January 5, 2024 • 42 mins
Being a mother often seems to be the inevitable and most desirable role a woman can have in India. The question is never if, but when and how many children a woman will have. But why is this considered the “natural” destiny and the one and only true fulfillment of a woman’s life? How can there be a choice for - or against - motherhood? And what are the challenges for those who do not want to have children? In this episode of Love Matters host Leeza Mangaldas and writer Dr. Amrita Nandy unpack this sensitive subject; looking at how society romanticizes motherhood, the obsession with having biological children as well as finding purpose and kinship beyond being a parent. Join them in their candid and insightful conversation.
Leeza Mangaldas’ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leezamangaldas/
Amrita Nandy’s book - Motherhood and Choice: Uncommon Mothers, Childfree Women - https://amzn.eu/d/64MsN7x
Credits:Produced by: Patricia Szilagyi (DW), Charulata Biswas (IE)
Research & guest acquisition: Sana Rizvi (DW)
Project Manager: Sonja Kaun-Trenkler (DW)
Editorial Support: Shashank Bhargava (IE), Khyati Rajvanshi (IE)
Executive Producer: Melanie von Marschalck (DW Life & Style), Anant Nath Sharma (IE)
Sound Editor: Suresh Pawar (IE)
Love Matters with Leeza Mangaldas is a cooperation between The Indian Express and DW, Germany’s international broadcaster.
Learn more about DW:https://www.facebook.com/dwasia
https://www.dw.com
Leeza Mangaldas’ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leezamangaldas/
Amrita Nandy’s book - Motherhood and Choice: Uncommon Mothers, Childfree Women - https://amzn.eu/d/64MsN7x
Credits:Produced by: Patricia Szilagyi (DW), Charulata Biswas (IE)
Research & guest acquisition: Sana Rizvi (DW)
Project Manager: Sonja Kaun-Trenkler (DW)
Editorial Support: Shashank Bhargava (IE), Khyati Rajvanshi (IE)
Executive Producer: Melanie von Marschalck (DW Life & Style), Anant Nath Sharma (IE)
Sound Editor: Suresh Pawar (IE)
Love Matters with Leeza Mangaldas is a cooperation between The Indian Express and DW, Germany’s international broadcaster.
Learn more about DW:https://www.facebook.com/dwasia
https://www.dw.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
I'm Lisa Mangeldas, and this isLove Matters. Motherhood is presented to women
as the most important and noble rolethey can take on. But is it
really all it's cracked out to be? And what about those who want to
do it differently or those who wantto opt out altogether. That's what we're
going to be talking about today inconversation with doctor Amrida Nandi, an award
(00:24):
winning writer, researcher, professor,and the author of a book called Motherhood
and Choice, Uncommon Mother's Child FreeWomen, which was the result of her
doctoral research on the subject that earnedher a fellowship at Yale. Amrida,
I'm a huge fan of your bookas a child free woman myself, and
so I could not be more delightedto have you on the show. Thanks
(00:45):
so much for joining us. I'dlike to start by asking a little bit
about your own personal ideological journey.You came to this research asking this question
of yourself, do I or doI not wish to be a mother?
Right? Could you take us alittle bit through that process of self reflection?
Thank you so much, Lisa,such a pleasure and honor to be
(01:07):
here to be talking to you.So Lisa. As a child, my
view on motherhood was quite starry eyed. I was really moonstruck. I loved
playing with babies and I still dotremendously. And I remember roleplay games with
my little girlfriends, play acting asthe mother to the neighbor's baby, to
(01:30):
plastic dolls. And since all theadults around had their own children, I
grew up presuming that motherhood was inevitable, it was desirable, it was aspirational.
My interest in researching motherhood has anotherpersonal beginning. I agree up watching
(01:52):
my mother, my homemaker mother.She was constantly in character, as I
say in the book, sometimes evenin her other roles. You know she
would eat last. She still does. She still waits for me at the
meal table. So one comes acrossmany such mothers. I'm sure you have
to that they're all the same flavor, as it were, right, flavored
(02:15):
by what I call me to normativity. We can get to the term a
little later, or they're playing thescript that's offered by society, this whole
mammalian body mind which is wired toprotect the child. And I observed as
a young girl, I observed howhow women's lives, especially of mother's was
(02:39):
really monopolized by different forms of care, not just mothering as a form of
UH. And I noticed how muchwomen juggle, how much they struggle with
paid employment with care work at home, dividing up their awakening hours in two
(03:00):
or three shifts of daily labor.They're exhausted in this sort of relentless caregiving.
And regardless of whether women are fulltime homemakers or part time workers in
paid employment, most of them,most of us, are expected to regard
care giving to the family as asprimary duty, and they downplay, or
(03:23):
we downplay, are other aspirations,are other capabilities or responsibilities, and some
regret having to abandon certain aspects oftheir pre motherhood life, such as careers,
friendships, or sometimes even just leisureand rest. So this is what
this is what I was. Iwas watching through the years as I was
(03:46):
growing up, and all of thisthen came up to me when when I
was married and I had this,I had to face this question. And
I mean you mentioned it already.I definitely want you to explain to people
who haven't yet read your book whatmeta normativity is. I think it does
factor into all aspirations, even forus who choose to reject the role of
(04:13):
motherhood. It's hard to escape thatconditioning. Absolutely, you said it.
The term meta normativity, it's Icooked it up, and it's not a
very pretty word, but I thinkit does its job, which is to
communicate this paradigm, the dominant paradigmthat identifies women as potential mothers, all
(04:36):
women as potential mothers, symbolic mothers, or as maternals. So meter normativity
is really two conjoined words. Meter, which stands for mother, and normativity
is the state of being normative orof the norm It's the assumption that all
those born females are and must benaturally maternal, and thereby motherho and mothering
(05:00):
and all the forms of caregiving comenaturally to them and therefore should be their
main pursuits in life. And thishype around met normativity or the maternalization of
female identity is very disempowering. It'sdisempowering not just for women, but also
for girls and mothers. I startI start with girls first, because from
(05:24):
a young age, I think we'resocialized, we're groomed for marriage and motherhood,
and if we're lucky, for educationand career. So most girls and
women can never even come to thinkof motherhood as choice. It's this strong
cultural muscle that's flexed in our faces, in the faces of girls, so
(05:45):
they see little else and this itrobs little girls of their ability growing up
to fully imagine and live out theirauthentic true selves. And what can be
worse than stubbing someone's imagination as theiror crippling their agency, because even questioning
motherhood is like is like sacrilege formothers. I think a metanormative culture,
(06:10):
which is what which is what ourculture is, which is what most cultures
across countries, and is that itcontrols our motivations, our actions, even
our attitudes towards sat paid employment.We know that mothering is often it's just
euphemism for single handed care m rightwhere are the men in the day to
(06:30):
day care of children in childcare?Yet mothers lived with what is often called
maternal guilt. It's that ceaseless feelingof never doing enough or the best for
one's child. And you've see blogsthere are heartbreaking accounts of how mothers are
judged or judged themselves, policed andpolice themselves by their own partners, school
teachers, and so this is thisis really the metanormative, and for those
(06:55):
who are unable to have children,meter normativity can often lead to great personal
trauma, social difficulties, a senseof failure, emptiness, shame, stigma.
