Single mothers- Do we really respect their choices?

While there are enough marriages where both partners endure a nonexistent or worse a bad relationship for the sake of children, there are a lot of people nowadays who opt for being a single parent. The decision to become a single parent is a difficult one and it’s even more difficult when you are a woman. I don’t have statistics but there are more women who opt out of bad marriages with children and decide to raise the child herself- purely maternal instincts or may be because the child becomes the anchor of their life. The tragedy is that most people are curious to understand the reasons for the marriage or relationship to fail rather than see the courage the person has demonstrated to take a decision and live by it for the sake of her child or herself. And we thought that today the greatest things some of us have is a CHOICE – we can choose to work or stay at home, study or become a nomadic traveler and in the same breadth decide to live our life with someone or go separate ways.

It’s sad though that the social ecosystem hardly supports these decisions and worse most men walk away , remarry easily and live happily ever after but what about the woman- she often pays for the choice she made by living a more difficult life ? May be that’s the reason most women till today decide to be in the relationships, endure the pain and become more reconciled to their fate.

I think all of us would have met such people at the workplace or amongst friends and family . I happen to one as well. She was raised like all of us in small town, educated and made independent by her parents. However unlike few of us who came to big town for higher education, pursued professional courses and basically lived and learnt to be on our own, she continued to be in her home town and just so that you get the picture right, there’s only a handful of girls who today move to metro towns for further studies. So she completed her graduation, did a professional computer course and guess what parents found a good match at the right age ( or so they say) of 24-25 and she was married off. A year and a half  later of a bad marriage and impending pregnancy, she took the brave move of deciding to move out of the marriage with a 3 month old son and not for herself but for the sake of the child – to give the child a normal upbringing rather than a bitter childhood. Today it’s been 8 years and it’s a journey she would rather like to forget. She says she was blessed to have parents who were understanding enough to stand by her and help her raise her child for last so many years as she struggled, fell only to rise up again to be financially independent. But there were enough moments to make her feel the pain. She does not regret her decision but she does regret the long winding legal struggle for a separation and custody of the child, the innumerable glances people gave her of being a divorced women, the unsolicited advice on what to do with her life and worse the easy judgmental opinions about how she did not spend enough time invested in the relationship- In a nutshell, she could have continued her suffering in the hope that one day things will fall in place – her husband and in laws will start loving and accepting her.

Things have gone better as time flies but something’s will take aeon's to change. She does meet new people- Some she likes, some like her but the moment they know her status of being a single mother , things change. Some even suggested her to leave her child with her parents and start afresh – can you imagine? But that talks a lot about small town society today where even for a divorced/ widowed man with 2 kids, they can go ahead and get a girl half his age who would willingly marry and accept the 2 kids as her own but the other way round is just not happening.

Even in so called progressive society of metro town, you can find far and few empathy when a single mother comes late for work for she needed to nurse her sick child or the domestic help crisis has descended on her. The gossip mill run overtime  if she happens to hang around with male colleagues over drinks or decides to let her hair down in a party for once. There always seem to be more interest in her personal life than professional achievements. But few see the daily effort of raising a child all by herself. Most of us have our better halves and no matter how much we all complain, an evening chat, a pat on the back, a helping hand always makes it easier for us. As they say, sharing doubles the joy and halves the sorrow.

Few months ago, I did a post on letting go of relationships and saw a different perspective and basically this boils down to the choice an individual made suiting his or her situation in the circumstances she was in. However what troubles is that in the earlier case , the lady in question was able to endure the earlier pathos of the relationship to eventually find peace. In this case , the external factors, society at large and our systems made a person ,who was so called free from the shackles of a bad relationship, go through the pain post she moved on in the relationship as well and somewhere continues to fee so being under the scrutiny of public eye . And perhaps that’s what makes a life so ironical and difficult to comprehend.

Letting go of a relationship- The other side...

Alright ! I had mentioned I will write something about our neighbour. Her daughter is my daughters childhood friend and I find her approach to life very intriguing. She is a PhD holder and extremely full of life. She is a housewife now - not be default but by design. She chose to spend time with her daughter. By nature, she comes across as someone who is very confident and is always helpful. She loves to interact and socialize. That's the reason despite hardly having anytime for neighbourhood happenings, I manage to catch up with her.

