Dear Shri Kunjuppu,
Rearing infants, say during the first 3 or 4 years of their life by the mother is a better alternative, in my opinion, though the infant is weaned in one or one and a half years now. This will give them mother's affection at the appropriate period. Above the age of 3 or 4 years also, it is more advisable for girls to be looked after by their mother rather than by their father, for very many reasons. While the basic outwardly requirements can be looked after by the father, a girl brought up by her mother will have a better emotional support, I feel. Hence, unless the mother earns very much more than the father and one income will suffice for the family, or if the mother can earn being at home, it will be a better course. I know a case - this may be a very rare exception - of a boy, a latchkey kid - has grown up with so much animosity to his mother that now he will murder his mother if they are left alone. This boy has attempted it once or twice and also attempted suicide on a few occasions. Hence it is all a very unpredictable situation and so there is a price to pay for any change from the conventional family set up of mother looking after the children and the father earning for the family. I find more and more of youngsters are realizing this and desiring that they will chose a non-working girl for marriage.
I will also suggest that you do not base your world view on the isolated instances of your cousins.
Dear sangom,
Yours is an impeccable post as usual, with logic and I cannot find any holes there. thank you. when it comes to working motherhood, one can bring up any references to prove a pov. i am afraid that in most of these arguements the needs of the mother and her aspirations gets lost.
It took me quite a while to come up with a response, to explain where I am coming from. As with anything in this life, everything is a matter of perspectives. Maybe I can start with two incidents I witnessed and proceed from there.
A few months ago, I was waiting at Hong Kong airport enroute Chennai. There was also a young tambram couple in the open waiting area with an 18 month girl toddler, very active and restless after a long trans pacific flight.
The mother was busy using the laptop throughout the 4 hours I was there, and I gathered, she was on production support, and ‘fire fighting’ issues. Wifi technology has ensured that we get connected to work through our laptops anywhere in the world.
Throughout this episode, the young father entertained the baby, played with her, fed her, changed her nappies in the men’s washroom, changed her clothes, and as time departure time approached, slowly rocked the baby to bed. All along, the mother was busy and under stress, and every occasionally she used to glance at the father/daughter, a brief smile would come on her lips, only to disappear she went turned back to her work.
To me this father is a lucky guy. Years later, he would cherish these so called mummy roles – and it was a delight for old fogies like me to watch this rather publicly played family drama. I think the baby is even more lucky – she has not one, but two people to nourish and cherish her.
Twenty seven years ago in Toronto, there was another tambram couple, who had a baby son. For circumstances too complex to be explained, I only wish to say, that the mother had to go back to work barely 3 weeks after the baby was born. Fortunately this was shift work and basically the baby was home all the time.
The father took upon the sole care of baby as a challenge, not that HE would do best of his effort for the baby, but do sufficient and necessary, so that the mother at work will have the satisfaction of a baby well taken care and he also ensured, that at no time, she would ever feel guilty about her decision to return to work so soon. the father worked hard to ensure a level of comfort in his wife, which they would often talk about many times later in life.
Even now the mother cries when she remembers the thought of leaving the baby and going to work after 3 weeks, but always comes the statement, ‘my husband was with me and the way he took care of our son, I had the consolation that I could not have done any better’. Perhaps she has inward feeling of guilt, I don’t know, but at no time, has she ever been exposed to someone else telling her what her ‘duties and priorities’ re the child was.
The important thing is that parenthood is a partnership, and in many nuclear families today, the grandparents are unable to be present all the time. We have to remember that the woman also has goals and aspirations in life, and the last thing a society needs to do is to bring the notion of what must be the duties of motherhood. Maybe some people should never be mothers but I beg to disagree that children of working parents do not get the necessary mental nourishment as a rule.
i am happy to say that i do not know of any stay at home mothers anymore in the current generation, either in the west or india. all the girls are part of the work force. when these have babies, in some instances the parents are able to help. in others, both india and the west, the parents may be unavailable for many reasons.
i see a new breed of fathers, who have no hesitations in taking over all aspects of baby care (except obviously breast feeding). ofcourse, i am talking of educated middle class professionals, as these are the only ones i know.
there were always problem children in any generation, even when all the mothers stayed at home. i am very skeptical that there are increased numbers of such, due to working mothers. there might be studies to prove that latchkey kids turn problematical. there are probably as many studies proving otherwise.
in the ultimate, today's young parents, unable or unwilling for the mother to stay at home to rear babies. grand parents, if they are close by and living together is a blessing, but in many instances this option is just not there.
Grand parents need not generally be a panacea to the task of child bearing and rearing. the young mother has a possessive trait when it comes to the first child, and even grand parents might find walking on egg shells when dealing with the baby. if it works for one, it is good. i am talking of others where there is no alternatives...
Every family is different and I feel very reluctant to go along with blanket ‘one size for all’ rules. We see now responsible youngters in their 20s and 30s whose both parents are working. These people marry and both work while continuing to have children.
Society needs to find more ways to ease the childbearing tasks and educate fathers about good parenting. And not berate young mothers to stay at home or else make them feel guilty re insufficient motherhood. Today’s working mother carries enough burden and let us attempt to understand her aspirations and accommodate it and not throw blamefor child neglect. this simply is not true.
Thank you.
Btw, the father in the second story is yours truly