In urban families with women professionals,the pressure to be your mother may
have lessened somewhat, but this doesnot represent the larger social attitude towards towards
(07:16):
motherhoods. So it's not just prevalentin India. I think it's among those
very rare, nearly universal concepts.I'd love for you to expand on that
a bit more, because I thinkwe don't sufficiently sufficiently question the romanticization of
the mother, right. We talkedabout how it feels almost sacrilegious to question
(07:40):
it. Even women themselves police suchthoughts, police each other's thoughts. If
you are a bad mother, ifyou ever admit to feeling ambivalence, let
alone disinterest or regret around having hadchildren, or just the idea of having
children. And so I think thatfor most women, and you talk about
this in the book as well,is it even a choice? Right if
(08:01):
it's presented to you in the waythat it is, Are you even making
a choice even when you think you'remaking a choice. I think that's such
an interesting question, in one thatwe're not encouraged to ask at all.
And I also wonder whether you'd liketo expound on the fact that this romanticization
of motherhood isn't as sort of harmlessand innocuous and lovely as it seems,
(08:24):
because there are authors of capitalism andreligion and patriarchy that by design seek to
control women's choices, right, andthis is very much a part of that
nexus. But by guising it inthis sort of like you know, haloed,
beatific vision of motherhood kind of makeswhat's quite sinister much more palatable to
(08:48):
most of us. Absolutely, you'vesaid it's so beautifully Lisa. But before
answering your question of the romanticization ofmotherhood, let's speak of the what I
think it's useful to to know justwhat kind of motherhood gets romanticized and why.
Motherhood in a heterosexual setting where aman and women get married, especially
(09:09):
within a socially approved cast, class, religious setting, that is seen as
the ideal setting that deserves romanticization.So non marital motherhood or you know,
motherhood that's out of wedlook, forexample, that's the term, the use
is not romanticized, and single adoptivemothers are not held as high in esteem
(09:35):
as married women who gave birth andalso in a majority in culture, which
is what India's turned out to be. Unfortunately, minority motherhood is meaned even
though within the minority subculture motherhood couldbe romanticized. So there is this hierarchy
of sorts unacknowledged, not fully unspoken, i'd say, but it looks in
(09:58):
discourse, it looks and united use. It's also fascinating to pay attention to
the contexts of motherhood. The romancearound motherhood actually begins with the institutional marriage,
which itself is a substantiechnom. We'reall expected to marry, especially women,
so that us, our body is, our sexuality can be policed.
(10:18):
Marriage is seen as an ideal settingfor the expression of our love of romance,
sexuality, and family making. Andhere too the norm is the marriage
in motherhood take place within, likeyou said, a patriarchy's setting, where
the woman marries into the husband's family, takes on his name uh, and
then and then the children then belongto that patrilineal line, and so on
(10:41):
and so forth. So it isin such contexts. It is these certain
forms of motherhood that that are romanticized. Now, now about the romanticization piece,
it's also a mother's labor at childbirth. I think it begins there and
then the subsequent decades of caregiving laborthat are romanticized as her sacrifice, even
(11:07):
though there's very little talk of whatall this this role can jeopardize, such
as the other pursuits that she mayhave put aside. And like I said
earlier, maternal guilt is also ina sense a manifestation of the romanticization of
the role, whereby you feel youcan never do enough for the child.
(11:28):
And this feeling, this knowing feeling, is it resembles regret. It's it's
this unbridgible gap between the idealized motherand the real mother. The romanticization is
done through norms, social norms,cultural norms that have been put in place
to regulate our choices as women andto engineer these these systems to reproduce,
(11:52):
to reproduce biologically, to reproduce sociallyhuman societies. And where do these norms
live? They live in our everydayconversations with each other. In film Poetray
Song Mythology blogs and so on.I think our own behaviors reiterate and nourish
these norms. Let's think of earlymarriage. Say, early marriage in some
(12:16):
communities is a norm because those whohold part in that community, say villay
editors, are worried about the sexualityof young girls. There could be legends
of it's about laid marriage leading toinfertility and childlessness. All there are cuss
words, you know, words likebane band is a Hindi word for barren
woman. It's an explititive. Soyou see how language the medical industry of
(12:41):
fertility clinics, for example, theylunify human worth over adoption of children for
the purpose of their own profits.So the discourse of and around motherhood that
is a source and the site ofthis romanticization. It suits the market,
it suits the state. Of course, it suits patriarchal family men if women
(13:03):
were to keep devoting most to theirlives to only your primarily bearing in research
exactly. And I think that it'sso important for us, even if we
do choose to be mothers, tobe informed of and questioning off all of
this that surrounds the construction of itas an injunction rather than a true choice.
(13:24):
But I want to also sort ofunpack the ideas of child free versus
child less. Sure, now,that's an important one, and we often
very loosely use these words interchangeably,and it's important to know the distinction.
Therefore, so if in popular linguoLisa, those who are without children are
(13:45):
referred to as child less, however, some among these so called child less
could be so intentionally, but theterm childless pains over this rather crucial distinction.
So as a way to mark theintentionally childless as separate, there have
been other terms in existence terms suchas childless by choice or voluntarily child ass
(14:09):
but I found both of these termsslightly problematic because these expressions use the suffix
less in child less or child lessby choice or voluntarily childless. To me,
child less implies an incompleteness, adeficit in an individual's life or their
(14:31):
identity, as if they lack somethingthey ought to have, So I prefer
to use the term child free.I came across the term in other books
that I read on the subject,so I adopted this sys term for my
own use. I like child freebecause it's affirmative, unlike the negative child
less, and so to adopt andclaim the child free label is to also
(14:54):
make a political statement, right,it's paradigm mending that statement. It means
I do not myself and I wouldnot want you to see me as childless,
and I do not accept the childbearing or rearing is the ultimate purpose
of my life. And I seemany more fulfilling, beautiful, notching roles
(15:16):
for me, including caregiving for thosewho they need it. And yet there's
sort of unique stigmas that attach themselvesto both the state of childlessness. When
you want children but can't have any, you mentioned the word bande as well
as to those who are child free, because that's the state of being that
(15:37):
they have chosen, right, Andit's funny how sometimes the same sort of
shame becomes attached to both states forwomen unfortunately, sphere of judgment and low
YAKAYENGI. Then there's so much nuancein your book, and I think that
sometimes a simplistic, you know,pro natalist versus anti natalist sort of discoss
(15:58):
on social media or something miss isso much of that nuance. And I'd
love for you to just elaborate alittle bit further on this issue of child
less versus child free because I thinkyou bring out the nuances off and the
stigma, which in a way itcomes to both locuses from major normativity.
Right, whether you choose not tohave children or you cannot have children because
(16:21):
of an infertility, you're unable tobe another and therefore you're not going enough.
No, that's such a fine question, and I'm so happy put the
binary out there to speak against pronatalism is not to be an anti natalist.
One is not saying we all stophaving children. All one is saying
is recognize deeply the pressure, themandate, the inferative, Where does it
(16:47):
come from, who does it benefit, and what does it cost women.
We're saying this so that there's betterpublic infrastructure. We're saying this so that
women are able to live their livesin as fullsome a manner as as possible.
That's the intention. The intention reallyisn't what it's often painted out to
(17:08):
be. But to answer your question, I begin with myself. I was
faced with with you know, withthe usual milestones of education, career,
marriage, motherhood, and I foundgreat insights into womanhood at each of these,
(17:30):
you know, reading literature, forexample, reading My Women's Lives,
gender, career, marriage, eachof these offered very eye opening experiences and
counter narratives to what films or populardiscourse had portrayed motherhood as. And so
I faced some very thoughtful working questions, like why did I want a child?
