Motherhood and the Indian hypocrisy plus ignorance

Mother's Day just passed and there was so much extol for motherhood. When it's said that there are women who don't want to be mothers and that it's a choice, many, ironically, men, were accepting that it's a choice, only go on to describe how motherhood is one of the most beautiful thing in the world - even though they don't have a clue how motherhood is. Women go on to say that it's such a pride and privilege to be a mother.

All of them refused to accept the notion that motherhood is neutral and is something present in all female species of animals except perhaps seahorses - male seahorses give birth. Then someone said a very good point - choice of being a mother even there are not enough resources to raise the kids is also a problem.

Irresponsible parenting and breeding can be solved by adoption. We should focus more on children's rights than motherhood and fatherhood. NZ's PM, Jacinda Ardern is pregnant, 37 and unmarried. Will our society accept that? Shruti Hassan came under fire for saying she'd want a baby before marriage - she has all the money and resources to bring up a baby without marriage. Sunny Leone is criticised for adopting a child - she too is well off. But is their decision respected? Hell, no - motherhood in this context is called immoral and unfit. This motherhood glorification is very conditional in our society and this is why the shift from motherhood glorification to children's rights is important. Choice to have kids sans marriage and profession.

Steve Jobs and Stefan Lovfen, Sweden's PM are children born out of wedlock and adopted. We should become a child rights oriented society, less obsessed with motherhood - make sure no child suffers. But we are hung up on conditional glorification of motherhood, neglecting children. Unwed mothers, can they ever get the extol of motherhood by society? Nope, they'll be criticised as shameless and spoiling Indian culture despite them being more than able to raise a child by themselves. We forget the most important thing here - not the mother, not our culture, it's the child.

And, what about teen pregnancy? That's motherhood too. Will you glorify teen pregnancy too? This is why the glorification of motherhood is flawed - a lot of factors come into play and it's conditional. Due to the stigma of getting pregnant out of wedlock, baby dumping is a phenomenon in Malaysia. In countries like India and China, female foetuses are aborted - the Chinese eat the female foetuses. Teen pregnancy is extremely risky, in or out of wedlock. Child marriage causes teen pregnancy - are you glorifying child marriage? We don't have effective sex ed and our women are curtailed and sexually controlled and you talk so big about motherhood like you know what are involved.

Learn to see things objectively. Motherhood is a neutral thing. Yes, a lot of pain and emotions are involved and at the same time, a lot of anomalies are involved. There's surrogacy where a woman's biological child can be carried by another woman. There are sperm banks and stem cell research. There's cloning. The thing is, we are focusing on the wrong scheme of things. We should quit our glorification of conditional motherhood and work to normalise age and resources appropriate motherhood without tying it to marriage. We should change our perception on adoption and mostly, protect children fiercely, regardless of the marital status of their birth mother, build a support system like open adoption and focus on developing a healthy and balanced society.