The Challenges of motherhood

Contributed by Dr. Ambuja Govindaraj, Consultant Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Columbia Asia Referral Hospital Yeshwanthpur

Motherhood is season of realizing the deepest love you’ve ever known, a season of self-sacrifice, self-reliance, sleeplessness, world turned upside down happiness. A big change, but a season, nonetheless. Motherhood is both the best job in the world and also one of the hardest. A season because one day these little kids, constantly needing help will grow into adults, exploring life on their own.

The rapid-paced and hectic life is presenting itself with new and unique pressures, especially in the case of working mothers. Parenting was never an easy task, and challenges have always been a part and parcel of it. But today we have to face the demand of situations like technology, rapidly-changing family dynamics and a beaten educational system.

Raising child is intense, challenging and all-consuming. But more than anything it is self-reflective in a challenging but fruitful way. Mothering is a never-ending mirror that challenges actions, words, attitudes, choices and beliefs. And within each day of motherhood lies a challenge that has the potential to shape into a better version of oneself.

For mothers it is difficult task juggling childcare with other priorities. While labor and sleepless nights may top the list for many when we think of tough motherhood experiences but it is the emotional challenges that is the hardest. After all, when you love someone the way you love a child, you become vulnerable in a way you never imagined.

In between challenging and frustrating times mothers experience shining moments of pure love and joy that make it all worthwhile. Being a mother in today’s time is a challenging task. One has to deal with the regular parenting issues like children being fuzzy about nothing, or asking thousands of questions. If that wasn’t enough, we are introduced to another level of complexity of technology. Thanks to the advancement in technology, children these days are living a digitalized childhood and are growing up in a saturated environment.

Below mentioned are some of the challenges faced by Modern-day Moms:

Lack of time: The life of a mother is never easy. They have to wake up early in the morning and go to work after being up with toddler for almost the entire night. They are stressed by switching between professional and personal life. As a result of lack of time, children are left with access to almost everything. This results in behavioral changes, a feeling of insecurity and loneliness in them.

Technology and Entertainment: Currently, we are parenting in the virtual age. Due to the digital age, current parenting techniques have given birth to a new wave of hi-tech issues to cope with along with other fears wherein children have unlimited and unrestricted access to all kinds of content on the web.

Struggling to teach good values: When we were growing up, we had our grandparents by our side to look out for us and instill good values, when our parents were away. Then, came the nuclear family concept, where most of the families these days does not have grandparents, and children are by themselves. With unrestricted access to almost all media and content, children start assuming that it is fine to consume and imbibe all the content and replicate them in their daily lives. This results in failing to teach moral values to them once they grow post a certain age.

Keeping our children healthy: Unlike earlier, children these days are hooked up to TV, video games and other electronic gadgets which has resulted in them preferring to be indoors than outdoors, which results in low immunity, social isolation, obesity etc. apart from other health hazards.

Motherhood is a process of new learning every day. Challenges are part of our life and who else then the mother herself knows the best to handle situations beautifully. The beauty in the mess of being a mother is that you will rise stronger, impacting the lives of your family in ways that, when measured, are far greater in value than any number you can imagine.