The Life of the average Western Mother

I yesterday described the situation of the average Indian mother. She lives in a joint family with the parents and siblings of her husband in the same house. All of these people are bonding with her child or children and she thus has help of others to take care of them. Today I would like to compare this to the average western mother.

In general, the kind of support that a mother in India gets is what women in the west are missing badly! They have their own flat or house, often far away from their own parents or their husbands’ parents. Nobody even thinks of living together with siblings and their own families. Parents in the west are generally fully on their own.

It is thus nothing to wonder about that mothers get stressed out about their daily routine. They are just the only ones to be with the children, to manage the whole household and take care of themselves, too! They hardly find time to relax. The only chance for that would be when the child is sleeping but that is the time when they hurry to get other work done which cannot be done while their baby is playing or walking behind them! Doing laundry, wiping the floor, doing the dishes or sorting out mail, bills and whatever else needs to be done.

Please note that I am not even talking about single mothers! They have even less support but what I am writing about is the normal situation of a mother whose husband is at work from morning to evening! When he comes home from work, he needs some time to relax, too, and it would be great to have dinner! Only then he can spend some time with his son or daughter – after all he was busy working the whole day, earning money for his family. It is not usually his fault that he cannot support his wife as much as she would like him to – after all someone has to earn their living!

Wives normally understand and respect this, too – but that means that there is a big burden on their shoulders alone! They have to take care of the baby, toddler or young child the whole day long, avoiding all of the dangers that come with having small children. At the same time they have the responsibility for the house and additionally they want to be there for their husband, too! Iron his shirts for work, cook food that he likes and be there when he needs someone to talk to, to tell how his day was and what is on his mind.

I have heard two of our guests tell that all of their female friends who have small children believe they have made a compromise with their life when they decided having children. It comes to a certain cost, they had to give something up, they feel stressed or under pressure. None of them can say that they are 100% happy with their decision.

For some it is their married life which they feel has suffered from having small children. They are too tired for much of a love life which makes them feel guilty. They feel they don’t have enough time alone with their husband and they have to take special nights off, paying a babysitter, so that they can connect with their partner again.

Isn’t it sad that you practically feel your child has decreased the quality of your relationship with your spouse? That you have to take ‘time off’, childfree time to be with your partner? You cannot enjoy your life as a family well because you experience your time with your child as a burden – not always and you might not even admit it but sometimes you feel you are just too stressed to really cherish the time with your little one.

That is what I see a lot in the west – and it makes me doubt that the western individuality really makes you happy.