This I believe that motherhood is powerful.
Sayantani Dasgupta - October 13, 2005
This I believe, that motherhood is powerful.
Powerful in the poetic sense.
A sonnet/haiku/free-form poetry jam
The first time I held my son, then two years later, my daughter, both of us a little tremulous, the tiny bow-like mouth searching for my breast. The ease, the awe, the fiery rush of love, milk, completeness.
But alongside the poetic, an equal dose of justice.
Long ago my father explained to me a fundamental tenet of Hinduism: imagine your body a vessel, your soul the water in it, collected from the common river of our humanity. Imagine death is the vessel emptying into the river, and birth the vessel filling.
Motherhood brought me a visceral understanding of life beyond my body, this common river from which we all begin. I started seeing the world through my children’s eyes, and was unable to distance myself from images of violence, starvation, natural disasters. Motherhood brought the fate of the world home.
I wanted to raise children who would be part of a new America and world, aware of their multiple identities, history and international connections. My husband and I decided to teach our children our own mother tongues from birth, so that they would be more than Bengali-German-Americans, but global citizens.
Motherhood galvanized me. I felt connected to Indian village women embracing trees to prevent deforestation, inner city U.S. mothers demonstrating against police brutality, South American women protesting to know the fate of their “disappeared” children and grandchildren. My son’s first peace rally was at age three months. How could I stand by while other mothers lost their children to war?
Even as my physician colleagues struggled to integrate motherhood into their upwardly mobile careers, I slowed mine to a snail’s pace. There is no quality time, my own activist mother had told me, without quantity time. As she had brought me along to graduate school and women’s group alike, I nursed my daughter during meetings at the hospital – no separation between “mother” and “doctor” selves.
The power of motherhood is in the freedom to make these choices. And protect the ability of other women to make choices that are right for them - when, how and with whom to bear children, but also the freedom to take paid family leave, to breastfeed anywhere without censure, to access to good schools and safe environments for their families.
My parents’ motherland, Bengal, is a region of India where goddess worship is central to cultural life, and mothers, the manifestation of divine feminine energy, command great power. This is not to say there is no sexism, but that there is a space for a maternal power gentle and fearsome, poetic and just.
This I believe
That poetry and justice emerge from the same source
This I believe
That my son, whose name means “poet,” will help create a more just world.
This I believe
That my daughter, whose name means “just,” will find poetry in the legacy of powerful mothers who came before
****************************************************************
Everyone from 60 Minutes to The New York Times seems to be discussing the brain drain of highly successful women in their reproductive years from the workforce. I too fall into the category of women who are choosing not to approach their professional careers in the traditional way. Rather, like many other women of my generation, I decided to approach motherhood thoughtfully, purposefully, and deliberately. I am a mother of a three year old son and one year old daughter, and while my children are still young, my choice has been to work very part time – constructing my career in such a way that I can be with my children the majority of the time. It seemed inconsistent for me, as a pediatrician, to care so much about children’s welfare in general, but not be central to my own children’s most vulnerable and formative years. Or, in the words of my mother, I realized that there could be no quality time without quantity time. Of course, the argument is not that simple – I do recognize that the role of fathers, the expectations of employers for both men and women, and broader social importance placed upon parenting are all central to this discussion. In addition, I firmly believe in supporting women to make whatever choices that are appropriate for them and their family situations. However, I arrived at my discussion about motherhood because that is my personal experience and identity.
I wrote this essay after hearing an NPR segment called “This I believe” which challenges Americans to write about their diverse beliefs. This segment inspired me to articulate my vision of motherhood as a political, cultural and spiritual entity. For me, my decisions about motherhood and work are very related to my background as a daughter of Bengali immigrants, but also as a daughter of a feminist activist mother, and granddaughter of an activist from the Indian revolution. Although prevalent American notions may be that motherhood is potentially disempowering for women – there exist other models, including the one I was given by my own foremothers. Motherhood and activism for social justice were seen as integrated experiences - since those in charge of raising future citizens of this world must of course be responsible for the creation of a just future for those children. I was taught from a young age to both care about my individual family and the larger world in which that family was to live.
