If You Believe You Are A Supermom, You are a Victim not a Victor

I avoid socializing with women who cannot talk beyond their kids. No, it has nothing to do with them making me feel like a useless Mom. An alien who can’t even recall the name of the papers her daughter is appearing for in her final exams next week among a sea of women who know each chapter of the course-book by heart. Rather I am filled with dread as I hear them discuss their sons and daughters’ goals they have set and make plans for a future that’ll have them at the steering wheel.

Like any mother holding her baby for the first time in her arms, I too was overcome with a resolution of being the best Mom in this universe to my only child. The one I had birthed after 12 hours of excruciating pain. I read up all the books that were ever written on childcare in the history of humanity. I constantly exchanged notes with other Mommies on diets, regimens, early habits that should be inculcated to bring up a superkid. I slogged, stressed and worried incessantly. But somewhere along the line I realised no matter what I did, there were always tots who were brighter, better, chubbier than my baby.

Our neighbour’s toddler was a sterling example of everything my daughter wasn’t. All I had to do was step out on the balcony and our neighbour’s 2 and a few months old kid would start reciting the alphabet song with sickening accuracy. Two taps on the kid’s back he would start quoting from Shakespeare and three taps was when he’d launch into his take on quantum theory. It was as if his Mom had made it her sole mission to dazzle me with her son’s brilliance. My 3 year old daughter unmindful of her mother’s crippling feeling of inadequacy would continue caressing the utensils that she’d dragged from the kitchen with the broom.

It got worse when Tee started school. This is where I had my first taste of supermoms. This specimen was always found hovering near the teachers, could be spotted at all school events volunteering and never missed a PTM in its life. Its offspring was half a dozen chapters ahead of the class and usually had a super-achieving elder sibling in the same school. After school these alpha kids were carted to their theatre, dancing, piano, painting, gymnastics and math-for-genius classes.

These kids stood out from the rest of the class. They believed they were better than the rest and had this vicious need to assert themselves by ganging up their friends against students who couldn’t care less about their supremacy. It was as if they had internalized their parents’ aggression and anxiety to excel.

As a mother I understand this need of working ceaselessly towards making your ward outshine others. Then there’s maternal instinct that makes you do everything possible to protect her from despair, failure and hurt. But when this extends to micro-managing her life - treating her school projects, assessments, exams, even disagreements with friends as your own, you encourage the apple of your eyes to absolve herself of responsibility and accountably. You end up raising kids incapable of handling stress, failure on their own. And this extends to their adulthood when you are no longer available to fret and fuss around them.

Learning and Unlearning to be a Mom

Also published on Huffington Post India

It was just a few months back when I was tossing and turning, unable to sleep on my makeshift bed inside a darkened cabin, the sky an inky blue outside. I was feeling angry at myself. It had been two days since I had been crying non-stop. This wallowing-in-misery-woman was so unlike me. There’s no escaping misery. But it doesn’t take me too long to bounce back to my normal cheerful self – but not this time. 

For weeks I had been telling myself, I’ll be able to cope better this time. But as we got into our cab, ready to fly in a few hours to a country thousands of miles away from our daughter, my dam of resolve broke. The first time was when she had just started her 1st semester in one of the most difficult to get into colleges in Delhi. My husband and I flew off to Australia where he was to take over a new position in his company. Remember the baffling pain you felt as your pelvic bones contracted and expanded to expel your little bundle of flesh? As our plane took off, I felt the same pain but this time it was in my heart.

As a mother there are certain things you must learn. You have to let go of your child even if it breaks your heart. The sooner you do it, the better it is for her. Like the time she came back home crying, complaining about the bully in her school bus who’d trouble her needlessly. As much as you’d want to hunt that boy and beat him to pulp, you’d steel yourself before looking at her and saying – you have to learn to fight your own battles, my love! This is certainly not the last time when someone will try to make you feel weak, feel like shit, but despite the feeling of helplessness, you have to get up and fight.

When at times she’d feel wronged and blame others for her trouble, you had to be harsh and say maybe the problem lay with her and not with others. You cannot cluck protectively around her forever. There comes a time when you have to tell her, not everyone will love you and that’s perfectly okay! That it’s okay not to score top grades but not okay to not have tried your best. Every effort however herculean will not fetch results.