Few years back when we hardly knew each other, she had one of the most terrible happenings of her life. I hardly knew her then and I have vague memories of my maid coming and telling me that something has happened with the lady in the next bay. In a nut shell, she and her husband separated - she walked out , her parents came and the matter even reached the court with some repercussions. The story is not that. The story is that 3-4 months later , they had a reconciliation. She came back with her daughter in the same house with some preconditions. In a nutshell, if you see on the surface, she has given up much to get may be much less.

The natural reaction after hearing her side is to why did she come back ? There was no parental pressure, infact they wanted her to stay with her. She always knew that she is educated enough to have a professional life of her own to support herself and her girl. She also knew that coming back means severing ties with some of her closed ones. Hers was also an arranged marriage - this means no self guilt of making a choice yourself which has gone wrong and she did not believe in the cliche that she wanted to come back for the child for she believes the child will grow well on the environment in which she is brought up.

I asked her the same one day and here lies the beauty of her thoughts and soul. These are her thoughts on this and she wanted me to share it with a wider group and get their opinion.

mentioned that all the reasons mentioned above actually gave her the strength to come back. She very strongly feels that not all human beings are perfect to live in a synchronised harmony and varying temperaments often lead to clashes like in her case. But she believes that the best of yours and the worst of yours depend on circumstances. That don't make her husband a bad guy or her a suffering doll. In the heat of the moment, she thought of this being the end of the road and walked out but when she sat down to think, she realized that had the same argument/ behaviour would have happened with her father or brother , would she have decided to react the way she did. We often have personality clashes with our parents, siblings and even friends but in all these relationships, we also try to go out of our way to make changes , to amend ways and make it as smooth as possible. But when it comes to your life partner, why is the patience so thin? In her case, she also realized that often due to the laws being in favour of a woman, her husband ended up suffering more than she did in the whole process. She did not choose her parents and siblings but lived with them in all circumstances-good or bad and letting that bond of love grow. In their relationship, very early both she and the husband started evaluating whether whose changing for whom rather than working on it with a mindset that we are here for good and we will adjust to these circumstances mutually and let that bond of love grow. and that she said made her come back.

In her 2 years of marriage before the incident, she had not even begun on the journey of marriage being a long lasting institution. It was a pros and cons analysis always backed by the fact that I am a woman of today who has family support and a great job and I can walk out anytime to support myself so why do I need to even bother about nurturing the relationship..

That brought me to my second question to her : But what about your partner ? Shouldn't he be thinking like you as well ?

Here's whats her take on it . Some of which I agree and some difficult to reconcile with but then each one of us have a different approach to life. Per her, most relationships end without even an effort on the expectation that if I am taking 2 steps forward, why does not he makes the same effort. Once she decided to give her relationship another shot, it was her decision and she needs to take the same forward. If her decision to take a step forward is conditional, then she is again looking for bargain in the relationship. She was of the belief that if she makes an earnest effort , there is a time when the other person responds. She ended her story to me saying -" it might sound cliched that love can move mountains but I can tell you it does- provided you keep the faith ."

I see them as good threesome living a balanced normal life like all of us. On the surface a lot of people might think that its eventually her who made the compromise and came back . I look up to her as a person who had the courage to keep ego, hurt, anger aside and embark on to nurture her relationship with love and care. If there are women who have been strong enough to walkout and take charge of their life and children ( and personally I have the highest regard for them as well), it was endearing to hear another side.

Why did I put down her approach to life considering that I find myself difficult to agree with some parts of it .Because I find her whole approach very different and fresh. Its something I don't hear from anywhere. We are so consumed by singular individuality that probably we don't even let some of these approaches also into consideration at all. Some may say her approach is so esoteric but I see them today enjoying her family life.

I had started this post few days back and happy to post it on International Women's Day . Happy reading and wishing all my friends happy women's day - especially to male readers- they need special congratulations for being lucky to have some wonderful women in their life.