Opportunity and Society

For mothers it arrives quietly, mixed with fear, judgement, and the weight of society.

I remember the day opportunity knocked on my door. Not with noise, not with celebration just a simple chance to step out, to choose myself, to move closer to a dream I had kept hidden inside my heart.

My elder son’s school announced a mother–son dance for the annual day. Practices were required for a few days. For a moment, my heart said yes.

But I have a 2-year-old. My parents were there. My in-laws were there. Yet, there was no one to actually take care of my baby. Because a toddler is always assumed to be the mother’s responsibility.

If I took him along, questions followed.

If I left him behind, guilt followed.

“What will people say?”

“How will you manage the house?”

“A good mother shouldn’t think like this.”

“She is becoming too ambitious.”

These weren’t just words.

They were keys that locked my courage away.

As a mother, my life has always been measured by sacrifices.

How much I give.

How much I adjust.

How much I stay silent.

No one counts how much I let go.

These words don’t just hurt they build invisible walls around a mother. Sometimes it’s not my responsibilities that stop me.

It’s the fear of gossip.

The fear of being judged.

The fear of being called selfish for choosing myself even once.

And so… I stood behind that locked door.

Listening to opportunity walk away.

Not because I was weak.

Not because I lacked courage.

But because a mother is taught that her dreams must wait.

Yet I know one thing. Every missed opportunity leaves behind a lesson.

That a mother is also a woman.

That dreams don’t die, they only pause.

That one day, when opportunity knocks again,i will try to open the door

even if my hands are shaking.

Because behind this title “MOTHER”

there still lives a woman

who deserves her own sky.