The first time she wanted to go for a late evening party with her friends, you had to put your fears aside and say yes and then overcome the urge to text her constantly to find out if she’s okay. I have kept awake all night, waiting for her to text and say, she’s reached her hostel safely. When I finally did call her, close to dawn, sick with worry, I didn’t know whether to feel angry or relieved when I found out she’d forgotten she was meant to text me! The awareness that she may not care as much as you care for her is heartbreaking. But you learn to live with it.

The not so Immaculate Conception

It’s how we define good news defines the various stages of our life. We all start as our parent’s good news and continue being the harbinger of good news in their life. After all, this is the sole purpose of our lives, to be our neighbour’s envy and parent’s pride! It’s what good news is all about, to induce various shades of envy in people who mean little or nothing to us.

As a trying-to-be-funny-blogger once said – one wo/man’s good news is another wo/man’s cause for acidity.

There comes a stage in our life when we fall in love and get married (not necessarily in that order). In India, once you’re married, your sex-life becomes a matter of public discussion. Whether it’s your colleagues commenting on the dark circles under your eyes, or the snide comments the hickey on your neck invites or the knowing look in your friend’s eyes as she surveys your expanding décolletage – your bedroom antics become the source of entertainment for one and all. As the months turn into years, your love turns into a responsibility to keep the family lineage alive. If you dare ignore it, everyone you know and might not know takes it upon themselves to constantly remind you of your failure to contribute to the world’s exploding population. And then one fine day you’re so fed up that you walk up to your husband and say – Darling, let’s do it, I’m ovulating.

So, when you are finally ready to make the announcement, it’s news so good that it doesn’t give acidity to others but you – an acidity that doesn’t last a couple of hours but nine whole months!

When I first held the lab test report confirming my pregnancy, my hands were trembling with joy. Yay! We were finally going to have our own baby, who will be only too glad to take on the responsibility of becoming the caretaker of our joy. Phew! What a relief.

I celebrated it with a neat little puke in the corner.

Just like my Mom

 

Courtesy -iStockphoto

When I was your age, phones were clunky, televisions bulky and computers hulky. Yet they occupied very little space in our heads. Our house was cluttered with knick-knacks and memories. Appliances were uncomplicated, so were our lives. Sleep was not a challenge but something we enjoyed. Happiness was free and did not come with “terms-and-conditions apply”.

News was in no hurry to break and would patiently wait until next morning. Tele soaps were meant to be watched by the entire family. When we talked, we looked into each other’s eyes rather than look up occasionally from our mobiles. Words had yet to shed their vowels and their warmth. Sentences were not hurried missives. We talked because we needed to and not because we wanted another toy.

Time was elastic not brittle. Despite entertainment that was clumsy and prehistoric, I-am-so-bored had yet to make an appearance in our lexicon. Relatives had yet to be anointed with the annoying tag, family weddings were not meant to be endured but enjoyed. Private space was not guarded like a bastion and certainly not shared with online strangers.

Gay meant happy. Hit and run was still a game we played and enjoyed. We imbued our idols with a halo and did not put them under a microscope to analyse and jeer at their flaws. Scepticism was a prerogative of the old and the wrinkled. Youth had ideals. Lampooning our leaders was the sole preserve of the likes of RK Laxman, rather than a national sport. We used to race against the wind not time. We felt free not constricted and were content with our routine-ridden existence.

We couldn’t wait to grow up and become our Mom and Dad. We were impatient to take charge of our lives.

We did. Or so we thought.

To You, My Dear Child

This is what I wrote for Glad2baWoman.com...

Image courtesy - Google images

To You, My Dear Child

My dear child,

When I first cradled you in my arms, I couldn’t believe that something so perfect could be borne out of love. The hours of sweat and anguish of unimaginable pain vanished in seconds as I looked into your unseeing eyes. And then you cried, so hard and so long that the nurses were convinced I was torturing you in secret.

That’s when I realized - motherhood is not for the fainthearted.

For over a year my life became an endless cycle of burps, poop and pee. I would sleep fitfully dreaming of clouds that looked like nappies. I looked like a cow, felt like a cow and smelt of curdled milk. It was as if the planetary positions had shifted and I had become a satellite helplessly revolving around you.

You evoked the strangest feelings in me. I was so afraid for you and was willing to go to any lengths to protect you from this harsh world. Anyone who tried to harm you became my worst enemy.

