Three's a crowd
By Sheela Raval INDIA TODAY Principal CorrespondentJanuary 28, 2002
Baroi palmed off her boss with a "It's too private to discuss", practised as she is in handling enquiries about the workings of her biological clock. Sure it ticks, but a woman has the right not to hear it, to opt for a life that is as complete without a child. Says Baroi in anguish: "It's not 'whether' but 'when' they constantly ask. It's painful that people never bothered to find out if we want kids." Freedom of choice is fine it seems, except when it comes to children.
In their very decision to chart a childless journey for themselves, the Barois are dismantling tradition, trampling all over social mores which see breeding as a natural progression of marriage. No way, said husband Manoj a software consultant, "children look cute in pictures but not in real life. It would be unfair to bring a child into this world, when we're just managing to justify our marriage".
His voice is finding a reasonable echo in urban India. Successful couples, focused on finding better lives, are wondering whether soiled nappies and sleepless nights are an adequate trade-off for Saturday nights on the town and foreign jaunts. Families, of course, are having collective heart attacks, for their children are flaunting convention and embracing the bizarre. Like city cable operator Nitin Thakker who instructed his parents that fine, find a girl for me, but make sure she doesn't want a child or can't have one. Thakker is brutally frank. "I don't like children, they are a headache." Married now, his wife Panna, 25, can have children but obeys his command.
Sociologists see a link between such behaviour and the the Western notion of DINKS or Double Income No Kids. They see too, as social counsellor Kalinid Majumdar did, a confusion arising over whether "to breed or not breed". It is a dilemma that is reflected in what Dr Kiran Coelho a gynacologist with Leelavati and Holy Family Hospital has experienced. Coelho, who sees 15 new patients a day, believes that "the present generation has moved one step ahead from the revolutionary resolution of the '80s generation of having one child, to postponing parenthood till mid-thirties or remaining childless". And though this hardly qualifies as a revolution, the mere fact that the Tata Institute of Social Sciences has coined a term for them -- VCC or Voluntary Childless Couples -- is suggestive of a growing trend.
Why couples choose such a journey has no set reason. Some believe a child has no place in a violent, unequal, poor India; for others it's simply an unnecessary addition to the numbers. During courtship, Jah Chinoy and Raell Padamsee made childlessness a resolution. As he says, "I don't want to add my one to the already exploding population, not even at the risk of being suspected as a homosexual." So, while Chinoy propagates his cause, wife Raell gets her maternal gratification from dealing with kids at her acting school.
More common though is the view that a child interrupts mobility, puts a comma in the flow of a career. The issue is practicality. Namrata Kanwar and her husband Dhiren, had no time for a child when they were trying to set up their own catering business. They knew their pursuit of success had to be single-minded. "Both of us were mentally not prepared to take on any additional responsibility other than business," she says. But now they are thinking of adopting a child. "No need to add to the population," she says. Sometimes though the approach has a hard-headed business view to it, something akin to choosing a new car. If it seems callous there is a refreshing honesty to it as well. IIM gold medallist Devina Mehra, 34, whose husband Shankar Sharma works at the First Global Stockholding, is wonderfully blunt: "It's an irreversible step that changes your life in a fundamental way. I wonder whether children bring much to the table".
As society turns blue in the face, it is clear that the changing attitudes reflect the gradual empowerment of the urban Indian woman. Educated, informed, they find they have the opportunity to pursue individual dreams. For them being superwoman, dumping babies in creches or with ayahs while they work, is not worth it. It's babies or work and work wins. Annabel Velacquez admits she feels scared by the thought of her biological clock ticking away. Yet she and her husband Rajiv Hiranandani felt deeply that shaping their lives took precedence. As Rajiv says, "Taking care of a child is not a mindless job and we were not ready to change our footloose lifestyle and give up our dreams. What Velacquez also has is her husband's commitment, a vital cog in any career woman's decision-making. As lawyer Kalpana Gavaskar explains, "Many times I see husbands asking for divorce on grounds like cruelty to husband and refusal to bear my child."
Yet, convinced of their decision, such couples, predictably, are perceived as self-centred, but it is a perception arising from a tradition that refuses to yield. Reproduction is seen as a woman's primary contribution. Children may be fun but they're primarily a social obligation, and yes, a support system for old age. Society takes a dim view of those who abandon the chosen path and the repercussions are startling. Harish Shetty, a Mumbai psychiatrists, says societal pressure is so great that many couples avoid family functions to escape scrutiny. If that's not enough, women are told repeatedly that a childless woman is bound to be afflicted with cervical, uterine or breast cancer, though Coelho clarifies, "It's a risk, not a rule."
Family, of course, watching this interruption in lineage feels they must be dutifully persuasive. Swaraj Mehra, Devina's mother, asserts that motherhood is not restricted to responsibility but a necessary experience that brings maturity. Sujata Baroi, Nikunj's mother-in-law, tells her a career alone is not fulfilling, that in an individualist world children are even more important for they act as cement in marriage. Some arguments have merit, others perhaps not, but family pressure have unpleasant consequences. Dino Rao, 35, delivered a girl three years ago after immense pressure from parents and in-laws. The immediate result: acute anxiety and depression. Today she feels the joy of motherhood, but as she balances between playing mother and doing her job, she is still unconvinced by her choice: "I have sacrificed my career for being a mother and I am still not sure it if will be worthwhile."
What it takes to last the journey, to live with stigma and the accompanying pressures, is a fair measure of patience and courage. Yet, it is being done. Shetty says couples find relief through mechanisms available to them in various forms, whether it be from family, friends kids or even pets. But society needs to remove its blinkers and recognise the childless couple as an alternative family pattern. And that having a child is a question of choice. Not inevitability.