Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Women’s Sensitive Nature and Men’s Ignorance (of it)

Now that I am a mother I know the enchanted moments the mothers experience simply by looking at their babies’ faces. I also know the impatience mothers wait with for their babies to see them and speak to them. And during my time of being with the baby 24 hours, I have seen the difference men and women have in the nature of being different sexes.

While mother stays home with her baby, loving the baby and smiling alone with the baby, all the time talking to the baby, though baby doesn’t respond, father comes home in the evening from work or elsewhere and kisses the baby, coos the baby some affection and that is it. Yesterday was such a time where my baby did not sleep well. The previous night she cried more than she usually does and I was not able to get the quota of sleep that I actually require. I thought I should sleep during the day when she slept – but I couldn’t do that because even during the day she did not sleep well as usual.

And in the evening, I thought I should sleep when she did, which she did not. I felt irritated. Looking back, I think it was because I planned it and the plan did not work. She cried every time I put her on the bed. She slept peacefully well on my lap though.

Now, I did not know if she was unwell. When a baby cries, all you can do is assume what must be wrong with her. Not knowing what to do, or what else could be wrong, other than wanting to be fed, or changed, I cried with her. Her father was gone out to play basket ball. He informed me a day earlier about his plan to play basket ball – so that I did not freak out. And I did not want to freak out at all. I usually don’t. My way of coping with situation I do not really like to see is by letting out the tears. It consoles me. Yesterday when I had to be with the baby alone when she cried, I cried with her. I cried also because I thought he should be there with us and he was not. My mother said, ‘what could a father do, even if he was there?’ He could not breastfeed a baby, but he could sit next to us and we would expect him to do just that. That time, for once, I really wished father were the ones to breastfeed the babies (and I thought all fathers should share the thoughts PaSsu does). 

While men can call themselves fathers, they will never know the pain women go through; neither will they know the difficulty of giving birth, or raising children. I thought, just by the virtue of the capability of being mothers, women are precious. And I want to live believing that while men enjoy more freedom in the sense of movement, women enjoy the delicate sensitivity of being gentle and loving.

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