In this day and age, women are expected to tend to their families and households while, at the same time, excelling in their chosen careers, oftentimes fields dominated by men. It is a constant balancing act that goes unnoticed and undervalued. Thus, this day and age is called the Age of Superwoman. But, I think, deep inside, the Superwoman also yearns to be domicile. To be just the Woman.
In my field of work, men and women play the field equally and competitively. Women are as ambitious as men in boosting their careers. In my part, I exert all efforts possible so that I may have the opportunity to improve my medical career abroad (since my native country does not value much its doctors). I am, somehow, at a disadvantage because, in my pursuit for career improvement, I am giving up most of my fertile years. And, so, the Superwoman trades in her powers to nurture for powers to rule the world.
I dream of sitting back on a rocking chair, happily counting the days before my child is born. I dream of spending the day singing him love songs and reading to him stories of Narnia and Pooh, imagining how he would smile and point at the colorful illustrations if he were there sitting with me. And when he is born, I want to spend my waking hours watching him sleep and blow his soft little snores. I want to walk my kids to school everyday or see them picked up by the school bus, as they would wave excitingly to me, knowing that they would be just as excited to see me when they get back home, waiting for them at the front porch. I want to be there when they sing and dance at the school play and shoot pictures of them as the crowd stands applauding their juvenile, yet heartfelt, performance. I want to be there when my daughter comes announcing she has gotten her period already and I would patiently show her what she should do everytime that her monthly visitor comes. I want to be there when the principal sends for me because my son had a fight in school and I would earnestly listen to him explain why he did so. I want to be there to see my children, all grown-up, packing away their things, preparing to leave for boarding school.
I want to be there in every phase and every stage of their young, promising lives.
But, unfortunately, I cannot do that because the grip of falling economics is far too strong. If I let myself be overcome by this, it will take the future of my children down into the cliffs…down into the all-too familiar abyss of poverty. Of course, I didn’t want that. But, in exchange for temporary safety from this abyss, I have to pull my children into the dreary realm of familial estrangement.
They, too, like many children today, will not know their parents. Parents, for them, will be merely shadows of beings moving about in the periphery of their vision as they prepare to go to school. Or the waxen figure stooped over the night desk, signing forms permitting them to participate in the school play. Or the dull slumberer, tired from an entire day’s work at the hospital, telling it is normal for a young girl to have blood in her underpants every month and goes back to sleep. Or the ghost writing a letter to the principal saying that he/she cannot accommodate such a meeting because he/she is preoccupied with an emergency, sending a personal assistant as a proxy. Or the signatory in the bank check to be used for payment of tuition fees.
I fear that time will come when I know the history of my patients better than my own children. I fear that time will come when I must answer first to the call of others for help and attention rather than listen to my own kids’ plea. I fear that my children would lose their mother, engulfed by the callous machinery of a monster called Work.
Why couldn’t have God just made women’s most fertile years past the age of 40? I believe that, at this age, most women have already reached the pinnacle of their careers and would be more willing to retire and be domicile. But, no…God lets us be stuck with choosing between career and family, or, most of the time, be stuck in a maddening juggle of the two.
Why, oh, why?
As early as now, I ask forgiveness, my yet unconceived and unborn children. May you be wiser and more understanding than the world where you will be born into.
May the day come when this Superwoman will not need to be so super anymore.
Maybe. Just maybe.
But if that day will not come, I may just have to teach my little daughter how she can be the best Superwoman she can be. At the same time, though, I’d still be infusing within her the dreams that Superwoman, someday, will just be the Woman and she’d be happy.
