Am I Qualified Enough? (Fitria Nugraha)

In this first post I am eager to talk about the responsibilities of being a mother. Last week there was a group that talked about women’s role as a mother.  Basically they discussed about what women go through when they get pregnant, such as how they feel about their body images, how important it is to have someone who will support them while they are being pregnant, and how they must learn and know all the basic stuffs to be a mother.

Well the thing that got me thinking about this topic is how important it is for a woman to know what being pregnant is all about. From what I see, lots of women only get pregnant because of social pressure around them. Especially when they are already married for quite a long time. People usually will ask, “When will you have a child?”. Or in the other cases some women have a mindset that once you get married you must have a child as soon as possible. And unfortunately that kind of mindset makes lots of women feel insecure and they decide to have a child without having a deep understanding about what the consequences are of having a child.

I myself have encountered some of these cases. Let me share some of my experiences here. I have been volunteering for an organization called Sahabat Anak which is concerned about marginalized kids in Jakarta. Through this organization I met a lot of street kids with many stories. But what is the correlation between marginalized kids with a woman being pregnant or being a mother? Well, here it is. Most of the marginalized kids have very limited chances to get proper education. As we know, their main problem is that they don’t have enough money to pay for it. Because they don’t go to school, they are forced to work in the street by their parents to earn more money for the family. And some of them got married in a really young age, often when they are still teenagers. They got married because they don’t have anything else to do. They just do as what their parents want or they just model their parents (because their parents also got married in a really young age).  Most of these teenagers got pregnant in a really poor economic situation. So after their children were born, they will treat their children exactly like what their parents did to them. This is a vicious cycle that can only be stopped by giving them proper education.

Well, this is one of the closest examples to me that makes me think about how important it is to educate women about what the consequences are of having children. I think it’s not only limited to the marginalized people but for all women around the world maybe particularly in Indonesia. There are also a lot of women with proper education background that don’t understand the responsibilities of being a mother. In my point of view, being a mother is not only giving a birth to a child. Being a mother is way more than that. Being a mother is being responsible to raise, mold, and shape a human being. When you become a mother, there is no more world for yourself. The first thing that you must think about is your child. Do you have enough knowledge about the food that they can or can’t eat? Do you have enough money to buy the food they need? Do you have enough energy to wake up in the middle of the night to feed them? Are you ready to give up some of your dreams? There are lots of other things to think about. The future of your child is in your hands. So I am hoping that all the women in this world will think not only twice, but a hundred times more before they decide to have a child. Ask yourself “Am I qualified enough to be a REAL MOTHER?”

 

10 September 2013