"Oh! I am so sorry to hear that. When did he pass away? It must be so difficult for your mother." The young and naive 11-year-old me was hesitant to correct my teacher and tell her that my father was alive but not with us, because my parents were divorced.
With as much or as little knowledge as I had at that young age, I corrected my teacher and saw her face shift from concerned to judgemental. However, something told me that this would not have been the case if my mother were widowed and not divorced.
This is the problem with society: they are willing to accept a widowed single mother over a divorced single mother. If the husband in a family dies, it is fate and society is sympathetic towards that, but when a woman decides to leave an unhappy marriage, that is unacceptable.
As soon as a mother is widowed, her family gathers together, supports her, and lets her know that they are always by her side. Her family will even start looking for eligible suitors for her in order to help her start a life again and have a father for her children.
It is not a crime to leave a toxic relationship. However, it is a crime to tolerate inhumane torture just for the sake of "what will people say?" It is about time that society educates itself about such issues and raises awareness about the reasons behind divorces and how to address them, in order to create a safe space for children and mothers.
On the other hand, it is a completely different scenario when a mother is divorced. The family gathers together as well, but for entirely different reasons. Some relatives taunt her for the decision she made, and others do everything in their power to make her regret the divorce.
"What will people say?" "How will you find good proposals for your daughters?" "Who will be the MAN in the family?" "Your children need a father figure." "How will you raise them alone?" "A marriage consists of compromises; as a woman, you must compromise."
These are just some of the unsolicited comments, advice, and questions that I heard my mother being asked when I was a child. It is easy to ask questions and judge people without having to walk in their shoes. Having to answer questions like these does not make the lives of divorced single mothers any easier.
Society will only see the fact that a woman is a divorcee; nobody will try to look beyond that "label". However, there are many reasons why women get divorced. Women are naturally homemakers and givers. It is not a woman's first choice to break apart a relationship. Nobody stops to think about what made them take such a decision.
A small example of why a woman might opt for a divorce can be seen in the rise of domestic abuse during the pandemic, which led to higher divorce rates in Bangladesh, as stated in Dhaka City Corporation data. Domestic abuse is a leading reason for divorce among married couples.
Being a child of a divorced single mother, my sister and I had to be twice as careful as other girls in society before taking a single step. The smallest mishap could lead to the defamation of my mother, simply because she was divorced.
Especially in South Asian cultures, women are taught that they must learn to compromise and tolerate abuse from their husbands, but they are not allowed to leave them. Doing so will lead to them having a bad reputation in society.
It can be said that society will allow women to tolerate constant abuse, but it will not let women take a stand against their abusive husbands because "good women don't rebel". Society does not think twice before scrunching its eyebrows after hearing about a divorced single mother.
Society is relatively more accepting towards widowed single mothers because they did not choose to become single mothers by choice; it was fate. However, society will not accept or respect a divorced single mother because it thinks she has failed as a wife and is incapable of raising children alone.
Being a child of a divorced single mother, my sister and I had to be twice as careful as other girls in society before taking a single step. The smallest mishap could lead to the defamation of my mother, simply because she was divorced.
Why is it that we had to go through that? Why is it that whatever we did became a question of our character and our mother's character? Shouldn't society be more empathetic towards us because we got out of a toxic family environment? Shouldn't society praise my mother for having the courage to know when it was time to leave for her and her children's betterment, before things got worse?
These are some of the questions that come to my mind, and I wish society would answer them for me. The children of divorced single mothers are not asking for much. We are simply asking for the respect and acceptance that children of widowed mothers receive.
It is not a crime to leave a toxic relationship. However, it is a crime to tolerate inhumane torture just for the sake of "what will people say?" It is about time that society educates itself about such issues and raises awareness about the reasons behind divorces and how to address them, in order to create a safe space for children and mothers.
The lives of divorced single mothers are already very difficult to begin with. On behalf of children coming from broken families, please do not make our mothers' lives harder. They have gone through enough, and it has taken their soul to make this decision. They deserve respect and a break from the judgements of people who will never understand the traumas they had to live through.
Muntaqua Zarifah Rana is a Media Studies and Journalism student at ULAB.
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