Motherhood – The Great Indian Relationship & The Only One
I was watching ‘Wake Up Sid’ yesterday (ah, the joys of being master of your own time…a Monday afternoon movie with a friend!) when this thought occurred to me. I’ve complained long and hard about the Indian man being a perpetual mama’s boy. I also believe that this ingrained emasculated dependency comes from scores and scores of mothers who bring their boys up in the Mera Raja Beta (my son, the little lord) tradition. Hence I concluded that the inherent insufficiency of men could be blamed on the mistakes of motherhood.
But yesterday I suddenly realised something else. The Indian woman is also brought up in a particular way, no matter what kind of family or social strata she comes from. She is groomed, trained and refined to be a mother. Motherhood is the one relationship that we are tutored in, right from an early age and educated by theory and by example. We are taught to mother our siblings, our friends and even our fathers and uncles.
Think about it. We watch our mums manage the entire gamut of activities concerning something as basic as clothing for the men. Shopping, washing, drying, ironing, darning, sewing, discarding and replenishment. They even construct the ‘look’ for the men in the family. Motherhood is an all-encompassing profession for Indian women.
Growing up in a liberal family as I did, I was still taught to make beds and clean when I was about 9 and cook when I was 13. I was also taught to watch for the moods of daddy (and grandfather on those native vacations) and be mindful of them. I wasn’t discriminated against or restricted in any way. But in addition to my education in maths, science, social etiquette and life skills, I was also taught to accommodate and take care of men. This was also down to the fact that I may not always be appreciated for my good work, since ‘it didn’t occur to them’ or ‘he’s busy right now’ and such other things. I was resentful of this for a while but in hindsight, I realize it was a sturdy survival kit for the hard knocks of disappointment and indifference that would inevitably come in life.
Contrast that with a boy who is praised for every achievement, fawned over for doing things as normal and most importantly soothed and pacified when faced with disappointment or difficulty. No wonder he ends up a la Sid in the movie, bewildered and clueless when faced with rejection or failure.
I was struck by the scene where Sid moves in with his slightly older friend Aisha after walking out of his house in a huff. Aisha returns home from work to find the neat little flat that she had worked hard to maintain, in a mess. With no little irritation, she cleans it up. Then on learning that Sid hasn’t eaten all day because he doesn’t know how to cook, she cooks for him as well.
I understand that doing nice things for each other and being supportive is an integral part of every relationship. But it just seems to me like as Indian women, we are brainwashed into doing too much. The movie may have intended to be about the coming of age of a young man and the maturity of a different relationship.
But I found myself thinking, that all Sid did was substitute one mother figure for another. As for Aisha, even while she worked hard to establish herself as a modern, independent woman, all she ended up doing was being a surrogate wife/mother character to yet another man. Her independence and value as a human being were finally expressed only by her satisfactory fulfilment of one task – taking care of a little boy. I’m coming to think that we don’t really know any other way to treat men. Motherhood is the only relationship we understand. So beyond the frivolity of socialising, we end up being surrogate mothers for our men, even ones that we are not romantically involved with.
I don’t mean to sound condescending to men; indeed I find myself guilty of this kind of behaviour. When I was in a relationship with a Delhi guy who was in Mumbai to study, I remember being astonished at how little he knew, and how handicapped he was by his lack of basic survival skills or even social etiquette. I’d organise meals for him, manage the maid (in conjunction with the girlfriends of the other guys who shared his flat), wake him up for interviews and lectures, figure out his clothes and even pack for him on his visits home.
I also remember an official trip I took to another country, with a colleague. He sat next to me at work and we were pretty pally. As we checked in and waited for the departure announcement, he handed over an assortment of papers and said,
You take care of these. You know how to. I’ll just make a mess of it!
I grumbled of course but I realised he’d just end up misplacing his passport or converting his money into the wrong currency. So I arranged his papers by the dates he’d need them, filed the rest away carefully and put them away. Then I organised his money into different sets, told him how much to convert, and how much to retain and in the end, took over some part of it so he wouldn’t misplace it. At the end of the week, I also had a detailed account of what he had spent and what he would need to convert back. Considering he was an MBA, who had lived away from home for over 6 years, I really think he should have learnt to do all this. But by his own admission, girlfriends had always taken care of such things for him. In retrospect, I wonder what would have happened if I had just left him to flounder.
I’ve spent enough of time raving about the inadequacy of men but I wonder now whether I’m part of the other half that actually facilitates this. We’re both mass products of a great social machinery that churns out only one relationship between a man and a woman – motherhood. We seem to be unable to treat men as equal human beings with their own minds so we end up either mollycoddling them or being fearful of them; either way, it is a relationship of bullying or resentful servitude. Instead of kicking men for not being able to do things that they weren’t trained for anyway, I’m wondering how we break out of this behaviour. Is it possible for women to learn new ways to treat a man? And do so without being disgusted with men or giving up on them?
Very observant! I agree to a lot of points!
.-= Aditi´s last blog ..Self-doubt and et all =-.
@Aditi: 🙂
And dear friend, that explains why we have more or less liked it as an audience. Not too many have hated it, at least. We see our life mirrored up there. It’s all believable, right? And all in a very fun, light manner.
>> I really think he should have learnt to do all this.
well.. I think so too.. and i would say he just lazy exception (or certainly part of larger minority of men). most men do have method to the madness and are self-organized in their own way. trouble is we(men) don’t scale up to woman expectations and women don’t always have enough tolerance to that madness so prefer to re-do stuff and blame men for not giving enough credits for those work.
so yes.. if only women can learn(/tolerate) men mad-self-organize-method and let them be as-is then you would save yourself lot of energy.both physical & emotional stress can be avoided.
you might like these.. men v woman brains
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuMZ73mT5zM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0UmE_F4Vfc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSYKSmSfqcs
.-= Yuva´s last blog ..my Friend-Facts =-.
Looks like Im both an exception and the rule in your post.
When I read about how women pamper men, I went – aww, my mom did to her hubby and I do it now to mine.
When i read about how the guy in the airplane handed everything over to you – I was like – aww, my friends help me out this way all the time …
I guess, when I have someone to mother over me, I just let them have the fun of doing it, but otherwise – like in socially designed relationships (marriage) – I do it. *sigh* Life’s complicated, and this comment is now a mini-post.!
When it comes to my best female friend, I’ve been guilty of being a mother to her, managing stuff for her and all. With my boyfriend, I’m the exact opposite.. from paperwork to movies to crossing the road, I leave it all to him, confident that he’ll handle it all. This, when he’s younger than me too.