It was you and me against the rest of the world.


For you I let go of my dreams, my vanity, and girlhood, not out of duty but out of love. When you looked at me with eyes brimming with love, every inch of me tingled with joy… When you held my fingers for the first time…your gurgling laughter…the first time you called me Maa… these became the most precious moments of my life.

Of course you don’t remember the first day when I sent you off to school! The sleepless nights I spent in anxiety, worrying how my baby will cope in the sea of unknown. Waiting anxiously at the gate for you to come back…Scooping you up in my arms, nuzzling my head in your warmth….The dawn of awareness that I needed you as much as you needed me.


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Let's talk about Sex

Courtesy - goodmenproject.com

I’m in a mood to give parenting gyan. Not that I claim to have a Doctorate in parenting. In fact I barely graduated. After just one offspring I threw up my hands and said “Phew! Not again.” The prospect of having to scrounge for fallen leaves, ice-cream sticks for school projects and cutting up saris to design costumes for a fancy dress contest, all over again, gave me the heebie-jeebies. The tsunami of butterflies in your stomach just before exam results are about to be announced is not meant to be experienced twice.
 

Parenthood is one hell of a ride – you are constantly switching gears between heaven and hell. It leaves you traumatised but also gives you your biggest highs. We give our best years to our kids, yet we don’t regret it even once!

It will be safe to assume that I’ve been a reasonable parent. After all, my daughter has put up with me for eighteen years and hasn’t tried to run away even once.

When I was young, I would often fantasize about running away. But the fear of travelling IInd class kept my plans at bay. I spent most of my teen feeling victimised by my parents. Who on Earth expects their daughter to work hard, do well and make them proud, especially when there’s so much fun to be had! I dreamt of a town where Math had yet to be discovered and of course tall dark, devastatingly handsome men, who took an entire book to say “I love you”.

I still haven’t asked Tee, my daughter whether she has similar dreams.

But Tee like any other normal teen has called me awful, mean and all that blah besides the mandatory “Mum, you’re awesome”. We’ve had bitter arguments and there have been times when I’ve resorted to the most dreaded crime of all – nagging. There comes a stage in your life when you think your parents don’t understand you. There also comes a time in your life when you think your child doesn’t care for you enough. I have gone through both.
 

The other day over steaming cups of adrak chai, a friend confided that she discovered some naughty messages that her daughter had exchanged with a couple of boys. Strangers she had met online. Upset, she couldn’t help get rid of the feeling that her teenaged daughter had betrayed her trust.

Instead of telling you how she dealt with it, I will throw this googly at you. What will you do if you discovered some naughty messages/ sex clips on your teen’s mobile/laptop device?

Allow me to make certain presumptions before I proceed with what I have to say. Most of you will react rather than respond when faced with such a situation. Treat this as an emergency and resort to harsh decisions which will start with a long lecture interspersed with tears and end with a list of don’ts. It will bring out the worst in you and some of you will even consider spying on his/her online activities. You felt deceived and now it’s your duty to keep your child in check, right?
 

I feel, the moment we start judging our kids, we start losing them. Express outrage and rest assured your child will take pains to hide things from you. Say no and make sure that your offspring adds it to her must-do list. Start snooping and you will lose their trust completely.

We always have our children’s best interest at heart but there are better ways to express it.

You have to be their friend to understand what’s going on in their minds but before that you need to get off the pedestal you’ve placed yourselves on.

I fail to understand, why it is so tough for us to accept the so called mistakes our kids make! It’s as if we have made it our duty to mould our progeny into role models for the society and the moment they falter, we feel let down. Experience and age has taught me that there are no absolute rights and wrongs. They keep evolving with time. We have to accept that times are changing and stop ourselves from making, when-I-was-your-age lectures! Have you forgotten how annoying you found it when you were a teen?

S/he was eight when you first told him/her about the bad touch and good touch. It’s time to tell them, sex in not something to feel ashamed of. In fact if done right, it’s one of the most divine experiences. And believe me, the current generation knows more about sex than us. And since it is always discussed in school, it is natural that they will be curious to find out about it. If your child asks you what a Dildo is, for God’s sake don’t start sputtering with embarrassment. Look him/her straight into the eye and tell. Believe me s/he will love you for it. I know this for a fact.

