Many Czech women consider motherhood to be a chore. They don’t want a baby to mess up their lifestyle – this has emerged from the results of long term study of Social Studies Faculty of Masaryk’s University in Brno. The article was published on internet portal aktualne.cz, and was aptly named „The party generation refuses to grow up“. There was also a photo of a beautiful young woman spread on a massage table with a notation: Being single is pleasurable. Being a mother is a chore.
A day later, I found an interview with a demographics researcher Mr. Sobotka. The article was named „The economic crisis causes the drop in the birth rate“ and included a graph showing that the Czech Republic has the lowest birth rate from the selected countries (for example, France was not included because the country has one of sthe highest birth rates, as the state looks after the future mothers in various ways – this was established by a female departmental minister who introduced a set of measures and regulations to help women and families). And what is the reason for birth rate crisis in Czech Republic? According to this expert, the main culprits are the education and gender emancipation of women, as well as economic changes and more opportunitites for women to develop their career. However, at the same time he had to admit that the countries where the gender revolution has been extremely successfull (such as France or Scandinavian countries) are actually an exception. I would also add that in my opinion there is another factor missing: especially in our country, it is the fear of young women to give birth in Czech hospitals (as this is usually the only option they have) and the bad state of obstetrics in general.
I’m not surprised though. Twenty years of systematic indoctrination by the „experts“ pardon, obstetricians, anesthesiologists and expert committees (which went as far as taking the midwives and women who decided to give birth at home to court) and the whole pharmaco-medicinal complex of well paid (mostly male) sales representatives who couldn’t care less about the future mothers – that all impacts heavily on the crisis of obstetrics and the birth rate. The pregnancy and childbirth are seen as bloody and surgery requiring illness with an uncertain ending, and the breastfeeding as something that spoils the look of woman’s breasts and her whole figure. Unfortunately, this is what the modern young women know about being a mother.
I wrote about this so many times and from so many angles, but I’m still surprised at fundamental inability of the young women (especially those with university diplomas or those with successful careers) to understand the meaning behind my words… perhaps it’s because they weren’t printed in any of those colourful magazines they might like to read. Maybe what could help them understand is a citation from an email I have received from one of my female readers – it is about how to be your true self without the need to attend all of those „miraculous“ weekend seminars on „how to become a goddess“:
The femininity in its full power develops in pregnancy, at childbirth and the following years of being a mother. Those women who prioritize their career over motherhood perhaps seek different ways how to be useful. What they offer is what the „market“ requires of them. They let themselves be pampered (if they can afford it), but let it be quick because the next minute they’ll have to be perfect again for the world to see. But the world is spinning so fast, that there seems to be no time to think about anything… I just don’t quite understand them, it’s all seems so empty… These are the words of one of my reader, who is a mother to two children and works as a teacher. She read my earlier article „I told you so“ and responded with a meaningful comment that hopefully makes it all very clear (especially to those who prefer to spend life by „having lot of fun“ and as a result lose their femininity):
I wanted to tell you about an experience I recently had: Actually, ever since my childhood I used to feel very intense waves of love and care to all living things (sometimes even the inanimated ones :o) It really feels like a sequence of waves travelling through my body. Yesterday, I saw a little boy, sitting on the sidewalk, he was all alone. He was fully emersed in chewing some bun, he was hunched over it, oblivious to the world around him. I felt it so strongly then, I so wanted to hug him and protect him, let him feel to be loved by someone…. I don’t know whether men also feel something like this… It seems to me to be a wholy female emotion. It’s almost similar to an orgasm, it must be the same hormones causing these sort of sensations. This is a femininity in its true sense. It’s just wonderful. After giving birth to my children and the next six or seven years (while I was breastfeeding) I used to feel these sensations almost constantly. Today I feel it whenever I catch their scent. These are such instictive sensations, and such a gift! These are my lessons in life :o) This si my world.
So there you have it. I’ve heard it so many times – „but I just want to have fun!“ – it’s a silly excuse to divorce or break a good relatonship and somebody’s heart. Paradoxically (but to me very logically), by chasing their inner freedom and trying to be someone else, they lose their true feminine self as well as the chance of their own happiness: I have to say it again: it is the medicalized (hospital) births mostly managed by male obstetricians who steal the true femininity from women (by interrupting the natural chain of events and complex hormonal processes designed by nature for hundred thousands of years). And while the Czech women are trying to have fun in life instead of being mothers, what they get instead of waves of love are waves of anxiety and panic attacks, they get neurotic and worry about giving birth, raising children and as a consequency of this withdrawal from natural course of life they completely lose the sense of happiness (and no, it can not be replaced by buying a new blouse or pair of shoes).
The need to buy more, to consume more (well established in young women and men‘s lives nowadays) – just ask, all of them would tell you about their „right“ to be happy – doesn’t work the way they’d like it to. In fact it creates more distance between them and the true happiness in life. The times can be demanding but the good foundations in life (starting at the conception and birth) as well as the direction and decisions we take is what matters the most: if they’re all focused on yourself, you can never fully happy…. but if you focus on the others around you, the result will always be a genuine and lasting happiness for you and all of us.
But there is some truth on all accounts: being a mother is a difficult experience – for the daughters born in traumatic way by their just as traumatised mothers… The tragedy but also a hope and at the same time lies in understanding that all of us have what we ask for (and deserve): for example, I may hate peeling potatoes but if I manage to „fall in love“ with it one minute before I start doing it, it will no longer be a nasty chore for me and I can enjoy and appreciate it. A woman who falls in love with motherhood and her own feminine self will enjoy her pregnancy and have an easy and smooth childbirth followed by intense sensations of pleasure and happiness. The childbirth and motherhood can be a difficult chore… but only for those who deny their own instincts, let the male obstetricians scaremonger them by lots of „what if“ scenarios… but the rest of them who trust their own bodies and instincts experience the waves of love instead…
Don’t we all know it already? The more you chase love and happiness the easier it is to lose it, and the more you give (to the others), the more you receive yourself. From the above email from my reader, the message is clear: to be happy in motherhood is not a chore but a true connection to yourself and your purpose… It shows your trust in your own abilities.. this all is what brings the orgasmic waves of love and happiness…