(17:53):
We very often fantasize about having children, and I did too, and
I still love children, but wevery rarely subject this desire to thought,
very rarely do be questioned deeply.And when I when I reflected on the
meaning and the implications of motherhood,I realized that I did not have any
(18:18):
substantive reasons except mush and hope thatthe child will bring meaning, the child
will bring more love, the childwill bring the opposite of loneliness. And
yet all around me I saw thatthis expectation from the child bringing full such
fulfillment, but not really the case. Many children work, or are disinterested
(18:41):
in or are unable to take careof their parents or whatever reason, or
the relationships won't turn as imagined orhope I hoped, and so my mother
would dream had been pricked by byby the reality that I saw around me,
and I started to think of itas yet another human experience that was
(19:03):
rather self serving, like all otherhuman projects, and not quite bought through.
I thought motherhood was a gamble aswell, like romance or like marriage.
And I realized also that raising achild is a very serious ought to
be, a very serious and demandingresponsibility. And if I were to become
(19:26):
a mother, adoptive or biological,more perhaps perhaps adoptive than biological, I
too will want to give it myall. But to create a human being,
and then to give them you're alljust to meet some of my own
emotional needs seems like a very untenableequation, especially when there are other,
(19:48):
i would say, less demanding meansavailable to address some of my needs.
And of course those means may notdeliver. But what is the guarantee that
the child will? But if youtell folks that you choose to be with
our children, they tend to seeyou as a normal and your decision is
as going against a so called naturalimperative or a natural call. You could
(20:15):
be questioned and even warned about yourwrong decision. People can take it upon
themselves to cure you of your problem, undo your supposedly wrong choice. I
recall a child free woman, arather successful professional, telling me that she's
had to make extra effort to comeacross as kind and soft and polite and
(20:37):
caring because people some people won't seeher like that. Another child free woman
I spoke to shared how a friendalso neighbor hid her pregnancy from her from
the child free woman tit till aslong as the tummy didn't become big,
perhaps because she felt some discomfort orsuspicion or had a bad feeling about her
(21:02):
child freelness. Another child free womansaid she was not allowed to hold a
baby by her mother, who thoughtill of her child free status. So,
and these are all educated, highlyeducated, these women, I was
told about a certain subtle, sometimesin your face exclusion from certain social circles.
(21:26):
To not be invited to a kid'sbirthday party just because you've openly shared
that you don't want to be ato be a mother, which is somehow
always read as you don't like children, which is one of the most strongest
taboos they could ever be. Thefascinating aspect here is the conclusion reached about
(21:47):
this very conclusion reached about the childfreel that they do not like children,
and disliking children is is just notacceptable and admitting it can make things really
bad. It's like a taint inone's character places you in the devil's company,
when surprisingly, the truth could bevery very far from assumeing adore children,
(22:08):
but you may not want to bea parent to a child. The
two are distinct, very very distinct. And yet I mean it should also
be okay to be disinterested in children. You know, you don't even have
to adot children and choose to bechild. You can just I don't.
Really. Children don't do anything forme. I don't think I'm even dogs
do a lot for me. ButI think we need to agreeize that stigma
(22:29):
and be honest about it, becauseeven women who are not particularly interested in
children must pretend that they are right. And so I think it's very important
that we be more open about ambivalentsor disinterest. Also, we don't even
have to adopt children. You know, it's okay, i'm children, but
I don't absolutely I'm not going togo out of my way to hang out
with them either, and that's okay. So just putting that out there since
(22:52):
I can, since I have theprivilege to be able to be honest about
that. But I do want toalso unpack some of the double standards and
hypocrisy around our societal glorification of motherhoodand children, which I think you touched
upon, but I'd love to hopon it because it's so we're so inconsistent.
Right. You said that we onlyapprove of mothers who have their children
(23:15):
within an endogamous heterosexual marriage. Youknow, if you're a single mother having
a child outside of marriage, ifyou're a queer mother who wants a child
without a husband, if you area you interviewed sex workers who are mothers.
Suddenly, our love for motherhood andchildren and respect for those roles is
(23:36):
missing, is conspicuously absent, andwe disadvantage people who might want to be
mothers who don't conform to idea ofthe normative good mother. Right, So
where's our meter normativity now? Huh? You know? And I think that
we're not questioning enough of those verysort of sinister structural biases and who gets
(23:57):
to who gets to be the goodmother? Right? And I think that
your book is so wonderful and inbringing together those who are child free by
choice along with those who are nonnormative mothers, because those are both forms
of resistance. So I'd love tohear also about the insights from your research
(24:17):
and conversations with these uncommon mothers becausewe haven't yet really dived into that that
no one's is very important that womenas mothers from within the motherhood tent as
it were, are rebelling and haverebelled and are trying to reimagine what motherhood
as an institution and mothering is apractice should be or ought to be.
(24:41):
And to offer you an example,I can think of the voluntarily adoptive mother
or couple and I call them voluntarilyadoptive because these are women or couples who
chose to adopt not because of somebiological incapacity, but because they won't to
adopt. It was a political statement, an emotional an emotional psychosocial decision for
(25:08):
them to have a child who doesnot come from their genetic lot. So
that's that's the that's the politics theywanted to put out there. The love
and belonging in kinship has nothing todo with genetic ties. So the voluntarily
adoptive mother or couple has has alsobeen celebrated, celebrated for their altruism,
(25:34):
which could be a part of themotivation to adopt. However, for those
who wanted their voluntary adoption to helploosen the hold of the pronateless parader to
reformulate kinship beyond bodily connection. Ithink their message can get lost in the
noise around real proper mother with thesingle adoptive mother single women adopt children,
(25:59):
the metaanormat blends. Sadly, itpits them against the again, the the
ideal of the conjugal procreative family,the merrit family. So they come out
looking small to some. For thesex worker mother, also, there's both
internal and external pressures from again themetaanormative discourse. Now, since the sex
(26:23):
worker and her child do not belongto the conjugal, monogamous pro creative unit
that's legit as for a patriarchy,they can face lifelong stigma. They're denied
basic human dignity and rights. Sexworkers are assumed to be immoral, incapable
(26:44):
of care. But I came acrossfascinating accounts from sex workers trying to bend
norms and in the process create moremore liberating definitions of who is the good
mother. Yeah. I think thatwhat's so sort of dissonant about some of
the ideologies around motherhood and who andgood motherhood is that there's this sort of
(27:07):
charmed circle of legitimacy. Right,So if you're single but you're adopting a
child, then it's it's kind ofgood optics or like what a what an
altruistic person? If you're single andyou have sex and you have pregnancy and
you go through with it, butyou don't get married or the man abandons
you or you abandon the man orwhatever, that's not so that's not so
(27:29):
sort of acceptable in the social modesof good motherhood. Right. And then
on the other hand, you know, the sex worker mother, even if
she's doing the sex work so thatshe can support her child, isn't a
good mother because again, mothers aren'tmeant to be sexual. But it comes
to you are never a good motherbasically, right, never a good enough
mother unless you are the property ofyour male spouse who gets to determine,
(27:55):
you know, everything about your sortof reproductive choice, as it were.
Or that's the kind of template unfortunatelyin twenty twenty three that we're still stuck
with, and interestingly, the fertilityindustry and reproductive technology kind of reiterates this
whole very patriarchal, pernatalist lens inquite a disturbing way. I think again,
(28:18):
we're not able to be honest aboutthis because we you know, doctors
are another group of people you cannotcriticize in this country, right. We
do not criticize medicine, We donot criticize motherhood. I think it's really
worth asking about the ethics of someof this staff. I think pronatalism itself
is so highly coeresive and at somany levels, individually, collectively, symbolically,
(28:49):
subtly, conspicuously, and so besidesreligion and culture, which gave pronatalism,
it's moral, it's moral currency,it's it's right is high ground.
