Motherhood can make you happier and more whole if you treat it as joyful play and gratitude, not a heavy duty.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
This crazy, sweet, totally demanding and physically exhausting, delightful marathon called motherhood.... Since this fireball came to us -- almost two years now -- not one uninterrupted night's sleep, not one day of rest. And feeling nothing so important as simply being present for him -- and so very often inadequate and tense and tired in that. Where is laughter in this? Help! Help! Yuck, yuck, yuck.
PUNITA, JUST TO GIVE BIRTH TO A CHILD IS ONE THING -- to be a mother is totally different. Any woman can give birth to a child; that's a very simple phenomenon. But to be a mother needs great art, needs great under-standing. You are creating a human being -- that is the greatest creation! A painter paints a picture; we call it great art. Picasso -- we call him a great artist. But what about the mother who created Picasso? A poet writes beautiful poems, but what about the mother who created Shakespeare? We don't think about mothers as the greatest creative people on the earth. That is one of the reasons why women are not great painters and great poets -- they need not be: they can be great mothers. Why does man try to become a great scientist, poet, painter, this and that? -- he is jealous…
Osho, when I went to Rajneeshpuram in July, in your discourses you said that in India no children should be born for many years. I repeated this to many people when I came back to Hindustan. Different people had different reactions, but most women said, “The maternal feeling in a woman—how is she to satisfy it?” Some said, “A woman does not attain fulfillment until she becomes a mother.” Please say something about this, Osho.
Second, it is true that a woman’s fulfillment is in her becoming a mother. That is why, when I began giving sannyas, the traditional name for a male renunciate was “Swami.” There was no name for a woman—because in India, for thousands of years, woman has been suppressed and erased so badly that she was never given the chance to be initiated into sannyas. There wasn’t even a name. After much search I accepted “Ma” as that name, because in “Ma” lies her fulfillment. But this fulfillment as mother is proof that your love has risen so high that the whole world becomes, for you, as if they are your children—even your husband. This is the blessing of the rishis of the Upanishads. Whenever a couple came to a rishi for a blessing, there was a very unique blessing, found in no other scripture in the world. The rishi would…
So just remain happy, and it is simple if you are a little alert, because when something enters that can disturb your happiness and peace.... It is not very big, it is maybe just a tiny thing, very meaningless; when you think about it you will laugh about it... When it enters it is very seed-like, but if you allow it to enter it becomes a big tree and then it is very difficult to uproot it. It clings, it gets rooted in your heart. In the beginning anything is very small and to throw it is very simple. To wait is very dangerous; it gets roots. And when a tree has grown big, even if you throw it it will leave many seeds in the soil and many roots in the soil; and again and again it will come back. Just watch... be on guard.
[A mother has brought her baby. Osho reminds her to enjoy being a mother.] Don't think of it as a duty. One tends to think of it as a duty sooner or later, and the day you think of it as a duty, something dies, something of immense value disappears; the relationship is broken. Think of it as a celebration. The child is a gift from god. Be respectful to the child... not just loving but respectful also. If there is not respect, then love becomes possessive; if there is respect, how can you possess? You cannot possess somebody you respect. the very idea is ugly, disrespectful. To possess a person means to reduce the person to a thing. And once the child is your possession, you are burdened.
To have friends in need is sweet and to share happiness. And to have done something good before leaving this life is sweet, and to let go of sorrow.
TO BE A MOTHER IS SWEET, AND A FATHER. IT IS SWEET TO LIVE ARDUOUSLY, AND TO MASTER YOURSELF. OH HOW SWEET IT IS TO ENJOY LIFE, LIVING IN HONESTY AND STRENGTH! Kaflin was planning a vacation and did not know what to do with his collie. He wrote to the resort hotel and asked if dogs were allowed. He received this answer from the manager: "Dear sir, I have been in the hotel business for over thirty years. Never yet have I had to call in the police to eject a disorderly dog in the small hours of the morning. No dog has ever attempted to pass off a bad cheque on me. Never has a dog set the bedclothes afire through smoking. I have never found a hotel towel in a dog's suitcase. Certainly, your dog is welcome. P.S. If he will vouch for you, you can come…