The Selfless Mother – Musings from a Mother on Mother’s Day

It was Mother’s Day yesterday and it got me thinking. It happens that I am doing stuff around the house while having some leg pain. And I think to myself, why am I doing this? If I'm looking after my health and wellbeing, this isn't good for anyone in the family and it certainly causes me to be all sorts of crabby! So I would call on my children and my husband to take over and do the stuff that I usually do. They are usually a little surprised because I am a bit of a control freak, like things done my way and I see myself as a super-efficient mother who is usually on top of things, but they comply. It seems to work.

Motherhood is tough. It is not easy. It takes a toll on a woman’s physical health and suddenly her own likes, dislikes and well-being become a low priority for her.  So when everyone says thanks to their mother on Mother’s Day and expresses appreciation for her many selfless sacrifices we do have to ask ourselves: why did she make all those sacrifices? Were they even necessary?

The problem lies in the fact that mothers are elevated to some mythical status of someone with superpowers that the rest of earthly mortals don’t possess. The fact is that mothers are exactly like everyone else – with the same abilities, the same limitations and the same 24 hours to get stuff done within. If she does do things that seem extraordinary, this is probably at great cost to herself – a cost that often goes unacknowledged and unquantified.

If women go to extraordinary lengths to do what they do as mothers, it is usually because there is no one else to do it. If a woman is suffering and still doing stuff for her children, we have to ask ourselves: why does she feel compelled to do this?

This is because caregiving for kids is still seen very much to be a ‘woman’s job’. Also, there is also tremendous guilt tied to the job of motherhood. If she doesn’t do things for her children at a great cost to herself, she is not a ‘good mother’. If she slaves for her children and makes sacrifices, then society and her family laud her approvingly and offer her the coveted ‘good mother’ label.

I had this conversation with my gentle, doting and very loving mother in law (she is rather invested in the idea of the self-sacrificing mother being the good mother). The old parable of roti for the starving family is instructive here. In my mother-in-law’s view, if she and her child are starving and there are just two rotis in the house, the right thing to do is to give both rotis to her child.

I have a very different view. I would divide up the two rotis – one for my child, one for me. For two reasons: I'm hungry too, and am no use to my child if I'm weak with hunger. Plus, my needs and my personhood are in no way diminished by the fact that I am a mother. I continue to have my desires, dreams, aspirations and things that I enjoy doing. They don’t suddenly disappear by virtue of my becoming a mother. (If I do give away both my rotis to my child it is probably because there is the promise of biryani later)

When my children were little, they made much of me on Mother’s Day. There would be handmade cards, secret shopping with dad to maybe get me some gift and then a few times it was breakfast in bed. There was effort and love and all things nice in those gestures. Now my kids are older and maybe I don’t get the cards. The Mother’s Day ‘celebrations’ are altogether more muted and consist of a throwaway comment; Oh its mother’s day today, Happy Mother’s Day ma. It is almost an afterthought.

What I do get instead of the cards, and gifts and the breakfast in bed is infinitely more precious. I get kids who watch out for my discomfort and stress when I feel overwhelmed. Then there is an effort to silently do stuff to make things easier for me: the laundry gets done, the dog is fed and walked, and there is the offer to make a meal. There is a lookout to help in any way possible. There are small but meaningful and thoughtful gestures; the acknowledgement of any pain or discomfort and the offer to do something to make that better. There are hugs and sympathy for when I need that (and I need a lot of this apparently and quite frequently).

I would much rather have this kind of mother’s day all the year round than one day of my kids' virtue signalling on social media about their marvellous selfless mother. For two reasons: one I am in no form or fashion that self-sacrificing mother, the archetypal khansti hui ma of filmdom. Secondly, I got the better deal of it all.