There's also, like you said veryrightly, the medical industry. Uh,
(29:11):
interestingly, in India, with thecutting age medical technology and the market they've
they've sort of milked milked hard thisuh, this collective sort of deprivation of
life without children anart is especially Saragitill at least it was commercially available in
(29:32):
India. Has a very has hada very pernicious, a very substantive role
to play in this obsession, infueling this obsession of ours and so technology
we can see how how technology canactually denaturalized conception on the ideological level,
(29:56):
but also it can act scentuate andexaggerate embodied motherhood glorify it. So it's
explaining both those roles. Gee,I want to say how meta normativity,
or the maternalization of a female identityactually also harms men. It denies men
(30:18):
the chance to fully experience the parentchild journey, men to get tied to
toxic gender rules. I mean.A small example is the government of India's
child care leave. Till some yearsago, it could only be availed by
women with children, not men withchildren. So if my partner and I
(30:41):
both work with the state or thecentral government, only I could take the
childcare leave. Of course, itfinally included the single male parent who has
say, lost his wife to deathor divorce or has a disabled wife.
For men whose lives are able bodiedand you know, have functional family members,
(31:03):
it is only they, the wives, who could get to the childreive.
So that's really the the institutionalization ofthe metanomative by the state. So
the metanomative is like a concentric circle, one among the many concentric circles of
patriarchy. Let's talk about some ofthe reasons for choosing to be child free.
(31:26):
Yeah, I think these are tounderstand the reasons for women's child freenness.
It may be helpful to know whowho these child free women are,
because they're not your every woman.So from my research, from my small
research, it seems that the childfree women in India comes from a middle
(31:49):
to upper class melieu, and almostall of them, the ones that I
met, had the privilege of goodeducation, very often higheration, successful careers,
and or strong interests with public andsocially engaged lives, possibly exposure to
(32:10):
Western ideas ideologies which means they maynot be so traditional minded. And so
it seems that their widened horizons offeredthem much else that brought meaning to their
life, that brought self worth andinterest and paths to what one could call
(32:31):
a higher calling. And motherhood isoften placed in that haloed realm of higher
calling. And it's these other avenuesof meaning that seemed to them more or
as exciting and as fulfilling as motherhood. And so reasons for these women's chealthiness
(32:57):
lie mostly, I think, inthey're having found these enriching avenues to devote
their lives to, rather than devotingall of one's resources and decades in raising
a child too. What also struckme about these child free women is that
they seem acutely aware of how motherhood, specifically in a country such as India,
(33:21):
plays out. They see it aswithout any filters of romance, as
it were. They see it forwhat it is, rather than for what
it is glorified to be. Theysee it as rather demanding, because very
often looking after children is a woman'sjob, the male partner's absent from active
day to day hands on care.If you're lucky to have money, you
(33:45):
can hire childcare, or if you'relucky to have parents around who can help,
you can also some pieces of childcareto them at times. But for
most Indian families, in the absenceof states and her public childcare, childcare
is a daily, very tired andscramble because there's a paid job to do
(34:08):
that very day for the next fiveto six days or seven days if you're
a domestic worker of from the workingclass. So earning and raising children simultaneously,
as we know, takes a villageand much money. And the child
free lot knows this too well,and they seem to say no thank you
(34:30):
to this, to this kind oflife. Personally, I think there are
also deeper philosophical reasons and spiritual benefitsto child freeness that I really like to
talk about. I think we humanslive mostly in a state of dissatisfaction,
despite having made effort and pursued whatwe think will bring us happiness and peace.
(34:52):
This is not to say that humanlife only equals pain. Lives are,
of course and dispersed with joy,with pleasure, maybe pockets of peace.
But dissatisfaction emerges with every experience ofour lives because nothing stays joyful.
Impermanence is, as the wise onessay, the most profound truths that we
(35:14):
forget about or like to forget about, and afraid of this uncertain future,
anxious about loneliness, disease, oldage, we keep clinging to the hope
that children will offer tender love andthe best of care. But look around
and you'll see that for a numberof reasons, this does not happen.
And we're we're deluded in thinking thata child, or a relationship, or
(35:37):
a job, or a new houseand vocation, other experiences possessions will and
can take away these You know this, this sort of existential pain that lies
at the base of every human phenomena. So we do not have to be
surprised or paint that children are notunloving or unavailable, or we do not
(36:00):
have or we do not have topaint parenting as a source only love and
care. So I think it's viceto accept it and then make informed choices,
especially heavy duty ones such as parentWell, it's emotionally, environmentally a
very heavy duty one. I couldn'tagree more I think. I mean,
(36:23):
today we're asking why some people choosenot to have children. I think most
people who have children never really askwhy they're having children. So I encourage
anyone who thinks they want to bea parent to think long and hard.
It also strikes me as peculiar thatwhen you want to adopt a child,
there's so much due diligence done,but when you just want to have a
child, I mean, everyone canjust have a child. I think there
(36:45):
would be far fewer problems in theworld if we were if people were better
parents. But anyway, I dothink that as we wrap, it would
be wonderful to convey a sense tothose who may not have had the chance
to really think about alternative models ofmeaning and kinship and belonging to some extent,
(37:08):
Having a child seems like the answerto like, why are we here?
What is my purpose on earth?How can I have a meaningful life?
And surely there are also many otherwonderful answers to those questions, and
I think you have a lot ofvery illuminating insights on that sense of meaning
beyond just motherhood. Love to wrapwith those. To that, I'd say,
(37:31):
Lisa, that it's important for usto first be able to break away,
break free from this absolutely imperative thatall women must become mothers. That
we must acknowledge that there is choice, that motherhood is really choice. It's
not mandate or imperative, although itcertainly feels like that. And how do
(37:57):
we break free from this absolute imperative. I think we can do that by
by talking more authentically about motherhood asan institution and mothering as an experience.
But this can happen only if weallow women, especially mothers, the agency
to say it as it is,if we stop judging them, if we
(38:17):
stop mocking and shaming them, ifthey were to speak of, say,
regretting motherhood or regretting some pieces ofbeing a mother. But it's clearly,
very nearly impossible to do that.So the scultural mandate to become a mother
can suppress or does suppress. Itsuppresses women's individuality. It suppresses agency or
(38:42):
decision making, decision making that's basedon your own particular, unique life,
your context, your personals and socialcontext. It shuts you towards the many
other sources or sites of nourishment andfulfillment. We need to counter to subvert
this pressure, this this air thatwe live and breathe, and crack this
(39:06):
imaginary and we can break free.I think from this, from this mirage,
perhaps by reading women's accounts, byreading literature, demystifying the whole romance
around the blood tie, by notseeing blood ties as beyond conflict, as
(39:30):
beyond critique all things sugar and honey, by knowing that motherhood is deeply overrated,
by accepting the love and care needto be nurtured, can be nurtured
across relationships, across species, regardlessof whether that heart beats with my blood
(39:52):
or yours. So it's really undoingour own obsession with biological ties, which
can help like the other avenues ofcare, of companionship, nurturing. But
lastly, I think we must alsosimultaneously develop women's autonomy, their agency,
(40:14):
so that they can envision for themselvesthese alternatives that are as emotionally appealing fulfilling
as as motherhood and arguably more sociallyoriented, and so that then and if
motherhood is still what they want,it is truly a choice, absolutely and
(40:35):
a beautiful one. One must saythat motherhood and parenthood and parenting is a
meaningful sight his and and care becausecare is such a precious and scarce commodity.
