Learning to be a Mother by Shashi Deshpande | Summary, Analysis
Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Shashi Deshpande has established herself as a key authentic voice in Indian English Fiction, and she continues to do so. Her novels are rife with female identity quests. Most of the time, they are told by female protagonists, who are trying to figure out who they are throughout the book. Deshpande's writings help ladies constructively discover their potential. Deshpande does not allow her female characters to deviate from the established rules of society in any of her short stories. Most of her stories are themed around family ties, such as those between husband and wife, mother and daughter, or father and granddaughter. Women's struggles as a wife, mother, and daughter are highlighted. A mother or a wife is not an imposition, she argues while discussing the importance of human relationships. When the woman is given tight rules on how to behave, she believes it becomes an imposition. A woman must learn to exist in relationships, according to her.
In her essay ‘Learning to be a Mother’, Shashi Deshpande accuses the patriarchal social structure that imposes certain ‘roles’ on women and restricts their potential within the four walls of the house. It is an essay and hence, she relies on her own experiences as a daughter when she observed her mother, and as a mother when she gave birth to her children and when she grew them well. She begins her essay by expressing what Deshpande has learned about motherhood over the years. She says that she like all others first learnt about motherhood from her own mother. The author then talks about how childbirth is considered to be a painful yet joyous process at the same time.
Deshpande also talks about how women are believed to transform into noble, sensitive beings
after giving birth. Then she begins demystifying the stereotypical notions of mothers and motherhood while rationalizing it. She tries to debunk the myths attached to motherhood that often burden women as society expects and forces them to behave in a particular way. Mothers are compared to God as they are all loving and forgiving. It is considered to be a sin to disrespect and hurt her.
The writer then mentions the irrational myths attached to motherhood. A mother is a selfless person who wants nothing for herself but everything for her children; a mother can never be unjust and unfair and she loves her children equally; and others. She then offers her observations while checking and rationalizing these myths and questioning the idea of being an ideal mother at the cost of one’s individuality.
Shashi asserts that motherhood is not a state of grace or a transition of a woman to nobility and virtue. These are cultural attributes that are thrust upon women. If a woman is noble and virtuous in her intentions, she will remain so despite being a mother. While all women know this truth, they never dare to contradict these attributes and tell their truth even to their own mothers or children. Rather they begin trying to stay true to the expectations. They often try to retain the myth of the ideal mother by telling cooked-up stories of the self-sacrifice of mothers. This results in a pang of guilt and conflict in the mind of the woman who tends to be free and independent. Often this guilt results in a traumatic experience of motherhood.
In her novel, The Binding Vine, Deshpande raised the issue through her created character of Kishor’s mother Mira who died when Kishor was just one day old. Mira was a well-educated girl and a poet. Mira once met a poet named Venu and showed him some of her poems. Venu discouraged and ridiculed her and said, “Why do you need to write poetry? It is enough for a young woman like you to give birth to children. That is your poetry; leave the other poetry to us men."
Is motherhood a full-time job? Can a mother be a writer too? Yes, if she can manage the workload, lack of rest, and constant guilt. Shashi herself was a writer and a mother. Her own performance as a mother filled her with feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Her urge to write added fuel to her creativity but the question was, how could she shut down the door on a child who wanted her? Yet, how could she shut the door to her own creativity? The essay depicts the Tug of War between motherhood and individuality in various responsibilities. Her urge to write hinders her motherly duties. Yet, she understands that selflessness and creativity do not match each other. Creativity requires her to put herself first and to be selfish. If she puts herself, her work, and her aspirations first, she fails her child. Children of all ages expect their mothers to put them first and they are never comfortable with the thoughts of their mother having a life of her own.
The writer says that she wasn’t fit to be a mother in terms of the patriarchial system. She was short-tempered, lacking patience, wanting freedom, and hated to cling on. She aspired to write, which required a lot of time on her own. Being self-critical, Shashi felt that she was inefficient, confused, unreasonable, and tyrannical. On the other hand, she had this strong urge to be an ideal mother always willing to be for her children, yet she couldn’t. She could never surrender herself to the selfless service that motherhood demands amid her desire to write books. She was caught up in the crossfire between individual responsibility and motherly duties. Deshpande preferred to choose her career, leaving her children aside to fill up the vacuum that existed within her. This helped her when her children grew up. She claimed that when her children no longer needed her, she didn’t feel empty, she already had a career to take care of.
It was when Deshpande became a mother, that she truly understood how painful, cruel, ugly, and hideous the process of childbirth was. Nothing comes naturally, not even breastfeeding. Everything has to be learned with practice. She realized that motherhood is a state of vulnerability while people expect nobility and goodness. She was confused by the mixed feelings of joy and rage that she felt when she was with her child. Even when her children grew old, she couldn’t eliminate that confusion. She even quarreled with her children when they grew old though she thought she would never do it.
Deshpande raised another issue related to motherhood. Does a mother love all her children equally and at all times? She related to her childhood memories and said that even as a child, she understood that mothers get tired of their children. Mothers may become tyrannical too. They want their children to live as they want to not as what the children are. Deshpande says that often a mother’s love is not unconditional, rather it is presented as a reward for good behavior. As Shashi Deshpande grew old, she also realized that mothers often stand against the desires and aspirations of their children. The writer says that though mothers continue to mention that they want nothing for themselves, they try to get things from their children.
The writer says that she realized the reason for her confusion later. She says that she had so many fantasies regarding the role of a mother. She was not able to live up to the fantasies of a perfect mother. This fantasized concept of a perfect mother confused every woman. Such images of selfless, self-sacrificing mothers are conveyed to us in the form of myths and prioritize the love of mothers for their children. She is unable to cope with the expectations of her as a mother with no desires of her own not even the simplest feeling of hunger.
When one becomes a mother, one does not automatically shed all one’s personality and become just a mother. One is still the person, an individual, who has lived and developed for years before becoming a mother. Motherhood is neither sacred nor holy; it is natural. She looks at motherhood as one of many roles of a woman. Not a state that defines her and puts her in a trap, but a role that helps her to grow as a human being. “I am a human being first and a mother next,” Deshpande ends her essay with that declaration.
