03 Mar The mother of –Today

“Times have changed”, how many times have you heard these words being said and repeated in general course of conversations, no matter the topic of discussion?

Needless to say, we hear them in association with pregnancy, pregnant mothers, childbirth and breastfeeding as well. Enough and more number of times.

However, unfortunately the focus of this statement while being used in the spaces mentioned above, is usually more about how the women today make a “big deal” out of pregnancy, birth or child rearing. There seems to be an assumed notion, that the whole process in general was almost done passively by women of yester years and seem to be “unnecessarily fussed” about a lot by the women today.

Unfortunately this has led to many many women ignoring, denying and more often than not feeling guilty and judged for even speaking about the issues they may face during the course of their pregnancy or in the days after. For many years before I got into birth work, I have overheard these young pregnant women being judged for talking about their issues, many times behind their back and sadly again, more often than not by other women. 

While I often wondered about the reason for this, I would be lying if I said I didn’t buy into the narrative myself due to my ignorance and lack of knowledge , until I knew better. 

How could it be? Have women’s bodies or their tolerance levels changed collectively over the years? Are they all suddenly weaker or fussier altogether? 

The answer seems to be in the first few words itself. Times really have changed and so women who spent most of their pregnancy surrounded by a group of other women, owing to the joint families and the almost family like camaraderie with their neighbours, also had the shared understanding, experienced knowledge and support to help them navigate the issues they would face during their prenatal or postnatal time. While they too went through similar times, the structures we had at the time gave them access to the benefits of a community as well as time with the said community… which some times helped them with ready tips and tricks to deal with their problems and other times helped by simply being present to share the work load. This is not to say that women had it “easy” back then, but their struggles were simply different.

However, for the average mother of today, who usually bears not just the majority of the responsibility of the household(mostly), she also has a career and while juggling them both in nuclear set ups, which also takes away the much needed support system, unless she can afford expensive helping hands(trustworthy?), times have changed. This also means that the decision to have a baby now comes at a cost, which the mothers (in my experience) are usually really happy to pay, but it also makes her and in some cases her partner as well more conscious or even anxious of her pregnancy or her newborn when they arrive. While mothers at any age or time would always want the best for their babies, when they belonged to the times of community living they also had the comfort of shared faith and trust to help them with the rearing of their babies.

Hence, while times and lives have changed, women every day, in fact every minute are still deciding to have babies, regardless of the effect of these changed times. Considering that, at this time, if a woman in your circle is pregnant or has had a young baby, our approach to her should be to support her to navigate the time with as much support, understanding and help as we can, rather than judge her for every step she takes during her journey.

All the mother of today needs is your understanding, not just of her pregnancy, but of her life as a whole too.