Headbath

I breastfed E for 26 months. It's been only a few weeks, and I don't even remember the exact date. One day she asked, I said no, she fussed about it for a bit but didn't cry or insist. And that was it. I had breastfed for the last time and I didn't even know. In hindsight, I suppose I did know, because the last feed was different from all the feeds that came before it. In the last one, it was me and her, sitting in our nursing chair lit by the blue-green from her nightlight - both only as old as she is. As we've sat hundreds of times, the only ones awake in the quiet nighttime house, she lost in thought, and me, staring at her, willing at her to be the person I know in my bones she is. In the last feed, she watched me closely, something she rarely does. She always liked to unfocus a little, puzzle out her world while the repetitive motions of her mouth made her verdant brain, process the individual tendrils of life. She may notice me once in a while, giggle whe...

This post is part 3 of a three part series on the conundrum of modern motherhood. Read part 1 and part 2 . Can I Have It All? I get conflicting messages from women like Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, telling me to 'lean in' to the male-defined workplace, and stop being held back by my perceptions of why, as a mother, I can't participate in the workforce in the way that I'd like. Then there are women like Anne-Marie Slaughter, lawyer and professor of international affairs at Princeton University, who feel that the world, as it exists today, does not have room for women who want success at both, the workplace and the home. These arguments are a little more nuanced in India. Childcare is cheap and readily available but not necessarily trustworthy and definitely under-regulated. The threat of prosecution isn't real enough for a daycare centre or maid to do their jobs well. Meanwhile, the invasion of modern technology in our professional lives ensure that we s...