mother india
actually in india mothering happens at different levels.
working class working women's mothering
sometimes amounts to making the child go to sleep
beside toilets and garbage pits and on top of cement sacks
and cowdung heaps
some have told me that they lock up children
as young as three year old bfore going for work -
they have no creches and no support.
i want to make a documentary and there,
i want to document at least some of the terrible
stories i know, and the survival that came slowly after....
this happens especially in the cities
where most working class women are displaced
and they r caught in floating nuclear family units...
in the case of middle class working mothers
most of the motehring is done by grandmothers...
this i want to understand and record
and lastly creches
suddenly in cities, creches are growing as
fast as internet cafes
u now see new boards
like "babies from one month old accepted"!
i too thought that the minute my daughter
turns one and a half, i will leave her in a creche
and get back to work but as part of trying to
make her accustomed to the creche, i had to
stay in the creche and there i experienced
what creches in india are..
in this particular creche there were two underpaid,
overworked, sad, depressed and higly frustrated
ammas or ayahs, who has so much work to do at
home that they are literally sleeping or otherwise
screamng at the children.
lonely desperate clingy children
bewildered by the sudden change
and seperation
are left to the mercy of these women
who are without mercy themselves
i decided i will not let my daughter
grow up in this atmosphere of sorrow
and thus i became a stay at home mother!
and almost spoiled the normal flow of my career -
i had this choice as my husband has a govt job
i am sure many mothers see this and still leave
their children behind with breaking hearts
i wish there will be more child care facilites
for working class women
in bastis/slums - NGOs usually don't think of this -
i also wish that middle class women woudl do something
to change the shape of midldle class creches...
my contribution i hope will be as a study first and then
a documentary...
posted by thirty six j @ 3:45 AM
4 Comments:
In fact one lady suggested the same, to lock up the child and do the household work while I was in the commune(in an attempt to be part of a commune).That lady herself was desperate having spent a whole life for her husband and she has seen women in the neighbourhood doing the same(locking up kids and going to riverside for washing clothes)
And in Hcu there are children playing around by themselves while their mothers are working in the construction areas(sreebitha said while talking of creche over phone)
We cannot simplify it(the whole business of looking after) with the presence of creches,true...And there isn't much difference in the way they grow up be it with dissatisfied mothers,Ayas or with grandmothers...After 20s we r all emotionally insecure searching for a motherfigure of father figure to support us emotionally.
I tried many mothers, Many tried me as mother...it goes on
Finally I have come to the phase where I no longer take responsibility for the emotional security of Aadil because I don't know, I really don't know what is to be done and what not to be...When I met u, Jenny I felt the same and that's y i thought there ought to be discussions over this.
There are NGOS for kids there are organisations in the for of schools.
But the question if much more than the presence of such systems.There are women and men from the working class who take responsibility of their own life and live and there are half formed individuals coming our of experimental schooling systems who still find it difficult to live.
I don't think a conscious effort makes much difference, I reach in the conclusion that the system as well as people as immature and handicapped cannot beget children effectively.These days I'm trying to see it interms of my ego.
i really don't want to be the guilt ridden mother, i am often one, but i take full emotional responsibility for fai, i know she will have her problems, which ever way i treat her, bt i somehwo cannot get over the feeling that what i do is going to effect her. so i keep this in mind and this makes me guilty and it also makes me be nice to her. and whatever i cannot afford to do and cannot i accept it - as teh serenity prayer goes, give me the courage to change...
Sree went into a state of unrest after reading Jenny's post, and had not got over it even after making two comments. She talked to me after posting the comments. I'll make an attempt to explain what she felt post this post.
One thing that takes her into some state of depression is that we have a choice, be it between devil and the deep sea, but our dilemma of whether to choose d. or d.s. is not sounds ridiculous to those who don't have a choice. (Being in a place like IIT we even have a somewhat friendly devil and not so deep a sea, may be we'll get that outside also if we can afford to pay some more).
Two, when she says "I no longer take responsibility for the emotional security" she does not mean she does not have the guilt associated with it. That's what she tries to convey in the last sentence (These days I'm trying to see it interms of my ego), that is, she is trying to see this "mother's guilt" as a result of her ego that the "right" choice she makes now will take Aadil the "right" way, and she is trying to get over that guilt realizing that she does not really know what is right and what is not. But it is not so easy, and the guilt keeps haunting her (and me).
Sree will probably write more on this. She also asked me to post what I had written sometime back about my mother. I'll do that.
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