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Ever felt guilty as a mother? Been made to feel guilty? Write about your experiences for the first Women's Web contest!
To be a mother is to feel guilty. If it’s not for the big things, it’s for the small things. If it’s not others making you feel guilty, you do it to yourself. All mothers know this, which is probably why our article ‘Fight that Mommy Guilt’ got such a tremendous response from readers.
Which is why, we’ve decided to go ahead and use it as the theme for our first contest on Women’s Web.
(UPDATED on 24/06/10: It’s not just the Flipkart voucher now! Devra Renner and Aviva Pflock, co-authors of the very relevant book, Mommy Guilt: Learn to Worry Less, Focus on What Matters Most & Raise Happier Kids, have very graciously offered to give away a copy of the book to each of the 3 winners. More reason to participate!)
The rules are simple 1-2-3:
1. Write your own post on ‘Mommy Guilt‘ – it can be funny, sad, touching, angry, thoughtful – anything you choose. And you don’t HAVE to be a parent – anyone with a story to share can participate.
2. Make sure you include a link to our feature, ‘Fight that Mommy Guilt’ somewhere in your post.
3. Let us know of your entry – on the comments section of this post itself, on the Women’s Web Facebook group, at our twitter ID, or by emailing us at [email protected] with the words ‘Mommy Guilt’ in your subject line.
(If you don’t have a blog but really want to participate, you can send it to us as an attached document at the e-mail ID mentioned above, and if it wins, we’ll publish it here. For these entries, obviously, step 2 doesn’t apply).
And the Prizes?
The 3 best entries EACH get a Rs. 500 voucher that you can use to shop for books, music or other goodies at Flipkart. (Anyone in the world with a valid e-mail address can receive these vouchers, but Flipkart currently ships only to addresses in India).
This contest kicks off NOW – which means entries dated from 17th June to 28th June will be valid, when we close for entries and start judging.
The Judges? Yours truly, and Nita Deb, the writer of the original piece that started it all.
Go ahead and give it a shot!
Update (28/06/2010): A big Thank You to everyone who participated in the contest – if we could, we’d give away prizes to all of you 🙂 As we can’t, we’ll spend the next few days going through all the entries to identify the winners. We’ll be notifying the winners by email, besides announcing them on the blog. Entries for this Contest are now closed.
Pic credit: Racingmix (Used under a CC license)
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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