Tuesday, May 24, 2011

pregnancy

(no offense to anyone who has recently reproduced - i have absolutely no idea what im talking about)

It amazes me that, for a culture that is so obsessively compulsively baby mad, we are so ashamed of, and try our outmost to hide pregnancy itself. Pregnant women are hidden away as if pregnancy is a badge of shame - pregnancy is a result of s-e-x and we all know that THAT is a shameful deed, and we conveniently forget what pregnancy actually leads to a b-a-b-y. Oh wait a baby is not a shameful thing, no need to spell it out. Silly me.

Pregnancy anounces to the world that a woman has actually had s-e-x and god forbid that any self respecting married woman who has been harassed to death by society to reproduce to actually anounce that she had the s-e-x. After all if she were an honourable woman, her baby will magically appear from the stork (what's the muslim equivalent for the stork??). Since she is a shameful woman who had to have the s-e-x and therefore got p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t, she is honour bound to hide herself. If she cannot hide at home for a full nine months, then she absolutely must cover her tummy with the oh so respectable and ever protective duppatta. Wait does that actually hide anything or just emphasise it? She must be escorted everywhere by a chaperone lest she shame herself further by oh I dont know anouncing that she is p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t.

Once the magical steed (holy cat? flying mosque?) delivers the baby, we can feel free to anounce that oh by the miracle of god we have been delivered of a baby. Yes it is a miracle, but not a miracle delivered by the winged mullah, its a miracle of pregnancy. A miracle of two people joining together, of a woman carrying her baby, and the miracle of the pain of labour that eventually delivers the miracle of the baby.

I dont know if i ever want to have a baby. That is a personal choice (more on this later). But i'd like to think that if ever i do become pregnant, I'm not going to be hiding it. Given my general state of health i'll probably be puking my guts out and laying about and not wanting to get out of my bed anyways for the whole nine months. And when i do get out I shall expect to be catered to hand and foot. But still, I wont be ashamed that I had to have the s-e-x to become p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t and to have a b-a-b-y. Oops there i go again spelling the baby. Silly me.



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