Disreputable

There is so much to say, to shout out loud into the busy noise of our daily lives, about the gnarled idiosyncrasies of a woman’s life, that sometimes I wish for the world to come to a screeching halt - just long enough to take a good long look and then, hopefully, readjust its course.

Population growth could be a thing of the past.

Things may have changed, but when I went to school, I was never told about the effects that childbirth may have on my life. There was no mentioning of the part-time trap or of forgoing years of paying into a state pension fund.

Never were issues such as physical and emotional strains of child bearing and raising openly discussed. The exhaustion which goes along with attending to the next generation was a slightly disreputable secret just like worn-out bras.

Menstruation was a biological fact young women had to learn to cope with. In no way was it considered a rite of passage that bestowed powers of reproduction to be both acknowledged and reckoned with. And as far as my sexuality was concerned, the pill was to take care of that.

And so I entered adulthood as a complete ignoramus ready to take on the double day.

Completely oblivious of what that would entail, of course, for I thought, that I was free to choose any carrier and decide how I was going to live my life - ah yes, those mirages of endless opportunities!

Entering university, I had a pretty good idea of how to work towards future employability, but over the years I was sobered by numerous reminders that instead of venturing out into the remunerated work force where glass ceilings, harassment, double days and unequal pay were awaiting me, it may be wiser to stay closer to home and settle for biological fulfillment.

Under the circumstances, certainly not a bad idea. Thank you very much.

And so after having given birth to three children spaced neatly three years apart, I opted out and left it to my partner to play the chicken ladder game. An impregnable uterus is - after all - another disreputable fact, that doesn’t sit well with employers. If nothing else, it defines one as ‘different’ - especially in the more profitable lines of work. And ‘different’ is seldom a good thing - especially when ‘normal’ is defined by the bully.

My cousin once asked me, whether I had wasted my education when opting to become a stay-at-home mother. As much as the question shocked me for its brazen disrespect, I have thought about it time and again and wondered how I would answer it with what I had realized about the myths of self-determination.

Get a job, a hobby, find a worthy cause, some would say. But luckily I don’t need either. What I would like much more is to enter in a dialogue about the most crucial aspects of our lives as women and mothers, some of which need to be addressed urgently.

But here is one more disreputable side about me: I don’t care enough about all of this to lend my time and energy to those who prefer the status quo and will cowardly defend it by all means for fear of even the mildest challenge. And so I wait that some day, a critical mass of people will join the discourse and that the bullies who had their turn will simply disappear.

In the meantime, stay posted for a brilliant idea....!