FOR THE ULTIMATE UNIQUE NAME

Just few mins ago, we were discussing about names for baby of one of my dearest friend. Ah, I know how it starts like. Since my pregnancy, the hunt for baby name started. I used to have two sets of name for every favourate letter. Initiallly, I had this idea that name of my baby ( boy or a girl) would have combined letter of his or her father and mother's initial. Thus, I was searching for something with N and D in it, and you bet! it was difficult. I gave up the search and agreed with my hubby that it was better to restart after the baby was born.

so, in this sutkeri period, sometimes, I used to hang over the internet, sometimes turning the pages of big ' Nepali sabdasagar' which must have been more than 10 kg of weight. Gradually,this search of name was weighing heavy on me. We were searching for something with S now.............so the search was not that futile, but still conflicting coz, he was firstborn, and above all, first grandson of proudest grandparents in the world. Everything had to be perfect.

Then, it was just easy at the end. My father's beloved friend Swami S C named him as Shubham, meaning good luck, good omen, and thats how he is so far hehhehe.

So, my friend L, and my sister S, the search will continue for you guys I know............keep on searching and hunting. That perfect name for your perfect baby just may be around the corner. And hey, S, if you had daugther simply name after me, heheheh, what Say???? :D

Dressing up shubham!

Mothers, especially mothers of toddlers have a hard time putting dress in their kids. I need to rush in the morning through everything. Wake up suddenly ( don't ask me the time pls), then rushing off to washroom, rushing off to kitchen to cook, prepare tiffin, bite in between all these. My shubham wakes up as soon as I do and starts reading books or playing with his car. Every now and then, he hollers me to pay attention to what he is doing. He calls me 'BUBUAMA' with his shrill voice to catch my attention. He needs to be 'in focus' always, the big man in 2 and half year old body.

Then, after rushing feeding him this morning, his buwa arrived with bit of a sour mood. Why?? that's another issue altogether. I had taken off all shubham's clothes to dress him up to go to his child care. This is his fun part. Here I am, with just 5 minutes left to set him off to his carer. He makes the most of those 5 minutes stretching those into 15 minutes, always. He dances around naked, showing off his belly buttons and tummy and his bottom. Singing this unknown and unheard songs, he dances in funniest way possible. I can't help laughing and enjoying the moment. But still, again, I have to rush through.

He is a kid after all, he doesn't care about my deadlines and timelines. Just this morning, I was telling him that, I was meeting my supervisor. He said ' ma pani bhetchu ni', I will also meet. Oh, shubham you make my everyday little more difficult but interesting, really interesting.