Another friend invited her son and his college friends to her place. Even though she hated the idea of it, she offered them beer. The last time they had a party; the boys had snuck out of the house and bought cartons of beer. This time not a single one of them touched it. Since it was out there in the open it was no longer exciting for them.

We are scared to let go of our children, because we expect them to falter. Then we complain they are not responsible enough. We have to learn to let go. Being over-protective will do them more harm than good. Give them the freedom they crave for and watch them soar. All the values you instilled in her, all the good she imbibed from you – sit back and watch it bloom. Tell her you trust her judgement and it’s okay to commit mistakes.

So, if you find “Imma gonna whoop ur ass when I c u in skul” on her mobile, don’t freak out. Take a deep breath and say – It’s time we talked about sex.

Educating Tee

Education is akin to religion for the great Indian middle class. Even as you are changing your baby’s nappy for the 25th time, fantasising about a good night’s sleep and dying to turn the clock back to your non-motherhood days, your family elders start making excited plans and knowledgeable predictions about your newborn’s future. Oh she loves tearing pages off the book....so you think she will be an educationist? Doesn’t she look cute jamming her fingers in electrical sockets....she will undoubtedly be an electrical engineer. Look at her, trying to dissect the cockroach with her fingers....yes she will be a doctor. Unfortunately my daughter was a big drama queen and loved looking at herself in the mirror....nobody dared suggest her vocation based on that.

It is usual for parents, grandparents and everybody else still alive in the family tree to take the business of educating their latest addition in the family rather seriously, more so if you hail from the Eastern states. The grandma will insist on teaching Bangla limericks even as your baby drools. The grandma’s dad on ventilator will give you a grim lecture on the need to inculcate serious studying habits at an early age. The granddad will read out Kafka to his granddaughter, her baffled expression be damned. And you will let out an exasperated sigh and exclaim “Can I first potty train her please????”

I guess I was unusually casual and gave more priority to sundry things like trying to keep my baby from plunging herself in a bucket of water or dissuade her from sticking a pencil up her nose. One fine sunny afternoon, standing on our ground floor balcony, reality hit me with a loud thud. It was neighbour's barely two year old son confidently rattling off English alphabets and numbers, while his Mum proudly looked on. Try as I might, I couldn’t share her jubilation and before her bonny boy could move on to Greek, I mumbled an apology and ran inside. I have been a bad, bad mom. My Tee is a good six months older and all she does is play around with the jhadoo & karhai and yelp in joy every time she sees the maid mopping the floor. A bleak future awaits her and she will curse me as she scours utensils for a living.

Soon it was time for Tee to go to preparatory school and for me to join back work. I realized a little belatedly that our baby girl didn’t know a word of Hindi. The husband and I had made a conscious decision to speak to her only in Bangla, so that she gets her mother tongue right. No “come baby, run to Mama, sit...stand..” for us. But kids can adapt wonderfully. By the time Tee was four she was speaking fluent Bangla, Oriya (courtesy our maid) and functional Hindi. By the time she was six, she was speaking good English, but had forgotten her Oriya.

Most mothers take schooling more seriously than their kids. They may have had carefree childhoods and barely passed their exams, but they want to make sure their progeny turn into an Einstein or Bill Gates. They derive a vicarious sense of achievement from the trophies their children bag. I had a simple criterion – I wanted Tee to go to a school where studies are the last priority. I wanted her to go to the school I went to. From clay modelling, to rendering songs for the dead departed children of Hiroshima, to teaching pre-delinquent kids, to whistling at ward boys under the garb of hospital service, we did it all. And if we had time left, we studied. And strangely our academic results were great. I wanted her to have a childhood she’ll cherish and I wanted a carefree motherhood for myself

Tee did have a carefree childhood but our parenthood was far from stress free. In class II, her class teacher banned unhealthy preserves and peanut butter from their sandwich. All my mornings were fraught with anxiety, wondering which unsuspecting vegetable’s turn it was to get sandwiched that day. Her weekly hobby class with its long list of unusual requirements gave me endless nightmares. 25 ice cream sticks, three medium sized white pebbles, 25 pink feathers, and the dreaded list was unfailingly sent just the day before. As if it’s usual to have a flock of pink feathered birds who shed on demand. Or it’s normal for every household to have a collection of ice cream sticks, handpicked from garbage cans. The school’s fancy dress parties on its founder’s day had me on the boil. Fishing out accessories, running to the neighbourhood boutique to get fancy ensembles stitched. Since my sewing is more like a cobbler’s and my craft skills almost non-existent, it was the husband’s duty to create elaborate Red Indian head gears or make antlers for her butterfly avatar. Yes, dadhood is a lot of hard work too. We had our proud moments ..six year old Tee on stage playing the fretting Mom, complaining loudly about her son’s TV watching habit....shimmering on stage doing her Japanese dance and chattering incessantly between breaks, completely oblivious to the audience...

