Point me to one woman who hasnt been on a self styled diet ever in her life and i will build a temple in her honour and worship the ground she walks on everyday..Fact is, even the best among us, even the waif like nymphettes, want to be in more adherence to the perfect model of beauty..As someone blessed with more than my share of excess flab and several tens of kilos of excess weight, I just found it hilarious when a friend who is barely (literally) half my weight complained to me about the horrendous extent of her abdomen!!..The poor thing was traumatized and very obviously in pain...She was writhing in mental agony and obsessing over what more could be done to lose the 5 kilos of lipid tissue on her abdomen..tsk tsk i say..

Why do women need to diet all the time???Is it just to conform to an ideal of beauty?Or is it because women, by sheer force of nature, are inherently competitive and need to outplay fellow members of their species in some weird neanderthal game of more fertile mate material? Lets face it..us girls like to compete..we have to be the best moms, bake the best brownies, fry the puffiest puris and keep the cleanest houses. Could this obsession over the extra inch of flab be part of this perennial quest for perfection?

Or is it because we are just so insecure? As someone with an utterly un-judgemental partner for a spouse, I have often been repulsed by men folk who peer over their own beer bellies to sneer at their wives post pregnancy flab. Women get easily ticked off by men who judge; some of them plain want to avoid such a situation at all and go to great lengths to maintain the image of perfection for their husband and society at large. Even a near blind 90-year old aunt commenting on the ampleness of her hips or puffy cheeks is enough for the woman to have a near heart attack..diets will ensue, starvation, treadmill, the works..

Women need to own their spirits..no grandmother, husband, aunt, boss or weighing scale should take that away from her.. She should learn to love herself..all of it..no matter what her size, big or small..Only with an empowered spirit will she be an empowered individual. Without true empowerment there really is no point in screaming throats hoarse about equality and feminism. A true feminist believes in herself and her abilities to define her future. She owns her spirit and no one can take her aura from her.

I think i speak for all the mums in the world when i say this-you are never really sure if you are doing all you can for your child. So whether be it taking time off from work to bring up kids or reluctantly getting back to the grind to make a better living for them, i dont think there will be a single mom who can confidently get up and declare-yeah, i am perfect. No one is and moms are no exception. Moms are constantly under stress. Research has proven what we have known for centuries; that when it comes to multi-tasking nobody beats your mom.

What i find disturbing is today's society's over zealous attitude to judge a woman who chooses to quit a lucrative career to be with her child. Surely it must have been a forced decision. Or maybe her husband makes a ton of money. Another would opine, "No, I think she is just plain lazy and using the kid as an excuse"..The way they see it, how could a modern woman of this century actually be shameless enough to not work and accept living on the man's income. The kind of sacrifice and motivations that drive the stay-at-home mom is invariably ignored. The stay-at-home is probably the most under appreciated member of the (non) working class. With no pay and a subject who has literally the maturity of a toddler, she works relentlessly 24/7. No social life, no friend and all her conversations begin and end with the child at home. An excitement in her life would be a new dish made for dinner, difference from the routine would be a different soap on TV (for the fortunate few who can actually get the time to watch TV). With the society at large rebuking her for being so anti-feminist, the average stay-at-home withdraws into her own world, her microcosm.

The child at home is finally capable of fending for itself. Now the average stay-at-home mom (STHM) decides to get back to work after her 'sabbatical'. Employers sneer..'Why the sabbatical..don't women have kids all the time???"..She is deemed unprofessional..some among us are forced to work in sub optimal jobs that insult the intelligence. Employers use the sabbatical as an excuse to deny promotions, hikes and other perquisites. The STHM is again forced to tread on the path of disdain and disregard.

What sets apart the STHM from other working moms is that they put their kids above themselves. With due respect to working moms and all their problems in life (which will probably provide enough content for a whole other blog post), for a woman to put up with a thankless society and a thankless toddler 24/7, without hope for release or a better future, needs a statue or at least an island named in her honor.