Lakshmi Chaudry

...after spending years waiting for my green card, I am moving back home...For the first time since contemplating motherhood, I feel relaxed and confident. I won't be alone when I have my baby. Of course, I now have a whole new set of fears. I worry that the communal culture in India, which makes it such a wonderful place to raise a family, might feel stifling. I worry about finding a job there that I will like. And I worry that when I return to San Francisco in a few years, the friendships and the career I worked so hard to build will be gone.

- Lakshmi Chaudry,  Maybe Baby

Out of all the essays in this book, it was Chaudry's that really caught my eye. Like me, she has roots in a communal culture, where child-rearing is made infinitely easier with a strong network of family and help. 

Unlike the US, parenting in India seemed free of the plaguing guilt or need to compete with other parents. She writes, "The women I grew up with in India....were career women who had chosen motherhood without losing themselves. They didn't spend time wrestling with guilt when at work or out with friends, not when they knew that their kids were safe in the care of a close member of the extended family...Their lives did not shrink into a daily ritual of baby-tending activities, but instead grew richer and more complex, as motherhood added new layers to their identity."

Her own fears of balancing work and life are those I am experiencing now. In her essay she says, "I knew there must be women in America who had figured out how to balance the demands of motherhood and their own needs for a fulfilling life, but I hadn't met them. Willingly or otherwise, each mother I knew had sacrificed something--career, a social life, and, in some cases, a happy marriage--at the altar of maternity."

Based on her writing and my own observations, I'm coming to realize that child-rearing shouldn't really be a solo or even tandem sport. It's something that's undertaken by a community and I suppose, given the United States' individualistic culture, that's difficult to accomplish.