In my growing up years I didn’t live with too many men in my family. To be precise it was just my dad, with a large number of women in the house, my maternal grandmother, my mother and three sisters. I would thank god that my father was far from the authoritarian dad who insists on dictating the women in the house, which only resulted in all of us growing up to be independent and thoughtful adults. Thank god for the values that they passed on, we really never grew up with the vast discrimination that the outside world was imposing about men being superior and women needing protection.
Today I am a mother of a son. A mother to a four-year-old. Let me start with this. When I held him in my arms for the first time, I promised myself that I will raise him with values that may not really confine to the real world, but with values that I wished existed in real men. It’s just the beginning, and I must say it’s not been easy even in the most uncomplicated years of raising him. I can see him being steered to the direction of being the quintessential “man” that he is expected to be. He loves watching Avengers just as much as he enjoys watching Barbie, Dora and Sophia, but I hear it oh-so-often from others that I should encourage him to be tougher and not let him indulge in “girlie” stuff. The most I can do is ignore those snide remarks they make. But it doesn’t end there, every time my son cries, I hear relatives “pacifying” him by saying, “Don’t cry, you aren’t a girl.” It worries me because I am not sure for how long I can protect him from the stereotypes of the world. I have been trying to inculcate habits in him which the world around me doesn’t seem to approve of. I let him help me in the kitchen and he loves to clean the house while I am at it. This, I am told are not what boys are to be taught. When he is hyper active, and I kind of lose it, I hear people saying, “He is a boy, just be easy on him. Boys are like that
I refuse to conform to the norm of “raising a son”. I let him cry when he gets hurt, because I want him to grow up believing that crying is not effeminate, it is only a display of emotion that you feel. Being an animated and expressive person that I am, I have always encouraged my son to show his emotions, so here I am waking up every day to his hugs and kisses. I am not sure how this will help, but I haven’t really told him the difference between a boy and a girl yet, except he has observed that girls have long hair and boys don’t. I think I don’t want to imprison his innocent little brain with cruel stereotypes.
But you know what? It worries me. It worries me every time I hear a Nirbhaya case or an Uber cab rape case because it makes me even more responsible as a mother to raise my child well. I want my son to respect women not because they are women, but because they are fellow humans and they are not inferior in any way as opposed to what he is going to witness as he grows up. They need to be respected for who they are. Because being a feminist, I oppose reservation for women because I want equality. I don’t want to be treated any lesser for who I am than a man would be. I don’t want my son to feel the need to protect a woman because he thinks that he is capable of protecting her more than she is of herself, but because he cares for her safety and her well being. That I think being empathetic and compassionate is a better quality to instill.
But in the wake of how the society is turning out to be, I also fear for his safety. Because with innumerable crimes against women, there are many against men too. With the “Final face of Rohtak sisters” video doing the rounds I am troubled. As a mother I think I will never stop worrying for him but I hope and pray that the values I am trying to inculcate in him, he adheres to them. Because I want to give back the society not just a fine gentleman but a sensitive human being.
Image courtesy: BCCL
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