Dear friends,
how are you doing?
Today I would like to share with you not a recipe, but a story about motherhood situation in Russia. I know many of you have kids adopted from our country and this information maybe useful for you.
If not, please, forgive my wish to tell you more about our life.

He never drinks beer with friends after work. He calls home every hour to make sure everything’s fine. He barely makes ends meet but he has no right to despair. Sasha is a single father.

His girlfriend left him holding the baby two years ago. I am not fit for marriage and motherhood, not yet, she explained then. Besides, you have got a job, a flat and your parents are quite well-off, you can always rely on them for help. And off she went. Sasha does not blame her. He loved her too much, so he forgave her and became a single father.

He says he has nothing to complain about. He works as a corporate security officer at a large company; his ex-wife’s parents as well as his own adore the kid and do everything they can to help. But I know he is putting on a brave face, because he spends the lion’s share of his income on his kid and saves every cent he can spare for her future education. But my girl must have everything she needs, he says.

Sasha is not the only one. The ranks of single fathers are growing. In the past, courts used to place children in the custody of mothers in divorce cases, while fathers were ordered to pay alimony on a monthly basis. Widespread shady payroll schemes where workers receive only a tiny fraction of their salaries on an official basis reduce the alimony payments fathers are legally bound to make to virtually nothing.

As unemployment and social instability has increased over the past decades, the demographic situation has worsened considerably. Birth rates are plummeting, forcing the government to devise extra benefits to encourage young families to have babies. Sometimes, those measures work. But not always.

Many young people here in Russia still have only a vague notion of contraception, with some — in the 21st century — believing abortion to be the best solution. But the operation is expensive and risky. Thus, unwanted children come into being.

A woman’s lot is to look after her husband and have babies, my grandmother used to say. Russian mail order bride agencies export Russian women abroad positioning their merchandise as something Western men have not seen for ages. Russian women are loving, caring, they don’t ask silly questions, they love babies, and a career is the last thing on their minds….

Well, not anymore. The situation has changed. Women here are no longer as bent on marriage and having babies, as before. Some of them set out to build a career; others just want to have fun. Babies are off the agenda. Maternity takes your health, destroys your figure and poses a great risk to your further career growth. Many young women I know say they feel they are too young to be mothers.

Another acquaintance of mine, 25-year-old Natasha, got married at the age of 20 to someone she was madly in love with, gave birth to their son and then ran off. The child is now in the care of his parents, Natasha says she has not seen the child for months, but she does not miss him at all. I am not sure if she is absolutely honest when she says so. But the fact is still a fact.

I never heard anyone censure her for leaving the child with her husband’s family. He earns more, he has an apartment, and his parents help him, too.

What is wrong with the motherhood instinct in this country? Why do pictures of plump and rosy-cheeked toddlers fail to stir up tender feelings in us? Why do so many of us, only upon having a baby, realize we have made a mistake?

In poorer provinces women decide against having children because they feel they cannot afford motherhood. But in Moscow this is hardly the case.

Most of my school and university friends who got married are now divorced. Some of them with children. Some of them, like Sasha, are single fathers now. He still hopes that his child’s mother will one day come back.

They do come back, sometimes, says Nikolai Belousov, head of the Single Father Association. After years of hardships, worries and sleepless nights, having grown to love and truly care for his child and the child, too, having grown used to living with his father, they sometimes see their mother return, like a bolt from the blue, and announce: “I am taking the child back.” Ironically, the courts — presided over by mostly female judges — side with the mothers in such cases.

Single fathers in Russia are fewer than single mothers, says Alexander Sinelnikov, of the chair in sociology of family and demography at the Moscow State University. Most of them are widowers. The courts award children to fathers in divorce cases either if their mothers’ parental rights are terminated or the woman herself agrees to it. Many women refuse to give up their children, and not because of their love for them. No, they simply hope to get the apartment after divorce, Sinelnikov says.

Women’s magazines and websites have launched a campaign to encourage women to have babies, seeking to destroy the common myths and dispel fears related to childbirth. One of those fears is the fear of responsibility, writes Natalia Baurova.

A baby is not a doll you can throw away when you don’t need it anymore. Indeed, she says, having a baby means huge responsibility and if you are aware of that, that means you are ready for childbirth. Motherly instincts are supposed to be in our blood and by the time your child is born you will have learned to love and care for it. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

Lisa Vronskaya

MosNews