R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah

There’s an old saying that, 50 years ago, babies in South India would take 40 days to open their eyes—while today, they open them within minutes. Similarly, people used to believe that breastfeeding worked as a natural family planning method for up to five years about a century ago, but now, they say evolution has overridden that too. Along those lines, I wonder—has evolution diminished motherhood itself, or have we simply misunderstood and overburdened it? Although I don’t actively follow the news much these days, I still come across troubling stories—particularly from Tamil Nadu—where mothers have harmed or even killed their own children. In one viral video, a husband explains how his wife, addicted to Instagram reels, finds it too inconvenient to feed their child and calls him during work hours to do it instead. It raises a disturbing question: Are some Tamil mothers starting to see their own children as burdens—or is it the act of caregiving that feels burdensome? Perhaps bo...

Lately, I’ve been noticing a curious pattern in the behavior of many parents from Kanyakumari, particularly mothers. There’s a recurring tendency to project emotions—anger, sadness, happiness—onto their children, not because the child is actually feeling that way, but to communicate something about the parent’s own desires or discomforts. It’s a subtle form of gaslighting. For example, if a mother doesn’t want to accompany her husband on a social visit, she might say, “Our son is in a bad mood today, let’s stay home,” even when the child is perfectly fine. The child becomes an emotional excuse, a buffer used to influence someone else's behavior without direct confrontation. Sometimes, these projections go deeper. If a mother-in-law dislikes her daughter-in-law, she may subtly portray her own son as short-tempered or unstable. The goal isn't to protect the child, but to create distance between the couple—without ever saying so explicitly. Why do I frame this as a Kanyakum...