Beyond the demands of fixing meals, changing diapers, and nursing while writing this first blog, it was an easy experience. The words seemed to flow out of me of their own accord, and the process was both cathartic and inspirational. And I did have the experience of reading it aloud to all my family members. I’m not sure my children were too impressed (they are only 3 and 1) – but my mother’s reaction? Of course, she cried. My mother may have taught me to strive for a more just world, but she also taught me find poetry in it.
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Posted by Sayantani Dasgupta at October 13, 2005 08:16 AM
Comments
Sayantani,
Thank you for sharing your beliefs about motherhood. It is an important topic and I can really relate to Mallika's previous post. Just last Sunday, I came home from law school to visit my mother and within minutes of my arrival, my mother began asking me what I wanted for dinner and then proceeded to prepare a feast for me. The most touching part for me was that she is happy just because she is able to help me and help prepare a meal for me. She is truly a source of strength in my life.
"This I believe That my son, whose name means “poet,” will help create a more just world.
"This I believe That my daughter, whose name means “just,” will find poetry in the legacy of powerful mothers who came before"
Very sweet post (as was Mallika's). You know how some things just get stuck in your head and wont go away. I've been stuck on figuring out what these names could possibly be. I came up with "Kavi" as a possibility, but continue to draw a total blank on "just". Help!
Beautiful post, Sayantani!
And beautiful Haiku, Bob... I'll continue your thoughts...
I seek Light and Love
I find Her within Myself
Waiting patiently.
Motherhood is only one ooportunity to share each moment and day, as that moment and day does not return in this life...so living in the now for our children is powerful.
I applaud you for doing what you feel is right for your children. Family comes first.
Joanie
Sayantani,
Beautiful essay. I find motherhood in me(man)too, when i realise both the energies are needed for raising our children. I have 2 sweet daughters 7 and 3 !
Wonderful post.
Wonderful post and a great decision. Think about this: most sensitive periods for learning in human beings occur during the first six years of life. During this period a child learns to walk, talk, love, read, write and a lot more. Each of these human capabilities are a result of millions of years of evolution and once the sensitive period is missed, it is extremely difficult to acquire the skills with the same facility. Just think about how easy it is to learn to speak another language during this period, and how much harder it is during adulthood. Parents are the first teachers of the children.
Maria Montessori was centuries ahead of her time. She has beautifully highlighted the importance of early childhood in her books. May I recommend a book based on her philosophy: Montessori from the start (check it out at Amazon, don't go by the reviews, it is a good book).
As a farther of two young children myself (7 and 3), I think zero to six is one period of your children's life that you should never miss. How my children relate to me and others later on in their lives depends almost entirely on this period. Children are our best leagacy and what can be more important than quality and quantity time with them?
Regards,
Ravi Kulkarni
Well put together and congratulations on yr 1st blog entry which I enjoyed reading so much.
...the life line of strength and power
gently invisible
mothers of this earth are rooted in its core
where love and compassion
grow and blossom in every season
Ma is ingrained deep in our souls.
~~~
Beautiful Sayan, thank you for sharing.
Ravi, what a beautiful and insightful post. Being spiritually akin to Maria Montessori's journey, I would also recommend reading Montessori "The Absorbant Mind".
I also have two children...Anjalee(16) and Aaravinda(5).
Cinda
Thank you, Sayantani
Excellent post- I can relate although I do not have children but would love to be a mother one day and would hope to have the same choices. It is interesting because as a single woman, I am finding work to be my baby! I nurture it, it has demands, I see it grow, I take pride in the accomplishments that take place because I have helped push things along in the development of projects. But it is not enough and I am restless- which seems to be a perpetual dilemma for me. I wonder how many women are? I have also talked to worn out colleagues who are trying to go the superwoman route and are great moms and great at their jobs, but don't seem fulfilled and are tired. And of course it must be so for women who choose to sacrifice everything for their families and have nothing left for themselves. I think you have found a good balance and admire and hope for that. I am sure your children and the world we now share with them will contribute to the future in amazing ways in large part because of the quality time you now spend together.
Thank you everyone for your supportive comments. I think in these times particularly, it's important to think of parenting in the context of the global family, as it were!
