Nurturing, a full-time job

theSun, Tues, 3 June 2008
Raising a child is a full-time responsibility which every parent must consider before making the commitment to have one

A casual comment from an acquaintance about a mother’s workload being proportionate to the number of children she has prompted me to ponder one day. Nurturing children is a fulltime job, regardless of whether you have another fulltime job as an employee or businesswoman.

While I agree to a certain extent that the more children you have, the busier you will be, I believe that it all boils down to the decision of how much sweat and tears a mum chooses to pour out to nurture her children. Does she choose to work full-time or part time?

To make a simple comparison, assume there are two mothers who are housewives without maids. One could have five children and not even care to cook for them, attend to their studies, or teach them good values, thus being free to indulge in her own fancies. Meanwhile, the other who has only two children, toils all day to ensure her children are clean, properly fed, keep up with their school work and grow up to be exemplary teenagers and adults.

The work of nurturing children is tremendously consuming if one chooses to act responsibly.

A mother can wear as many hats as she chooses to. And if one chooses to really be a mother, then her hands will always be busy. Every phase of development of a child requires a mother to use different skills and knowledge.

Be it one child or six, mothering is a full-time job. It is the area of focus that could differ. For example, older children require less attention for basic needs like bathing or feeding but need to be taught responsibility, while younger ones need to be put to bed, assisted in the toilet, and taught to say “please” and “thank you”.

There are, however, mothers in our midst who definitely would be more burdened the more children they have – mothers with special-needs children, mothers with physical disabilities, and single mothers for instance. These are mothers I take my hat off to.

An article I read titled The Sacred Responsibility of Mothers by Forever Families says: “Scholars define mothering in many ways, but most include the idea that nurturing children is the central task. Nurturing includes meeting children’s physical demands, such as food, clothing, and protection. And it includes loving, cherishing, educating, and training them.

“One of the most important objectives of all this work is to raise children to become upstanding, responsible members of their community.”

It also went on to tell of an article in the Wall Street Journal that described the multi-dimensional role of a mother as “the most creative job in the world” requiring knowledge in many areas, including “taste, fashion, decorating, recreation, education, transportation, psychology, romance, cuisine, designing, literature, medicine, handicraft, art, horticulture, economics, government, community relations, paediatrics, geriatrics, entertainment, maintenance, purchasing, direct mail, law, accounting, religion, energy and management”.

That is indeed a long list. So in my mind, if you are a mother, be it to one child or six, you have a fulltime job of nurturing.