Tee sat for her first board exams this year and it coincided with my leaving my job after months of dithering. Most of my colleagues assumed it was for the sake of her studies. I didn’t want to disappoint them and happily nodded in agreement. I’ve had very little to do with Tee’s education. True, when she was younger I helped her out with her revision but as she grew older I just let her be. Did keep a watchful eye on her, nagged her once in a while but since she always managed good grades I happily maintained a safe distance. It was when I started spending time at home I realized how little she studied. During her preparatory leave, she watched television, read her many story books and when she got bored entertaining herself she would sit and study. I was alarmed and would often shed copious tears imagining her sorry results. Well I did shed copious tears and that too in full public view at the Langkawi airport, but they were tears of joy as my mother read me out her results. Tee managed to stun us all with straight A1s in all 4 majors. Sadly it has given her a license to shut me up forever. But it hasn’t stopped me from worrying and shedding more copious tears...what if she doesn’t get admission to any of the good college in Delhi....what if it is Dronacharya College in Bhondsi ....

The Bumbling Mum Diary –III

We Bengalis take the art and science of nomenclature rather seriously – as if our life depends on it. Years of singing Robindro Shongeet, reciting Robi Thakur’s poetry and reading anything from Chekov to Chattopadhyay is effectively put to use, to name our progeny.

And taking it a step further, we have not one but two names for our offspring. A bhaalo naam and a daak naam. Bhaalo naam, the formal name to be used outside our friend and family circle will always have literary connotations – Porineeta, Madhumita, Charulata, Shashwati, Mridha – names intended to send an unsuspecting tongue into paroxysms. And the daak naam – the pet name will be as silly as silly can get – Ghochoo, Potol, Buri, Luchi, Natoo – just to prove to the rest of the world, when it comes to humour, no one can beat us.

When my baby girl was born, it was a historic moment for the Rays (the in laws) and the Bhattacharyas (the outlaws...the parents). And why not? She was the first born of their first-borns and also the first to arrive from the next gen. To put it simply, she was their first and for a very long time their only grandchild. Our younger siblings were just not interested in the business of procreation.

Now couple it with our literary leanings and the legendary Bong eccentricity and you have the makings of a disaster. A name can’t be just a name, it has to be like a whiff of fresh air, has to convey a thousand emotions, it has to be meaningful. Damnation awaits those who were naive enough to name their kid a frivolous Tanya, Pony, Goldie.... I remember a family friend who had a strange fascination for all things Russian and had named his son Pushkin. Pushkin was sent to Moscow for his degree in medicine but became a gangster instead (so much for fulfilling his dad’s Russian aspirations). A gent with French leanings named his daughter Monami. My Maa wanted a mouthful of a name for our German Spitz (we always accused her of favouring him over us) and wanted to call him....guess what? Buta Singh. It took a major tantrum from us to make her change her mind.

And so began the quest to name Baby Ray. Books were fished out, memories strained and long lists were made. Me, I had a very simple criterion for name selection. Growing up in Delhi I have seen many a Bangla name getting distorted beyond recognition. Shutopaa becomes a harsh Sutaapa, Shoibal becomes Cybal almost sounding like an erstwhile computer chip, Kollol becomes Kallol....Basically I wanted to protect my child from a lifetime of distress of having to explain the finer nuances of her name. I wanted a simple name which would easily roll of a toddler’s tongue and not intimidate a non-Bong sensibility.

The Bumbling Mum Diary – II

Continued from Bumbling Mum Diary - I

It is one of the first things your family and friends enquire about, when your baby is born. Years later, when you are recounting baby tales - you are saddled with the same query. And sooner than you realize, by Gosh! You are asking the same profound question!!!! How much did your baby weigh?