It's it's, it's it's a goodchoice as long as women having been
(40:55):
coerced, as long as women knowwhat they are getting into, as long
as our social, political, culturalcontext provide the kind of support that women
and children need for responsible citizens inthe country. Thanks so much for joining
us, Amrita. It's been sucha pleasure talking to you and to anyone
tuning in. I highly recommend readingAmrita's book. It is just so rich
(41:20):
and full of incredible insights around motherhoodand choice. I hope that you enjoyed
this episode of Love Matters, producedby The Indian Express and d W Germany's
international broadcaster. We would love itif you rated and reviewed our podcast wherever
you're listening to it. We'd alsolove it if you shared it with your
friends. And if you do havean insight you'd like to share, you
can reach out to us on Lovemattersat DW dot com. And before I
(41:44):
go, I'd also like to shareanother podcast recommendation. It's called Don't Drink
the Milk and it's also produced byDW. And if you're someone who enjoys
history with a big doors, apop culture and controversy, you're going to
want to check this out. Justlook for Don't Drink the Milk where wherever
you get your podcasts. Till nexttime, I'm Lizamangolas and I believe love Matters
I'm Lisa Mangeldas, and this isLove Matters. Motherhood is presented to women
as the most important and noble rolethey can take on. But is it
really all it's cracked out to be? And what about those who want to
do it differently or those who wantto opt out altogether. That's what we're
going to be talking about today inconversation with doctor Amrida Nandi, an award
(00:24):
winning writer, researcher, professor,and the author of a book called Motherhood
and Choice, Uncommon Mother's Child FreeWomen, which was the result of her
doctoral research on the subject that earnedher a fellowship at Yale. Amrida,
I'm a huge fan of your bookas a child free woman myself, and
so I could not be more delightedto have you on the show. Thanks
(00:45):
so much for joining us. I'dlike to start by asking a little bit
about your own personal ideological journey.You came to this research asking this question
of yourself, do I or doI not wish to be a mother?
Right? Could you take us alittle bit through that process of self reflection?
Thank you so much, Lisa,such a pleasure and honor to be
(01:07):
here to be talking to you.So Lisa. As a child, my
view on motherhood was quite starry eyed. I was really moonstruck. I loved
playing with babies and I still dotremendously. And I remember roleplay games with
my little girlfriends, play acting asthe mother to the neighbor's baby, to
(01:30):
plastic dolls. And since all theadults around had their own children, I
grew up presuming that motherhood was inevitable, it was desirable, it was aspirational.
My interest in researching motherhood has anotherpersonal beginning. I agree up watching
(01:52):
my mother, my homemaker mother.She was constantly in character, as I
say in the book, sometimes evenin her other roles. You know she
would eat last. She still does. She still waits for me at the
meal table. So one comes acrossmany such mothers. I'm sure you have
to that they're all the same flavor, as it were, right, flavored
(02:15):
by what I call me to normativity. We can get to the term a
little later, or they're playing thescript that's offered by society, this whole
mammalian body mind which is wired toprotect the child. And I observed as
a young girl, I observed howhow women's lives, especially of mother's was
(02:39):
really monopolized by different forms of care, not just mothering as a form of
UH. And I noticed how muchwomen juggle, how much they struggle with
paid employment with care work at home, dividing up their awakening hours in two
(03:00):
or three shifts of daily labor.They're exhausted in this sort of relentless caregiving.
And regardless of whether women are fulltime homemakers or part time workers in
paid employment, most of them,most of us, are expected to regard
care giving to the family as asprimary duty, and they downplay, or
(03:23):
we downplay, are other aspirations,are other capabilities or responsibilities, and some
regret having to abandon certain aspects oftheir pre motherhood life, such as careers,
friendships, or sometimes even just leisureand rest. So this is what
this is what I was. Iwas watching through the years as I was
(03:46):
growing up, and all of thisthen came up to me when when I
was married and I had this,I had to face this question. And
I mean you mentioned it already.I definitely want you to explain to people
who haven't yet read your book whatmeta normativity is. I think it does
factor into all aspirations, even forus who choose to reject the role of
(04:13):
motherhood. It's hard to escape thatconditioning. Absolutely, you said it.
The term meta normativity, it's Icooked it up, and it's not a
very pretty word, but I thinkit does its job, which is to
communicate this paradigm, the dominant paradigmthat identifies women as potential mothers, all
(04:36):
women as potential mothers, symbolic mothers, or as maternals. So meter normativity
is really two conjoined words. Meter, which stands for mother, and normativity
is the state of being normative orof the norm It's the assumption that all
those born females are and must benaturally maternal, and thereby motherho and mothering
(05:00):
and all the forms of caregiving comenaturally to them and therefore should be their
main pursuits in life. And thishype around met normativity or the maternalization of
female identity is very disempowering. It'sdisempowering not just for women, but also
for girls and mothers. I startI start with girls first, because from
(05:24):
a young age, I think we'resocialized, we're groomed for marriage and motherhood,
and if we're lucky, for educationand career. So most girls and
women can never even come to thinkof motherhood as choice. It's this strong
cultural muscle that's flexed in our faces, in the faces of girls, so
(05:45):
they see little else and this itrobs little girls of their ability growing up
to fully imagine and live out theirauthentic true selves. And what can be
worse than stubbing someone's imagination as theiror crippling their agency, because even questioning
motherhood is like is like sacrilege formothers. I think a metanormative culture,
(06:10):
which is what which is what ourculture is, which is what most cultures
across countries, and is that itcontrols our motivations, our actions, even
our attitudes towards sat paid employment.We know that mothering is often it's just
euphemism for single handed care m rightwhere are the men in the day to
(06:30):
day care of children in childcare?Yet mothers lived with what is often called
maternal guilt. It's that ceaseless feelingof never doing enough or the best for
one's child. And you've see blogsthere are heartbreaking accounts of how mothers are
judged or judged themselves, policed andpolice themselves by their own partners, school
teachers, and so this is thisis really the metanormative, and for those
(06:55):
who are unable to have children,meter normativity can often lead to great personal
trauma, social difficulties, a senseof failure, emptiness, shame, stigma.
In urban families with women professionals,the pressure to be your mother may
have lessened somewhat, but this doesnot represent the larger social attitude towards towards
(07:16):
motherhoods. So it's not just prevalentin India. I think it's among those
very rare, nearly universal concepts.I'd love for you to expand on that
a bit more, because I thinkwe don't sufficiently sufficiently question the romanticization of
the mother, right. We talkedabout how it feels almost sacrilegious to question
(07:40):
it. Even women themselves police suchthoughts, police each other's thoughts. If
you are a bad mother, ifyou ever admit to feeling ambivalence, let
alone disinterest or regret around having hadchildren, or just the idea of having
children. And so I think thatfor most women, and you talk about
this in the book as well,is it even a choice? Right if
(08:01):
it's presented to you in the waythat it is, Are you even making
a choice even when you think you'remaking a choice. I think that's such
an interesting question, in one thatwe're not encouraged to ask at all.
And I also wonder whether you'd liketo expound on the fact that this romanticization
of motherhood isn't as sort of harmlessand innocuous and lovely as it seems,
(08:24):
because there are authors of capitalism andreligion and patriarchy that by design seek to
control women's choices, right, andthis is very much a part of that
nexus. But by guising it inthis sort of like you know, haloed,
beatific vision of motherhood kind of makeswhat's quite sinister much more palatable to
(08:48):
most of us. Absolutely, you'vesaid it's so beautifully Lisa. But before
answering your question of the romanticization ofmotherhood, let's speak of the what I
think it's useful to to know justwhat kind of motherhood gets romanticized and why.
