Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Society: Why Kavita Kaushik is Failing Her Female Friends With Her Weird Reason for Not Having Kids



Television actress Kavita Kaushik and her husband Ronnit Biswas have decided to not have kids (News). While talking to Hindustan Times, the 38-year-old actress said, " 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."

This is one of the most ridiculous excuses one could make for such a decision. Even by going with her logic; by the time her child would be 20, she would be in her 60s and people in 60s do not really need old-age care, unless one is sick. Old age care comes much later. By the time she and her husband would be really that old when they would need old-age-care, her child would be in his later 30s and perfectly ripe for being able to take care of old parents. 

Going further, this whole logic is not proper. She can’t be sure if she would have a son or a daughter. If she had a daughter, most probably she would not need to take care of her parents. In that case, why stop producing a daughter; very well knowing that the daughter would not be burdened with old-age-care of her parents? Also, how many rich kids really take care of their parents? We come across cases of deaths of most celebrities in loneliness and negligence. Kids of rich people most of the time go settle down in some foreign country and the old parents remain at home, old-age-home or in a hospital. The servants and paid agents take care of them to the extent of keeping them just alive so that they continue getting their salaries but cause them a slow painful death with a broken heart and soul. When almost no rich kid takes care of their parents themselves, to hypothetically make such an assumption for her future kid and then making such an extreme decision is a ridiculous idea. 

Most probably, her reasons would be others. Is it that she can’t really have kids medically and she is just trying to make a cheeky excuse to hide the real reason? Is it that she just finds making and rearing babies too “inconvenient”? “Inconvenience” is the reason most modern highly educated families are having less babies these days. So why hide the real reason? 

One of the reasons Kavita Kaushik raises the brow is because of her gender ceiling-breaking acts on TV. The most famous role she played was of a female police inspector “Chandramukhi Chautala” from serial: F.I.R. on SAB TV. Police force is identified with power and masculinity and her role broke many myths and it felt so proud to see her playing that role. Of course, playing the role of a police woman she had what we call a “tom boy” image. But with this decision, she is failing her fans big time. People would now think that girls with “tom boy” image would grow up not wanting to produce children or do womanly duties. That may not be true and a lot of other girls may suffer if people start making such a conclusion. 

I would have wished that Kavita Kaushik should have given the real reason for not having kids; or at least remaining silent on the matter instead of trying to mislead other women into something which may not be right for them.

- Rahul Tiwary

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