Posted:
17 years ago
Before I give my views, I want to relate a small experience. When my older son Neil was born, on the 3rd day, the doctor said that they would have to apply tincher to his navel because it wasn't drying up properly. So the nurse came and swabbed the tincher on his navel. I guess it hurt, because Neil suddenly let out a piercing wail. And at that moment, my heart turned over, it hurt so bad that it felt somebody was choking me. I never ever realised that inflicting pain on a body which was not mine could actually hurt me worse. Since that day, not one incidence has passed when he got hurt and a part of me didn't go mad with panic.
Being a mother taught me that there is something in this world which is more precious that your own life. I guess that feeling can come only when you go through it.
However, I would say, it's not the birth itself which completes a mother, it's having that life in your hands which you know is going to be moulded by you gives that feeling. Those who cannot conceive, it does not make you incomplete. But never holding a child in your arms, soothing away it's troubles, being the most important human being in this whole world for someone,even if for for a little while,does. And it's not only true for a woman, but for a man as well. The man might have been schooled for centuries to curb that instinct in himself to be more 'macho', but reality is, he too is never the same once he holds that little life in his hands who depends on him more than anything else in the world.
I am not the right person to comment what a woman feels when she does not have a child. Ever since I remember, I had wanted a child and when I got married, that is what I had prayed very hard for. Yes, I did feel a certain fullfilment when I got the news that I was pregnant, a wonder hard to describe. It kind of feels like a miracle, though you know every other woman you know feels the same.
Those who cannot bear, when they adopt a baby, I have seen first hand that they feel no different from the ones who have given birth. In India, it might be the society which trouble the ladies, but in US, there are no societal pressure to have kids, and some couples go without by choice.Yet I have met ladies who are extremely depressed that they cannot have one. And they eagerly wait for an adoption. In fact this yearning of holding a baby in the arms, to nurture it,coupled with the desire to carry forward the family genes, has given rise to surrogate motherhood.
I think it's in a woman to nurture, to take a life forward. She is like the soil which gives life to the plants. And without the plants, the soil itself erodes away......
Not having the ability to bear a child is not a crime and what the society does to ladies in India is atrocious. But just wanting a child for the sake of society pressure is bad. The absence of the feeling to nurture is what troubles me more.Being a female, I would have to say that I find it very very abnormal.
So I guess it depends on what the priorities are.