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Actor and activist Nadia Jamil has delivered a powerful reflection on motherhood, mental health, and the importance of setting boundaries — especially for women navigating parenting in a patriarchal society.

She also talked about how important it is for boys to understand that their future wives should not be expected to “mother them”. Giving the example of her own son, she said while she may pamper him as his mother, that shouldn’t lead him to believe his wife has to do the same.

At a recent panel hosted by the Almawrid Women Society, she said, “I am a mother and the daughter of a working mother. I never felt that we or our household were deprived of anything because our mother was working. On the contrary, my self-confidence, my humanity, is inspired by my mother’s.”

Jamil recalled a childhood with a present father who played an active role in parenting, not out of compulsion, but with conscious care. “Our father, when our mother was not around, spent quality time with us. He was not clueless,” she said. “So if a woman is deprived of a husband who helps her with domestic duties, then that is her misfortune.”

Cutting into the deeply embedded gender roles in South Asian families, where emotional labour and childcare are often shouldered entirely by women, Jamil reflected on her own experience as a working mother raising both a young daughter who is four as well as a 23-year-old son.

“Not every woman is fortunate enough to have a husband who gives his family time. In that situation, women do end up making a lot of sacrifices. But I am also a mother who works, and I have a four-year-old daughter whom I want to inspire to become a woman who can work, be self-reliant, and be happy to take care of herself,” she added.

Acknowledging how her approach to parenting has evolved over time, she said, “I am a very different mother to my daughter than I was to my son because I have seen that if I don’t take care of my mental and emotional well-being, then I won’t be able to take care of my child.”

A major part of this learning, Jamil argued, involves setting and maintaining clear personal boundaries, something rarely taught to women in our society. “If my son crosses them, even if he speaks to me disrespectfully, he will have crossed that boundary, and I will not entertain it.”

She criticised the culture of self-sacrifice that is romanticised among Pakistani mothers. “In our society, a lot of things are just made up,” she said. “Things like women staying hungry to feed the kids. To an extent, by design, a mother will prioritise her child’s needs over her own. But if I overcompensate, it will be at a cost. It is up to us how much pressure we put on ourselves.”

She went on to talk about how she is raising her son. “When a boy becomes a teenager, he is exposed to all kinds of things,” she said, citing her son’s education at Aitchison College and his exposure to elite feudal households. “At home, he insists I make his plate. And I do that for him because I am his mother. But he cannot expect the same thing from his wife or wife-to-be. He shouldn’t. That girl does not need to mother him. I tell him that he needs to understand this.”

Jamil’s message is ultimately about breaking cycles of guilt, burnout, and gendered expectations.

She wants mothers to not just raise good children, but to raise children, especially sons, who grow into respectful, self-aware adults who do not outsource their emotional needs to women or expect nurturing at the expense of their partner’s well-being.