Contrary to what a majority of the society believes, not every woman is born to be a mother. The choice to carry, care for, and nurture a child, is personal and should not be defined by biology.
Something that TV actor Kavita Kaushik, famous for her role of police officer Chandramukhi Chautala in FIR, proved when she shared her decision to not be a mother.
In an interview with Hindustan Times, Kavita–who tied the knot with her longtime friend Ronnit Biswas in 2017–talked about how her husband and she did not want to bring more children into this overcrowded world.
I don’t want to be unfair to the child. If I have a child in my 40s, by the time my child would be 20, we would’ve touched our old age. I don’t want our child to take care of old parents in his/her 20s. Maybe we are not maternal and paternal as people. We want to make the world a lighter place and don’t want to bring up a child to this overcrowded city and throw him in the struggles of Mumbai.
She also talked about how, both her and Ronnit, never felt the ‘need’ for a child and they felt complete and content with each other.
Ronnit lost his parents when he was very young and even I, being the only child, had to do a lot of hard work to make a living and support my family. So now, we are enjoying life like kids, travelling and achieving couple goals and more. Sometimes I act like a father to him and he acts like a mother to me. We fulfill the things that we don’t have in each other’s lives, thus, we don’t feel the need to have a child.
In a society that still expects women to always choose motherhood, her admission is a breath of fresh air. Especially because it helps destigmatize the notion that motherhood is a choice and not an obligation. Not only is her practical approach refreshing, but also provides support to women who are often pressurized to become mothers, even against their own desires.
Kavita’s admission is a clear indication that every human in this world should have the right to chose the life they wish to lead. And parenthood should never be considered as the only future for couples.