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Tuesday 26 May 2020

My Mini Version and a Thoughtful Afternoon



Life is hard with a toddler, life is very hard with one toddler and one unofficial toddler (read: husband), and it is extremely difficult with both of them at home because of this lockdown. It’s almost like, if the lockdown goes on any longer, the mothers’ union will manage to create a vaccine to send their toddlers to school and office respectively.

My three-year-old daughter is a mini version of me. God! She is a smart baby; asking questions the entire time and challenging every single rule. All these questioning and challenging rules are fun when I am doing it, however, when a three-year-old refuses to listen to you and argue, it just drives me crazy. And the mighty husband enjoys the show from the front seat.



While having a crazy quarantine, I was thinking about my pregnancy and what struck me most is that I wanted a boy child and I am not ashamed of it.

My whole life, I really considered myself a feminist, and most of my actions reflected that. One of the best compliments I ever received is from my MBA classmate who called me a true fearless feminist.

But when I became pregnant the first thing that came to my mind was that I wanted a boy. And that very thing felt so damn wrong. On one hand, I claimed to be a feminist, belief in equality, and on the other hand, I wished to have a boy. I should have been wishing for a healthy baby, irrespective of the sex of the baby.

That very thought haunted me for days. On Surface, It seems like I just want a boy child. But it was only when I dug deeper that I discovered the real reason why I wanted a boy child.

One thing is very clear in our society, not only in India but the whole world, it is primarily a male-dominated society whether we like it or not. Still, there are some people, called feminists (I swear to god, it sounds like an abusive word nowadays) who still dare to believe in equality, striving for a society, which is based on equal rights, equal choice, and equal opportunity. In most cases, the work of feminism was concentrated on the independence of women, women empowerment, equal pay, equal job opportunity, equal opportunity for education, etc. And we have created a generation of ladies who are independent, smart, intelligent, and ready to take on any responsibility and do what is needed.

No matter what, one thing we all can agree, the two genders are an equal part of our society, and in order to achieve holistic growth we need to address both genders, only making our girls independent won’t solve the problem. However, men, in general, are not used to such independent women. Someone once told me, you are too smart to be a woman. And he received a very polite reply from me, i.e. “you are too dumb to be a man”. Sadly, this answer does not even come close to generate a real change in our society.

What we mothers, parents' families really have to do is construct a generation of men who are ready for independent women, take them as their friends, wife, sister, mother, and not be afraid of their intelligence.

And that is the reason for me wanting a Boy Child. I wanted to raise a man who treats all humans equally, who is very good at household work, earns his own living, takes care of a baby, in short, can do everything a woman can do.

All human beings are equal, but the challenge here is to raise men who are equal to women. 

My mini version of me sleeping beside me, while I am writing this, and I am proud of her for every smart little things she does, for every question she asks and challenges the societal gender norms in her own kiddy way, I still want to raise a boy to show the world that there is a man who can cook, clean, wash, babysit, work, earn, love and be a MAN. 




19 comments:

  1. Well, it is a true fact that 90% of men are not liberated enough to accept independent women. Most men like to call themselves feminists but at heart they are still patriarchal. We need a systematic change and as you proper upbringing of male children to truly accept independent women.

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  2. Sounds like a good idea! Kind of like - Practice what you preach!! No point arguing and writing articles about it. Raise a boy to be a good man and show the world it's possible!!

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  3. Truly & rightly said challenge here is to raise the men equal to women.
    Beautiful post!

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  4. It's not easy being a parent - to raise a child 'right' requires so much empathy from the parents. Loved how you said mothers will be the ones to make a vaccine :D

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  5. Practice what your preaching is very important. Wanting a son is not wrong if it is just out of love and not wrong reasons. I'm blessed with one of each so have the opportunity to raise them both in the right way.

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  6. This is so relatable, Debdatta. We need to understand that neither men, nor women are superiors, but just equals. The world can become a lot better place if everyone accepted this.

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  7. well said! Men need to be brought up equal to women and not the other way round. A huge amount of shift needs to happen in the thinking and ways of the society. alas, we are still quite rooted in the old way which restrict and bind the women instead of teaching the menfolk to be complete and proper human beings!!!

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  8. Well written thoughtful post. We moms need to raise responsible boys.

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  9. I loved reading this post. this is so thoughtful.

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  10. Nice post. The onus is definitely on parents to raise a responsible boy.

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  11. No matter how modern the new age men become, end of the day they want to rule the society. Have the uppehand over women. While I'm blessed with both, I'm raising a girl whom I am to make as independence and self efficient as possible and raise my boy to love and respect women and stand in favor of them when the time comes.

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