Motherhood in a heterosexual setting where aman and women get married, especially
(09:09):
within a socially approved cast, class, religious setting, that is seen as
the ideal setting that deserves romanticization.So non marital motherhood or you know,
motherhood that's out of wedlook, forexample, that's the term, the use
is not romanticized, and single adoptivemothers are not held as high in esteem
(09:35):
as married women who gave birth andalso in a majority in culture, which
is what India's turned out to be. Unfortunately, minority motherhood is meaned even
though within the minority subculture motherhood couldbe romanticized. So there is this hierarchy
of sorts unacknowledged, not fully unspoken, i'd say, but it looks in
(09:58):
discourse, it looks and united use. It's also fascinating to pay attention to
the contexts of motherhood. The romancearound motherhood actually begins with the institutional marriage,
which itself is a substantiechnom. We'reall expected to marry, especially women,
so that us, our body is, our sexuality can be policed.
(10:18):
Marriage is seen as an ideal settingfor the expression of our love of romance,
sexuality, and family making. Andhere too the norm is the marriage
in motherhood take place within, likeyou said, a patriarchy's setting, where
the woman marries into the husband's family, takes on his name uh, and
then and then the children then belongto that patrilineal line, and so on
(10:41):
and so forth. So it isin such contexts. It is these certain
forms of motherhood that that are romanticized. Now, now about the romanticization piece,
it's also a mother's labor at childbirth. I think it begins there and
then the subsequent decades of caregiving laborthat are romanticized as her sacrifice, even
(11:07):
though there's very little talk of whatall this this role can jeopardize, such
as the other pursuits that she mayhave put aside. And like I said
earlier, maternal guilt is also ina sense a manifestation of the romanticization of
the role, whereby you feel youcan never do enough for the child.
(11:28):
And this feeling, this knowing feeling, is it resembles regret. It's it's
this unbridgible gap between the idealized motherand the real mother. The romanticization is
done through norms, social norms,cultural norms that have been put in place
to regulate our choices as women andto engineer these these systems to reproduce,
(11:52):
to reproduce biologically, to reproduce sociallyhuman societies. And where do these norms
live? They live in our everydayconversations with each other. In film Poetray
Song Mythology blogs and so on.I think our own behaviors reiterate and nourish
these norms. Let's think of earlymarriage. Say, early marriage in some
(12:16):
communities is a norm because those whohold part in that community, say villay
editors, are worried about the sexualityof young girls. There could be legends
of it's about laid marriage leading toinfertility and childlessness. All there are cuss
words, you know, words likebane band is a Hindi word for barren
woman. It's an explititive. Soyou see how language the medical industry of
(12:41):
fertility clinics, for example, theylunify human worth over adoption of children for
the purpose of their own profits.So the discourse of and around motherhood that
is a source and the site ofthis romanticization. It suits the market,
it suits the state. Of course, it suits patriarchal family men if women
(13:03):
were to keep devoting most to theirlives to only your primarily bearing in research
exactly. And I think that it'sso important for us, even if we
do choose to be mothers, tobe informed of and questioning off all of
this that surrounds the construction of itas an injunction rather than a true choice.
(13:24):
But I want to also sort ofunpack the ideas of child free versus
child less. Sure, now,that's an important one, and we often
very loosely use these words interchangeably,and it's important to know the distinction.
Therefore, so if in popular linguoLisa, those who are without children are
(13:45):
referred to as child less, however, some among these so called child less
could be so intentionally, but theterm childless pains over this rather crucial distinction.
So as a way to mark theintentionally childless as separate, there have
been other terms in existence terms suchas childless by choice or voluntarily child ass
(14:09):
but I found both of these termsslightly problematic because these expressions use the suffix
less in child less or child lessby choice or voluntarily childless. To me,
child less implies an incompleteness, adeficit in an individual's life or their
(14:31):
identity, as if they lack somethingthey ought to have, So I prefer
to use the term child free.I came across the term in other books
that I read on the subject,so I adopted this sys term for my
own use. I like child freebecause it's affirmative, unlike the negative child
less, and so to adopt andclaim the child free label is to also
(14:54):
make a political statement, right,it's paradigm mending that statement. It means
I do not myself and I wouldnot want you to see me as childless,
and I do not accept the childbearing or rearing is the ultimate purpose
of my life. And I seemany more fulfilling, beautiful, notching roles
(15:16):
for me, including caregiving for thosewho they need it. And yet there's
sort of unique stigmas that attach themselvesto both the state of childlessness. When
you want children but can't have any, you mentioned the word bande as well
as to those who are child free, because that's the state of being that
(15:37):
they have chosen, right, Andit's funny how sometimes the same sort of
shame becomes attached to both states forwomen unfortunately, sphere of judgment and low
YAKAYENGI. Then there's so much nuancein your book, and I think that
sometimes a simplistic, you know,pro natalist versus anti natalist sort of discoss
(15:58):
on social media or something miss isso much of that nuance. And I'd
love for you to just elaborate alittle bit further on this issue of child
less versus child free because I thinkyou bring out the nuances off and the
stigma, which in a way itcomes to both locuses from major normativity.
Right, whether you choose not tohave children or you cannot have children because
(16:21):
of an infertility, you're unable tobe another and therefore you're not going enough.
No, that's such a fine question, and I'm so happy put the
binary out there to speak against pronatalism is not to be an anti natalist.
One is not saying we all stophaving children. All one is saying
is recognize deeply the pressure, themandate, the inferative, Where does it
(16:47):
come from, who does it benefit, and what does it cost women.
We're saying this so that there's betterpublic infrastructure. We're saying this so that
women are able to live their livesin as fullsome a manner as as possible.
That's the intention. The intention reallyisn't what it's often painted out to
(17:08):
be. But to answer your question, I begin with myself. I was
faced with with you know, withthe usual milestones of education, career,
marriage, motherhood, and I foundgreat insights into womanhood at each of these,
(17:30):
you know, reading literature, forexample, reading My Women's Lives,
gender, career, marriage, eachof these offered very eye opening experiences and
counter narratives to what films or populardiscourse had portrayed motherhood as. And so
I faced some very thoughtful working questions, like why did I want a child?
(17:53):
We very often fantasize about having children, and I did too, and
I still love children, but wevery rarely subject this desire to thought,
very rarely do be questioned deeply.And when I when I reflected on the
meaning and the implications of motherhood,I realized that I did not have any
(18:18):
substantive reasons except mush and hope thatthe child will bring meaning, the child
will bring more love, the childwill bring the opposite of loneliness. And
yet all around me I saw thatthis expectation from the child bringing full such
fulfillment, but not really the case. Many children work, or are disinterested
(18:41):
in or are unable to take careof their parents or whatever reason, or
the relationships won't turn as imagined orhope I hoped, and so my mother
would dream had been pricked by byby the reality that I saw around me,
and I started to think of itas yet another human experience that was
(19:03):
rather self serving, like all otherhuman projects, and not quite bought through.
I thought motherhood was a gamble aswell, like romance or like marriage.
And I realized also that raising achild is a very serious ought to
be, a very serious and demandingresponsibility. And if I were to become
(19:26):
a mother, adoptive or biological,more perhaps perhaps adoptive than biological, I
too will want to give it myall. But to create a human being,
and then to give them you're alljust to meet some of my own
emotional needs seems like a very untenableequation, especially when there are other,
(19:48):
i would say, less demanding meansavailable to address some of my needs.
