Better a nursing home than babysitting
Born to Serve: The State of Old Women and Widows in India
By Priya Verma
Off Our Backs
Vol. 35, no 9/10
Sept-Oct 2005
Articles like this one always set my instincts on point. Off Our Backs can be an angry and in your face magazine. There are good articles, and some effective coverage of conferences and news, but this is interspersed with articles and essays whose overall tone is one of women’s anger and proof that women should be angry.
While there is plenty for women to be angry about, I ran across several articles that seemed more like propaganda then analysis or well thought out opinion. This article did not strike me as propagandistic, but it is a harsh criticism of traditional Indian culture.
I have never lived in India and I have never known anyone from India outside of academic and professional circles. Therefore, I have no real experience or knowledge to determine whether this article is on target or not.
Having said that, the reasons for my concern are the women-in-India-have-the-worst-possible-lives tone of the piece. While Widow houses sound decidedly horrible, and the tradition of burning a living woman on the same funeral pyre as her deceased husband is something I simply cannot understand (having no knowledge of or contact with the culture), the analysis of the lives of old women leaves me with the desire to ask an old woman from (or in) India.
The integration of old women into the family is described as ‘exploitive’ because they provide childcare and physical labor for their children and grandchildren. Verma insists that women are unwilling to leave Widow Houses (where they are required to beg and prostitute themselves in order to survive) because each of them is “free to live her own life,” while living with her family “obliterates her identity and ordains for her a kind of social death.” Verma then ends by stating that all of this must be fixed through government welfare programs.
Plenty of people in this country (and others) rely upon grandparents to help out with the childrearing. Many do it because the parents are unable to handle it themselves (due to time constraints and other commitments), can’t afford to pay for childcare, or prefer to trust the care of their children to family members. More than one grandparent that I have known has not only done this willingly, they have offered to do it more often because they want to see their grandchildren. To suggest that a woman is forced to care for her grandchildren, and that the act is a form of drudgery and enslavement, is both extreme and offensive.
There is a difference between being a part of the family, helping out with the day-to-day workings of that family, having your needs met through your family, and being forced into an abusive slave-like existence. Is Verma so offended by the idea of childcare and housework that she is appalled that women past childbearing age would be forced to endure involvement in such activities?
While I admit that her point about women not being given any kind of choice within these situations is difficult to hear and difficult to live with, but the reality of life is that all people (male and female) live in the exact same situation. It’s neither realistic nor admirable to suggest that a person has a right to being catered to and served and given the means to do anything they please. We all have our struggles and caring for a family is one of the most difficult, complicated, economically challenging, and rewarding experiences of any person’s life. Why is the incorporation of the grandparents into this life supposed to be so offensive while shuttling them off to nursing homes and providing them welfare checks is such an improvement?
Personally, I am very much of the opinion that Western culture needs to learn from Indian culture, not the other way around. Nursing homes and day care centers are income generating businesses that have become the standard when, ideally, they should be the last resort or the occasional fill-in when other options simply aren’t available.
Granted there are, and always will be, people who abuse a tradition or a system, but the possibility of abuse does not, necessarily, prove that a tradition is without value or need.
By Priya Verma
Off Our Backs
Vol. 35, no 9/10
Sept-Oct 2005
Articles like this one always set my instincts on point. Off Our Backs can be an angry and in your face magazine. There are good articles, and some effective coverage of conferences and news, but this is interspersed with articles and essays whose overall tone is one of women’s anger and proof that women should be angry.
While there is plenty for women to be angry about, I ran across several articles that seemed more like propaganda then analysis or well thought out opinion. This article did not strike me as propagandistic, but it is a harsh criticism of traditional Indian culture.
I have never lived in India and I have never known anyone from India outside of academic and professional circles. Therefore, I have no real experience or knowledge to determine whether this article is on target or not.
Having said that, the reasons for my concern are the women-in-India-have-the-worst-possible-lives tone of the piece. While Widow houses sound decidedly horrible, and the tradition of burning a living woman on the same funeral pyre as her deceased husband is something I simply cannot understand (having no knowledge of or contact with the culture), the analysis of the lives of old women leaves me with the desire to ask an old woman from (or in) India.
The integration of old women into the family is described as ‘exploitive’ because they provide childcare and physical labor for their children and grandchildren. Verma insists that women are unwilling to leave Widow Houses (where they are required to beg and prostitute themselves in order to survive) because each of them is “free to live her own life,” while living with her family “obliterates her identity and ordains for her a kind of social death.” Verma then ends by stating that all of this must be fixed through government welfare programs.
Plenty of people in this country (and others) rely upon grandparents to help out with the childrearing. Many do it because the parents are unable to handle it themselves (due to time constraints and other commitments), can’t afford to pay for childcare, or prefer to trust the care of their children to family members. More than one grandparent that I have known has not only done this willingly, they have offered to do it more often because they want to see their grandchildren. To suggest that a woman is forced to care for her grandchildren, and that the act is a form of drudgery and enslavement, is both extreme and offensive.
There is a difference between being a part of the family, helping out with the day-to-day workings of that family, having your needs met through your family, and being forced into an abusive slave-like existence. Is Verma so offended by the idea of childcare and housework that she is appalled that women past childbearing age would be forced to endure involvement in such activities?
While I admit that her point about women not being given any kind of choice within these situations is difficult to hear and difficult to live with, but the reality of life is that all people (male and female) live in the exact same situation. It’s neither realistic nor admirable to suggest that a person has a right to being catered to and served and given the means to do anything they please. We all have our struggles and caring for a family is one of the most difficult, complicated, economically challenging, and rewarding experiences of any person’s life. Why is the incorporation of the grandparents into this life supposed to be so offensive while shuttling them off to nursing homes and providing them welfare checks is such an improvement?
Personally, I am very much of the opinion that Western culture needs to learn from Indian culture, not the other way around. Nursing homes and day care centers are income generating businesses that have become the standard when, ideally, they should be the last resort or the occasional fill-in when other options simply aren’t available.
Granted there are, and always will be, people who abuse a tradition or a system, but the possibility of abuse does not, necessarily, prove that a tradition is without value or need.
posted by A at 7:34 AM
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