And Divya, you've reminded me how things are so interconnected. I determined my children's names influenced in part by a baby names book I borrowed from Mallika (Chopra). "Kirin" (as opposed to Kiran) means speaker, poet, while "Sunaya" (female form of Sunay) is "just".
Sunaya - is such a beautiful name.
A beautiful, poignant ode to perhaps the toughest job in the universe.
Thanks Sayantani - Very original and pretty) names, including yours.
Very touching read.....thank you!!
Sayantani,
Those are beautiful names...
What is the name of the baby names book where you found these names ?
Thanks
Hari
Sayantani, Mallika, and Geeta: You three really set up an incredibly moving theme here, between the three of you, and a number of my favorite respondents also.
I mentioned a few of my hooror stories with my own family, and my struggles at having to learn the meaning of forgiveness as a result of having something of the opposite experiences with my own mother, who was part of a group I was exposing for some large scale money laundering that was hurting a number of lives over the last 10-15 years.
She went so far as to hire some thugs, with some of society's other leaders who hold poditions that are meant to safeguard the public's well-being, like attorneys, judges, some educators, even a senator, who were all involved in this corruption.
It has been three decades now since I could even remotely remember what it was like to be loved, or missed, in the way Geeta described the absence of Lena--since she went off to school--at least by anyone that I am biologically related to.
Eveyday, I still stumble with some of my meditation and hypnotic/past-life regression tapes and CD's when they are trying to take me to a place in my childhood where I "remember" the deepest sense of feeling safe, loved, and wanted.
I thought I had an extraordinary childhood at the time; but the memories of the more recent sense of betrayal, and terror associated with fending off thugs, and a crowd who were equally as vicious, the perpetrator's lawyers (meant to make you laugh-but true!); well, the more recent memories still seem to block my ability to feel those earlier impressions.
The point is--the stories you all told did pierce that thick veil, and have touched those places in a way that made me feel a long-lost piece of my soul come out of the dark recesses, and find it's way back into the broken puzzle of part of my inner-being.
Geeta's in particularly, set the stage for those same tears coming up that Mallika and Ron described, and although it's been best that I haven't children, I get to enjoy them vicariously through you guys.
I can't thank you enough for sharing such "touching" stories, I know you all, particularly Geeta's description, squeezed many more tears from people's eyes than are being admitted to here!
Ron--I couldn't help this one, it reflects the devious part of my mind, but....the Druid's believed that if you died owing one of your fellow brothers money, you would be karmically obligated to unwittingly have to pay them in 'equivalent energies' in another life.
When you mentioned what your young son's first words might be to you--I couldn't help hearing, "I want a big fat allowance--you owe me money!!!!"
But truly Ron, your's is the post that stimulated those suppressed tears of the beauty captured here by you all.
I think Geeta, Mallika, Sayantani, and some of you other parents need to join forces and write a "children's book" for adults, and move the "big kids" as you just have!
Can't thank you all enough for those long-lost feelings of remembering what it was like to have affected someone that way, or been affected by someone's absence, in those ways. My "deepest" to you--Love, Dave
Wh
Hi, Sayantini,beautiful first post.God bless you.
Hi,David, thank you,you are kind,nice,intelligent,soul.We mothers like to brag about our children.I called Lena and asked her to read what I wrote.She called back crying,she loved it!She is a spoiled rotten brat,and she knows it.Take care David. God bless.
This is a passage from a speech by Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) titled " The Awakening of Universal Motherhood."
There are two types of language in the world: the language of the intellect and the language of the heart. The language of the dry, rational intellect likes to argue and attack. Aggression is its nature. It is purely masculine, devoid of love or any sense of relatedness. It says,' Not only am I right and you are wrong, but I have to prove this at all costs so that you will yield to me.' Controlling others and making them puppets that dance according to their tune is typical of those who speak this language. They try to force their ideas on others ... Their only consideration is their hollow idea of victory."
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Sayantani, Mallika, and Geeta: You three reall
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Hari commented on This I believe that motherhood is powerful.
Sayantani,
Those are beautiful names...
A haiku:
Who is our Mother?
Is She not the light and love
that we are seeking?