And of course those means may notdeliver. But what is the guarantee that
the child will? But if youtell folks that you choose to be with
our children, they tend to seeyou as a normal and your decision is
as going against a so called naturalimperative or a natural call. You could
(20:15):
be questioned and even warned about yourwrong decision. People can take it upon
themselves to cure you of your problem, undo your supposedly wrong choice. I
recall a child free woman, arather successful professional, telling me that she's
had to make extra effort to comeacross as kind and soft and polite and
(20:37):
caring because people some people won't seeher like that. Another child free woman
I spoke to shared how a friendalso neighbor hid her pregnancy from her from
the child free woman tit till aslong as the tummy didn't become big,
perhaps because she felt some discomfort orsuspicion or had a bad feeling about her
(21:02):
child freelness. Another child free womansaid she was not allowed to hold a
baby by her mother, who thoughtill of her child free status. So,
and these are all educated, highlyeducated, these women, I was
told about a certain subtle, sometimesin your face exclusion from certain social circles.
(21:26):
To not be invited to a kid'sbirthday party just because you've openly shared
that you don't want to be ato be a mother, which is somehow
always read as you don't like children, which is one of the most strongest
taboos they could ever be. Thefascinating aspect here is the conclusion reached about
(21:47):
this very conclusion reached about the childfreel that they do not like children,
and disliking children is is just notacceptable and admitting it can make things really
bad. It's like a taint inone's character places you in the devil's company,
when surprisingly, the truth could bevery very far from assumeing adore children,
(22:08):
but you may not want to bea parent to a child. The
two are distinct, very very distinct. And yet I mean it should also
be okay to be disinterested in children. You know, you don't even have
to adot children and choose to bechild. You can just I don't.
Really. Children don't do anything forme. I don't think I'm even dogs
do a lot for me. ButI think we need to agreeize that stigma
(22:29):
and be honest about it, becauseeven women who are not particularly interested in
children must pretend that they are right. And so I think it's very important
that we be more open about ambivalentsor disinterest. Also, we don't even
have to adopt children. You know, it's okay, i'm children, but
I don't absolutely I'm not going togo out of my way to hang out
with them either, and that's okay. So just putting that out there since
(22:52):
I can, since I have theprivilege to be able to be honest about
that. But I do want toalso unpack some of the double standards and
hypocrisy around our societal glorification of motherhoodand children, which I think you touched
upon, but I'd love to hopon it because it's so we're so inconsistent.
Right. You said that we onlyapprove of mothers who have their children
(23:15):
within an endogamous heterosexual marriage. Youknow, if you're a single mother having
a child outside of marriage, ifyou're a queer mother who wants a child
without a husband, if you area you interviewed sex workers who are mothers.
Suddenly, our love for motherhood andchildren and respect for those roles is
(23:36):
missing, is conspicuously absent, andwe disadvantage people who might want to be
mothers who don't conform to idea ofthe normative good mother. Right, So
where's our meter normativity now? Huh? You know? And I think that
we're not questioning enough of those verysort of sinister structural biases and who gets
(23:57):
to who gets to be the goodmother? Right? And I think that
your book is so wonderful and inbringing together those who are child free by
choice along with those who are nonnormative mothers, because those are both forms
of resistance. So I'd love tohear also about the insights from your research
(24:17):
and conversations with these uncommon mothers becausewe haven't yet really dived into that that
no one's is very important that womenas mothers from within the motherhood tent as
it were, are rebelling and haverebelled and are trying to reimagine what motherhood
as an institution and mothering is apractice should be or ought to be.
(24:41):
And to offer you an example,I can think of the voluntarily adoptive mother
or couple and I call them voluntarilyadoptive because these are women or couples who
chose to adopt not because of somebiological incapacity, but because they won't to
adopt. It was a political statement, an emotional an emotional psychosocial decision for
(25:08):
them to have a child who doesnot come from their genetic lot. So
that's that's the that's the politics theywanted to put out there. The love
and belonging in kinship has nothing todo with genetic ties. So the voluntarily
adoptive mother or couple has has alsobeen celebrated, celebrated for their altruism,
(25:34):
which could be a part of themotivation to adopt. However, for those
who wanted their voluntary adoption to helploosen the hold of the pronateless parader to
reformulate kinship beyond bodily connection. Ithink their message can get lost in the
noise around real proper mother with thesingle adoptive mother single women adopt children,
(25:59):
the metaanormat blends. Sadly, itpits them against the again, the the
ideal of the conjugal procreative family,the merrit family. So they come out
looking small to some. For thesex worker mother, also, there's both
internal and external pressures from again themetaanormative discourse. Now, since the sex
(26:23):
worker and her child do not belongto the conjugal, monogamous pro creative unit
that's legit as for a patriarchy,they can face lifelong stigma. They're denied
basic human dignity and rights. Sexworkers are assumed to be immoral, incapable
(26:44):
of care. But I came acrossfascinating accounts from sex workers trying to bend
norms and in the process create moremore liberating definitions of who is the good
mother. Yeah. I think thatwhat's so sort of dissonant about some of
the ideologies around motherhood and who andgood motherhood is that there's this sort of
(27:07):
charmed circle of legitimacy. Right,So if you're single but you're adopting a
child, then it's it's kind ofgood optics or like what a what an
altruistic person? If you're single andyou have sex and you have pregnancy and
you go through with it, butyou don't get married or the man abandons
you or you abandon the man orwhatever, that's not so that's not so
(27:29):
sort of acceptable in the social modesof good motherhood. Right. And then
on the other hand, you know, the sex worker mother, even if
she's doing the sex work so thatshe can support her child, isn't a
good mother because again, mothers aren'tmeant to be sexual. But it comes
to you are never a good motherbasically, right, never a good enough
mother unless you are the property ofyour male spouse who gets to determine,
(27:55):
you know, everything about your sortof reproductive choice, as it were.
Or that's the kind of template unfortunatelyin twenty twenty three that we're still stuck
with, and interestingly, the fertilityindustry and reproductive technology kind of reiterates this
whole very patriarchal, pernatalist lens inquite a disturbing way. I think again,
(28:18):
we're not able to be honest aboutthis because we you know, doctors
are another group of people you cannotcriticize in this country, right. We
do not criticize medicine, We donot criticize motherhood. I think it's really
worth asking about the ethics of someof this staff. I think pronatalism itself
is so highly coeresive and at somany levels, individually, collectively, symbolically,
(28:49):
subtly, conspicuously, and so besidesreligion and culture, which gave pronatalism,
it's moral, it's moral currency,it's it's right is high ground.
There's also, like you said veryrightly, the medical industry. Uh,
(29:11):
interestingly, in India, with thecutting age medical technology and the market they've
they've sort of milked milked hard thisuh, this collective sort of deprivation of
life without children anart is especially Saragitill at least it was commercially available in
(29:32):
India. Has a very has hada very pernicious, a very substantive role
to play in this obsession, infueling this obsession of ours and so technology
we can see how how technology canactually denaturalized conception on the ideological level,
(29:56):
but also it can act scentuate andexaggerate embodied motherhood glorify it. So it's
explaining both those roles. Gee,I want to say how meta normativity,
or the maternalization of a female identityactually also harms men. It denies men
(30:18):
the chance to fully experience the parentchild journey, men to get tied to
toxic gender rules. I mean.A small example is the government of India's
child care leave. Till some yearsago, it could only be availed by
women with children, not men withchildren. So if my partner and I
(30:41):
both work with the state or thecentral government, only I could take the
childcare leave. Of course, itfinally included the single male parent who has
say, lost his wife to deathor divorce or has a disabled wife.
