Motherhood- Two different story 

- Anusha Ojha

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word mother? Of course it is the love, affection, peace and respect. Motherhood is remarkable and transformative journey that many women embark upon. Nothing in this world can explain the surreal feeling of being a mother. But this feeling can vary depending on the various factors like access to health service facilities, our socio economic status, and our cultural practices and so on. As much as, the motherhood is the time full of new emotions, it is also the time where the women is most like to be vulnerable both physically, mentally and emotionally. A women residing in Kathmandu and the women residing in Bajhang has vastly different experience of motherhood. These experiences often start with the question; whether the baby was intended or not. When the pregnancy is planned the journey of motherhood becomes much easier for the women. Because while planning pregnancy one often look at the financial aspect that needs to be taken care of after the arrival of the baby. And for this planned pregnancy to happen one needs to have good knowledge about the use of contraception. And usually only the educated ones have the good knowledge about the use of contraception. So we can safely say that education is the vital factor for at the beginning of journey of motherhood. In contrast on the other hand unplanned pregnancy comes with a lot of problems for the mother as well as for the overall society. Whenever there is unplanned pregnancy there is high chance of unsafe abortion. Unsafe abortion results in many complications for the mother including the death of the mother. And let’s say the mother decided to keep the baby the problems of financial burden roams in the family. Unplanned pregnancies are usually the case in uneducated and low economic status family due to the lack of access and knowledge about the use of contraception. This is just the scenario at the beginning of the motherhood. Many problems arise at the birth of baby. Due to the lack of modern health care facilities at the district like Bajhang many women are dying annually. Due to the lack of basic facilities like transportation we are habitual reading the news like the death of women in the certain rural district of Nepal while carrying to the hospital. As painful as it is to give birth to a child more difficult it is to raise a child. Often the duty of nurturing a child is upon the women as it is socially and culturally accepted. A women spends hundreds of sleepless nights taking care of a baby in exchange of the negligible appreciation from the family. 

                                         From everything that I have stated above we can clearly come to the conclusion that motherhood is not just feeling the baby’s kick in the belly. It is all the feelings and experiences a women goes through due to social, educational, financial, and political aspects that affects the women while being pregnant, while giving birth and while rearing the child. Arrival of child is not just the duty of mother but the responsibility of whole family as well as state. Motherhood is political because it is the responsibility of state to provide a environment in which child bearing and child rearing is both physically and financially fulfilling. Let’s take an oath towards creating a society where every child is wanted and the journey of motherhood is more exciting and fulfilling.