Dina used to work in the accounting department of a private company when she became pregnant. She always said she would do like the other mothers she knew: “I will not think about what I will do once the maternity leave is over. I will try to enjoy the pregnancy and the birth, and we will see what comes next.” She loved her job and cared about working, because “one salary [in the household] is not enough in a country like ours, as the state provides nothing for you and your family.”
The big day came and she delivered her child. She describes the difficulty of the first few weeks of her son’s life: “My husband and I had read a lot about the first period [following the birth] and we were psychologically prepared for it, but the difficulty of it, the amount of tiredness, pressure, and sheer madness was beyond anything we imagined. When I started to form ties with my son, understand his needs and be less worried, the maternity leave – seven weeks in the private sector – had come to an end. I came back to work, exhausted and sad. I was leaving a part of me at home with the young lady helping us and going to a job I began hating. I was overrun by a feeling of guilt, I was not spending time with my newborn son who needed me, and I was not as productive as I should have been at work. I could not bear the inhumanity of the office, the lack of consideration for my situation, and the callous disregard for my role as a mother, so I quit. This came at the expense of our financial situation but anything is better than what comes at the expense of our son’s growth and psychological well-being.”
Dina’s experience epitomizes the great difficulty in Lebanon for new mothers. She is single-handedly responsible for giving birth to “the citizens of the future”, with no state support during the process, says Nadia Issawi, a researcher and secretary of the Mediterranean Women’s Fund. “Giving birth is considered a personal issue a woman has to deal with on her own. This negligence starts with the pregnancy. If a woman is able to afford it, she will get proper follow-up.” If she can’t afford it, she simply goes without proper medical care. “The same thing holds true for giving birth. [Most women have] no choice but to return to work following a very short maternity leave, which does not give her enough ‘psychological time’ to prepare for the separation from her child, a time that is essential for a child’s psychological balance. She has just enough time to give birth before she returns to work; immediately after she has to start thinking about how provide for her child while she is gone.”
Nadia Issawi remembered a French psychologist who has criticized the three-month maternity leave women get in France, saying that it was impossible for a woman to psychologically prepare herself for the separation from her child during this period. The psychologist said: “[A woman] prepares for this baby’s arrival for nine months and she has to get away from it and return to work in three months? This is inhuman.” If France’s three months is “inhuman”, what would this psychologist say, then, about the maternity leave in Lebanon, which is set at just one month and three weeks in the private sector and two months for public workers?
The celebration of motherhood on Mother’s Day is a decoy to distract from this injustice against women and mothers. Giving birth is by no means a central part of the state’s social policies and priorities. Women’s sociopolitical role in laying the foundations of society and indeed, basic human rights, are anything but acknowledged by the government. Women are still barred from passing on their nationality to their children, and violence against them has not yet been legislated against. Mothers are showered with flowers, gifts and special sales whereas, in reality, nothing is changing with regard to laws and policies.
“Providing childcare service in order for a woman to resume working, allowing women the chance to take part in public life by providing her with support on the level of family life: These are the true gifts a mother should receive rather than vacuum cleaners, jewelry, or dinners out. On Mother’s Day, they are promised the moon and on the remaining 364 days of the year, they are shamefully exploited. They work, they are economically active and they give birth and at the same time, they are expected to be exemplary wives, attractive and always available,” Issawi said.
This patriarchal system expects women to give birth to ‘citizens’ without granting them basic citizens’ rights in return. Once they do give birth to these new citizens, their legal stewardship over their children is taken away: women cannot procure civil extracts (government-authorized family or individual records) for their children nor can they send their children abroad without their husband’s prior approval.
“All of this is a result the compulsory guardianship granted to the father in Lebanon’s sectarian personal status laws. This goes without mentioning the issue of custody. In the event of a divorce in all religious denominations, the principle of custody for the mother is countered by the principle of compulsory guardianship for the father. The concept of joint custody… does not exist. The mother gets custody until the child reaches a certain age, which varies across sects and denominations, but when this age comes custody automatically switches over to the father,” said intern attorney Nayla Geagea. “If a woman manages to retain custody over her children after separation, and even after they reach the legal custody age, her custody over them is always threatened by religious, moral and social considerations which are subjected for the most part to the judge’s discretionary authority. This allows for a broad margin of accusations and libel, which the other part has no qualms about bringing before religious courts, thus putting women in a position of permanent self-defense of her behavior and lifestyle.”
This bureaucratic violence against women often turns women to bitterly replay the injustice done against her. Sometimes, Issawi says, “a woman turns this violence to which she is subjected against herself, thus becoming a ‘masochist’, or against her children. Women are abused and mistreated so they turn to mistreating their children because they are under their grip…. In these cases, mothers raise their sons to be tyrants and their daughters to be submissive or resourceful in order to shield themselves from the consequences of rebellion.
The same cycle of violence is thus perpetuated, thus ensuring the continuation of the same patriarchal system.” Children, the very ‘citizens of the future’ so prized in Lebanese society, too often become victims of the same violent policies targeted at their mothers.
Issawi wonders: “What if companies provided their employees and the mothers among them with some kind of childcare structure? In that case, women would not spend so much time and energy on providing alternative childcare; rather, they would come to work in the morning with their children, put them somewhere safe and close by, dedicate themselves to work calmly and enthusiastically having been reassured as to their wellbeing. They would spend lunchtime with their children and resume working contentedly afterwards.”
This is no unattainable dream. Based upon individual initiatives, many businesses and companies worldwide provide their employees with such a childcare structure. Only when Lebanon follows suit will celebrating Mother’s Day be a true celebration of a mother’s pivotal role in laying the foundations of a sound society.