For most first time Moms, their baby’s weight is akin to a scorecard for their motherly performance. Quite similar to Indirank, which we bloggers wait for, with bated breath every month. For me, each visit to the pediatrician was fraught with anxiety. Chewing my non-existent nails, I would wait for the verdict – two kilos in just a month...yessss! 

My baby girl was born underweight at a mere 2.6 kgs. I was aghast, a little shame-faced that I had managed far from a bonny baby. Maybe, I should have listened to my Mum and had those ghee laden laddoos... I should have been less bothered about my burgeoning weight...Should have slept more, hogged more...I was constantly plagued with these concerns.

But like most underweight babies, Tee managed to catch up really fast. I was jubilant – so what if I was cranky, depressed. At least I was doing a fine job as a Mum. Sadly, despite her piling on pounds, my baby was not exactly chubby. I would wistfully look at roly-poly babies sleeping contentedly in their mother’s arms, stare at their sumo wrestler frames and wonder why my baby preferred a size zero frame. Ahh...the cruel irony of fate. 

Oh, I toiled hard - tried a clever diet of mashed fruits, pureed cereals, freshly squeezed juice, experimented with all varieties of Cerelac, but my baby refused to plump up. The stubborn thing that she was, she would clamp her mouth shut and gave a firm thumbs down to all my path-breaking initiatives. Even if I did manage to coax some of it down her gullet, she would promptly puke it out and preferably on her unsuspecting mother. I even made husband click pics, so that later in life I could furnish photographic evidence of the systematic torture in her tiny hands.

My Maa would make it worse with her edition of motherhood horror stories. You think this is bad? Wait till you hear mine. I was a skinny baby and continued to be so despite her herculean efforts. Not the type to give up easily, like King Bruce she tried and tried until she was tired. My dad had to resort to clownish gyrations to keep me amused during my feeding ritual. I was subjected to endless experimentations – stinky goat’s milk diet (yuck, yuck, yuck), eggy diet (no wonder I couldn’t stand the smell of eggs for the longest), visits to the new, happening Russian specialist, oh she tried it all. It was only at the age of 17, after attending a music camp at Aurobindo Ashram in Nainital , did I start eating properly. The food was so bad there it made me realize the goodness of home food. I returned skinnier but wiser.

The Bumbling Mum Diary

Picture courtesy: artlung.com

I had been waiting nine whole months of my life, for her to arrive. I happily chewed on lettuce leaves, bid adieu to spicy food and grew so fat that I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror.

Babies had always been my weakness. In the school I taught, I would often wander off to the primary section just to feast my eyes on those cherubic angels. Ah...I could spend hours just tweaking those cheeks. Perhaps sensing the longing in my eyes, I was once sent for substitution in one of the junior classes. Within minutes I had three kids approach me with imploring eyes- they wanted to go to the loo. Soon I had a procession of “thirsty” kids, kids with legs crossed almost buckling over....”Ma’am please?” Of course sweetheart and pretty soon I was sitting in an almost empty class. The kids were soon herded back by their harried supervisor....Purba, how can you be so gullible, the kids just need an excuse to be out! The 40 odd minutes that followed were perhaps the most harrowing of my life. 35 hyperactive kids with a multitude of complaints, requests, tugging at you, demanding your attention - when the bell rang I almost I ran out with relief. Kids are adorable but only from a distance. 

Now it was my turn to have my very own bundle of joy. On D day, I waddled into the hospital with an armful of Tintins, the husband and Mum in tow. A few hours later, my pile of Tintin comics lay untouched and my labour pains had me screaming so loud that I had managed to terrify every single Mum-to-be in the vicinity. Damn, it’s such a lot of hard work, no wonder they call it labour. Twelve hours of extreme agony and what- the- hell- was- I- thinking introspection later I lay sweat-soaked on the bed. The Doctor approached me with the miracle I had managed to create. But did I act like a filmy Mum, hugging her close, shedding tears of joy and wailing ‘’meri betiiii’’? Naah... I just managed one long look at her and flopped back in exhaustion. Why does the happiest day of my life have to be so agonizingly painful? 

When I finally held her I felt more fear than joy. She looked so tiny, so fragile, fists clenched so tight, a mop of jet-black hair framing her pink face....Isn’t she pretty I managed to murmur to the beaming husband.