Recently, a colleague of mine just started expecting. Every five minutes, she would visit the bathroom. We would then discuss childbearing for another five minutes. All the women working in my room would regale each other with tales of the nausea, losing figures and body thermostats acting strangely. Then, another friend sent an e-mail with the question: I’m lonely, and very much in love, what is it like getting married and most importantly, having kids, is it all worth it? Strange questions to ask, I thought. Is it her biological clock? Certainly, one could think of other alternatives to getting rid of your loneliness instead of marriage followed by a lethal dose of ‘children’.
Generally, young aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends go gaga over babies. Everyone who has held a baby thinks that they have a way with kids, that is, until they have their own. Having a baby is one of those things that happens to you automatically — if you aren’t able to tell everyone the good news a couple of months after your marriage, you feel you haven’t graduated to respectability. Whether we realize it or not, it seems we get married solely for the purpose of achieving the Indus ‘mother goddess’ proportions and getting kicked from inside. Fecundity is still perceived as a sign of prosperity for the family in almost all cultures and signified by the example of Abraham offering his most treasured possession to God, his son. Check out a feminist, lets say, Germaine Greer, on this subject and you’ll end up believing that men are surplus to requirements.
Coming back to the practical sides to the whole issue in the modern world. In trying to get ‘there’, one realizes that there are downsides to it as well and then one tends to get second thoughts. Generally at this point, your figure goes bad or you get phone calls from your parents telling you that the jeans you were wearing, in the photos we’ve received, was too tight and might just hurt your baby, one tends to wonder if its worth it. You tend to realize at this point that 10 years down the line, the Kylie Mynogues or the Madonnas will still retain their perpetual 16-year-old figures, while you will be halfway down to resembling your grandmother’s.
This feeling tends to happen very often when something goes wrong with your plumbing and you have to rush to the bathroom every five minutes. You can’t stand the pressure on your bladder or you can’t sleep because your the body thermostat goes bad and you feel hot while the person next to you is feeling cold or when you are diagnosed with pre-eclempsia, feel headachy and they keep checking your blood pressure and your feet get swollen because of edema so that you have to get shoes two sizes larger or leg cramps — also bring on the second thoughts.
Despite your husband being around to hold your hand, the panic and the pain may even get worse if you find that the obstetrician on call turns out to be your neighbour — this actually happened to someone who survived the ordeal to tell, “This was the only time in my life that I wished I was wearing a burqa.” By now, everyone should be able to do a flow chart or a diagram describing the whole process. I’ll spare you the details about the nausea in the first trimester or the epidural not working in the last few minutes.
But this is just the beginning. There are several problems, which we have had to live with after the ordeal as well. One relates to sleepless nights for the rest of your life. Can any parent sleep uninterrupted through the night? I doubt it. I remember giving my parents sleepless nights to a ripe old age (mine) — I think I hear them in the background saying that I still do. So there it continues to the present day and at times when you are not there for your child, thank heaven for grandparents.
Mummies’ rooms or clean toilets are rare in Pakistan. This means that you will undergo embarrassing and totally un-cool experiences such as stopping at the side of the road every one to three hours to let someone ‘wee wee’, as part of your normal routine and join a sizable segment of population which is busy relieving themselves next to walls. The kiddies and us are not the only ones facing plumbing problems. Despite Islamabad’s large number of baitul khala, men, of all ages, relieving themselves is pretty common. But my object is to make mummies beware. If it is the chand raat, the car is full of family and friends out on a drive and the child insists that he would prefer to go into the dark to address a call of nature, he or she could end up in an open gutter. A friend and her precocious five-year-old son who ended up in such a stinky mess, simply got home with the child sitting in the boot of the car and hosed down in the lawn at 12 at night.
You’ll also have to get up in the morning to get a child eat, dress and get to work. High fees for schools and not having uniforms means that the entire wardrobe of the child has to be planned with more care than you would do for yourself. But before I put you off completely, let me make this point: you will enjoy her growing and remember Khalil Jibran’s Prophet, “Your children are not your children.”
There’s nothing better than seeing a little girl trying to be clever when she tells you “Ayesha amma jeeee’, I need that” or “ I’m not at the bottom of the class, I’m only third from the bottom’ or when she wants you to be with her when she falls asleep or planning silly little ghararas for her for all occasions — eids, uncle’s wedding or her own. So enjoy it all. Reproductive, non-remunerative labour (borrowing ‘gender’ jargon here) isn’t really all that bad. After all, if you go ahead and have 14 little bundles of joy, year after year, and end up expiring, your hubby might think of building up a Taj Mahal for you. People will call it the greatest and the loveliest monument to romance and love.
Recently, a colleague of mine just started expecting. Every five minutes, she would visit the bathroom. We would then discuss childbearing for another five minutes. All the women working in my room would regale each other with tales of the nausea, losing figures and body thermostats acting strangely. Then, another friend sent an e-mail with the question: I’m lonely, and very much in love, what is it like getting married and most importantly, having kids, is it all worth it? Strange questions to ask, I thought. Is it her biological clock? Certainly, one could think of other alternatives to getting rid of your loneliness instead of marriage followed by a lethal dose of ‘children’.
