My Family and Other Globalizers | Resist the all-consuming ideology of motherhood

Representative image. (Photo: Tamara Bellis via Unsplash)

Note to readers: My Family and Other Globalizers is a weekly parenting column on bringing up global citizens.

Every woman must find her own way through the obstacle course of motherhood. There may be no single road, but every path should be walked without sacrificing the self-actualisation of the traveller.

So many of the parenting theories bursting from the shelves of bookstores today are misogynist in effect, from the proselytising of breastfeeding evangelists, to the insidious idea that every little decision a mother takes — what to eat when pregnant, whether or not to sleep with the child in the same bed, and whether or not to put her kids down in front of the TV to get a break — will have deep lasting effects on the child's character and behaviour.

When I was researching for my 2016 book, Babies and Bylines: Parenting on the Move, I’d come across one bit of “research” that claimed children who don't share their mother's bed until the age of three tend towards promiscuity in later life. Another 2014 newspaper article in the UK’s Daily Mail titled “Bad News for Dads: Babies should share mother's bed until age three because it's good for their hearts” claimed that if a mother does not have a baby sleep on top of her chest it "makes it harder for mother and child to bond — and damages the development of the brain, leading to bad behaviour as the child grows up."

And then there was the Danish study that even made it to the Indian newspapers, asserting that binge-drinking by a woman even once during a pregnancy could cause the child to have a short attention span and be badly behaved. A drinking binge was defined as a two-and-half large glasses of wine. The article quoted one of the researchers, Janni Niclasen of Copenhagen University, as saying, “women really shouldn't panic,” while warning that binge-drinking early in pregnancy is known to raise the risk of miscarriages, stillbirths and birth defects. But don’t panic, okay?

I have lived in eight different countries across Asia, Europe and the Americas. If this breadth of cultural experience has taught me anything, it is that “science” is often a social construct. The answers to whether or not to get a massage when pregnant, or to have an epidural during labour, or to return to work when the children are still young, vary dramatically, depending on national and cultural contexts.

What is considered safe in Belgium would appall most Chinese. And what the Belgians consider par for the course would horrify many Indians. In pregnancy and parenting, as in most aspects of life, risks are omnipresent. We cannot end risk. We can only make judgement calls, to the best of our ability, knowledge, and needs. There is peace to be found in this truth. Especially for women. Drink some coffee, eat some spice. Choose what you are comfortable with, rather than allowing guilt to police your choices.

What’s more, a woman should prioritise herself on a par with her baby. Too much sacrifice and abnegation are harmful to both a mother and her child. A “woman” is more capacious than a “mother”. She is not just a vessel. She is not just a caregiver. Her agency is powerful and deserves nurture, most of all by herself. The modern tendency to deify children and turn them into the sacred centre of marriages, and women’s lives, is dangerous. We have gone from a society that had a pragmatic, somewhat utilitarian view of children to one where children are worshipped. As sociologist Viviana Zelizer puts it, children have become “economically worthless but emotionally priceless”, morphing from useful to coddled.

The effects of this shift on parenthood, but on motherhood in particular, can be regressive and oppressive. Not every woman needs to work, or work full time, or to stay at home. But I do think that every woman needs to be defined more broadly than a mother. What that means to an individual is subjective. To me, it means “working” in a conventional sense: paid employment outside the home, although I am aware that this is because I am privileged by my education and upbringing to be able to perform work that I enjoy.

Ultimately, there is little evidence on parenting that is incontrovertible. Rather, for every study there is inevitably a counter study. Which is why one must rely on common sense. A happy mother will obviously have a better chance at ensuring a happy child. And it is a rare human being who can find happiness in sublimation — especially to a two-year old tantrum-throwing brat.