Mother is a verb

Is it necessary to make a virtue out of a natural role? Last week, I met my college friend and was aghast to see what she had made of herself. She used to be a young, ambitious, active and a pretty lady. She was a company secretary in a great firm and was admired for her efficiency. I lost touch with her when she got married.
I heard she had given up her job after giving birth to a baby girl, Krystal.
I had my doubts, but I am also conscious of the fact that many women don’t want to leave their kids at home and go to work. I knew she would do a brilliant job of bringing up her child.
Years passed by and then last week, I met her near my office. She looked thin, frail and weak. Her visage had lost its radiance and her skin looked pale.
I could not help asking if she was ill. She smiled back and said, “Yes, I know I look a wreck”. She must have read my mind and guessed the next question coming from me: Has marriage taken its toll on you? I gathered she had immersed herself so completely in her role of a young mother, looking after her toddler, that she neglected her own self.
She did not want a nanny for her child. Instead, she attended on her child through the nights of baby fever, blissful experience; she even heard her first chuckle, her first syllable. In short, she was a full-time mother, and loved every minute of it.
I felt happy for her, but what I could not understand was the fact that taking good care of herself hardly figured on her priority list. It’s sad that her motherhood had consumed her desire to look a PYT, something that she was so wont to not long ago.
Let’s accept it, it’s lethargy, and not the demands of motherhood, that leads women to either grow plump or reed thin. Motherhood is not an excuse, it’s an evolutionary cause.