For men whose lives are able bodiedand you know, have functional family members,
(31:03):
it is only they, the wives, who could get to the childreive.
So that's really the the institutionalization ofthe metanomative by the state. So
the metanomative is like a concentric circle, one among the many concentric circles of
patriarchy. Let's talk about some ofthe reasons for choosing to be child free.
(31:26):
Yeah, I think these are tounderstand the reasons for women's child freenness.
It may be helpful to know whowho these child free women are,
because they're not your every woman.So from my research, from my small
research, it seems that the childfree women in India comes from a middle
(31:49):
to upper class melieu, and almostall of them, the ones that I
met, had the privilege of goodeducation, very often higheration, successful careers,
and or strong interests with public andsocially engaged lives, possibly exposure to
(32:10):
Western ideas ideologies which means they maynot be so traditional minded. And so
it seems that their widened horizons offeredthem much else that brought meaning to their
life, that brought self worth andinterest and paths to what one could call
(32:31):
a higher calling. And motherhood isoften placed in that haloed realm of higher
calling. And it's these other avenuesof meaning that seemed to them more or
as exciting and as fulfilling as motherhood. And so reasons for these women's chealthiness
(32:57):
lie mostly, I think, inthey're having found these enriching avenues to devote
their lives to, rather than devotingall of one's resources and decades in raising
a child too. What also struckme about these child free women is that
they seem acutely aware of how motherhood, specifically in a country such as India,
(33:21):
plays out. They see it aswithout any filters of romance, as
it were. They see it forwhat it is, rather than for what
it is glorified to be. Theysee it as rather demanding, because very
often looking after children is a woman'sjob, the male partner's absent from active
day to day hands on care.If you're lucky to have money, you
(33:45):
can hire childcare, or if you'relucky to have parents around who can help,
you can also some pieces of childcareto them at times. But for
most Indian families, in the absenceof states and her public childcare, childcare
is a daily, very tired andscramble because there's a paid job to do
(34:08):
that very day for the next fiveto six days or seven days if you're
a domestic worker of from the workingclass. So earning and raising children simultaneously,
as we know, takes a villageand much money. And the child
free lot knows this too well,and they seem to say no thank you
(34:30):
to this, to this kind oflife. Personally, I think there are
also deeper philosophical reasons and spiritual benefitsto child freeness that I really like to
talk about. I think we humanslive mostly in a state of dissatisfaction,
despite having made effort and pursued whatwe think will bring us happiness and peace.
(34:52):
This is not to say that humanlife only equals pain. Lives are,
of course and dispersed with joy,with pleasure, maybe pockets of peace.
But dissatisfaction emerges with every experience ofour lives because nothing stays joyful.
Impermanence is, as the wise onessay, the most profound truths that we
(35:14):
forget about or like to forget about, and afraid of this uncertain future,
anxious about loneliness, disease, oldage, we keep clinging to the hope
that children will offer tender love andthe best of care. But look around
and you'll see that for a numberof reasons, this does not happen.
And we're we're deluded in thinking thata child, or a relationship, or
(35:37):
a job, or a new houseand vocation, other experiences possessions will and
can take away these You know this, this sort of existential pain that lies
at the base of every human phenomena. So we do not have to be
surprised or paint that children are notunloving or unavailable, or we do not
(36:00):
have or we do not have topaint parenting as a source only love and
care. So I think it's viceto accept it and then make informed choices,
especially heavy duty ones such as parentWell, it's emotionally, environmentally a
very heavy duty one. I couldn'tagree more I think. I mean,
(36:23):
today we're asking why some people choosenot to have children. I think most
people who have children never really askwhy they're having children. So I encourage
anyone who thinks they want to bea parent to think long and hard.
It also strikes me as peculiar thatwhen you want to adopt a child,
there's so much due diligence done,but when you just want to have a
child, I mean, everyone canjust have a child. I think there
(36:45):
would be far fewer problems in theworld if we were if people were better
parents. But anyway, I dothink that as we wrap, it would
be wonderful to convey a sense tothose who may not have had the chance
to really think about alternative models ofmeaning and kinship and belonging to some extent,
(37:08):
Having a child seems like the answerto like, why are we here?
What is my purpose on earth?How can I have a meaningful life?
And surely there are also many otherwonderful answers to those questions, and
I think you have a lot ofvery illuminating insights on that sense of meaning
beyond just motherhood. Love to wrapwith those. To that, I'd say,
(37:31):
Lisa, that it's important for usto first be able to break away,
break free from this absolutely imperative thatall women must become mothers. That
we must acknowledge that there is choice, that motherhood is really choice. It's
not mandate or imperative, although itcertainly feels like that. And how do
(37:57):
we break free from this absolute imperative. I think we can do that by
by talking more authentically about motherhood asan institution and mothering as an experience.
But this can happen only if weallow women, especially mothers, the agency
to say it as it is,if we stop judging them, if we
(38:17):
stop mocking and shaming them, ifthey were to speak of, say,
regretting motherhood or regretting some pieces ofbeing a mother. But it's clearly,
very nearly impossible to do that.So the scultural mandate to become a mother
can suppress or does suppress. Itsuppresses women's individuality. It suppresses agency or
(38:42):
decision making, decision making that's basedon your own particular, unique life,
your context, your personals and socialcontext. It shuts you towards the many
other sources or sites of nourishment andfulfillment. We need to counter to subvert
this pressure, this this air thatwe live and breathe, and crack this
(39:06):
imaginary and we can break free.I think from this, from this mirage,
perhaps by reading women's accounts, byreading literature, demystifying the whole romance
around the blood tie, by notseeing blood ties as beyond conflict, as
(39:30):
beyond critique all things sugar and honey, by knowing that motherhood is deeply overrated,
by accepting the love and care needto be nurtured, can be nurtured
across relationships, across species, regardlessof whether that heart beats with my blood
(39:52):
or yours. So it's really undoingour own obsession with biological ties, which
can help like the other avenues ofcare, of companionship, nurturing. But
lastly, I think we must alsosimultaneously develop women's autonomy, their agency,
(40:14):
so that they can envision for themselvesthese alternatives that are as emotionally appealing fulfilling
as as motherhood and arguably more sociallyoriented, and so that then and if
motherhood is still what they want,it is truly a choice, absolutely and
(40:35):
a beautiful one. One must saythat motherhood and parenthood and parenting is a
meaningful sight his and and care becausecare is such a precious and scarce commodity.
It's it's, it's it's a goodchoice as long as women having been
(40:55):
coerced, as long as women knowwhat they are getting into, as long
as our social, political, culturalcontext provide the kind of support that women
and children need for responsible citizens inthe country. Thanks so much for joining
us, Amrita. It's been sucha pleasure talking to you and to anyone
tuning in. I highly recommend readingAmrita's book. It is just so rich
(41:20):
and full of incredible insights around motherhoodand choice. I hope that you enjoyed
this episode of Love Matters, producedby The Indian Express and d W Germany's
international broadcaster. We would love itif you rated and reviewed our podcast wherever
you're listening to it. We'd alsolove it if you shared it with your
friends. And if you do havean insight you'd like to share, you
can reach out to us on Lovemattersat DW dot com. And before I
(41:44):
go, I'd also like to shareanother podcast recommendation. It's called Don't Drink
the Milk and it's also produced byDW. And if you're someone who enjoys
history with a big doors, apop culture and controversy, you're going to
want to check this out. Justlook for Don't Drink the Milk where wherever
you get your podcasts. Till nexttime, I'm Lizamangolas and I believe love Matters
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