Mum’s the word..

In honour of Mother’s Day, no matter how recently we started celebrating it in the form of gifts, ecards or otherwise, I am not going to crib about how the gift giving industry has commercialized every relationship we’ve ever had with cards, gifts and a “day” to celebrate. But this being one of the most significant relationships of all for all the fortunate people in the world, it’s special. And no word brings a glow as strong as the word “Mom”. Now, please decode into your respective languages or the respective ways you address your moms. Because to me, somehow, “Mom” signifies a person in a pristine white apron baking some goodies over the kitchen oven, thanks to the stereotypical representation in various contexts of the western world. So for me, it’s always been “Amma”. But, of course. And I am not here to belittle her accomplishments, her sacrifices and her irreplaceable role in my life by putting them into mere words. Instead I am going to keep it short and keep this as a dedication to all the Moms in the World.

Happy Mother’s Day! Love you, Amma.

Great expectations

Ah.. seeing as it’s Mother’s Day today (Happy Mother’s Day btw), I couldn’t have chosen a more opportune moment to write about this topic – that first child. This is a topic on which I’ve had various discussions with my friends. It’s no shocker that these days, unlike the past, people aren’t popping kids the tenth month after their marriage (for the international readers, having kids out of wedlock in India is considered illegitimate and is highly frowned upon). Instead they choose to get to know their spouses in new light even if they knew them from before. They discover living together, make plans for the future, including financial stability amongst other things in preparation of bringing new life onto the Earth. But that’s typical of this generation, I would imagine. Of course, I understand that there are different reasons for children being born as well - “accidental” babies and all those not-so-flattering instances when kids are conceived for a variety of reasons other than truly wanting them – to repair a marriage, caving to parental pressure, to become the center of attention,  to spice up the marriage by adding a new dimension, to name a few. Sounds bizarre? Believe me, I’ve heard about it happen, outside of the soaps on TV. And as much as it sounds like 10 months conception time is a decent period of time to prepare for the new arrival, unless you are mentally ready, you’re probably not. These pearls of wisdom have been given to me by the newer generation. The older generation steadfastly believes in the “sooner the better” strategy. And for them, reproduction formed the core of family life. In our day and age, we seem to have added a lot more dimensions to our personal happiness and satisfaction and I know while everyone would love to have a child eventually, no one wants them right away. For one, it’s too much of added responsibility to the already being married thing. And in the past, for us Indians at least, it seemed easier said and easier done because of the large joint families and the plenty of childcare experience that ran with it. The women were largely homemakers and had plenty of guidance from the mothers and the MILs alike and in fact had hands-on assistance from other relatives and maids alike. Raising a child was a family responsibility as far as it went. And consequently the dads just had to entertain the kids when they were in good humor while the mommies got stuck with the diapers (previously just loin cloths I assume) and 3 hour feeding sessions. These days it’s an even deal and the Daddy had better pitch in for almost every responsibility to make it easier on the typically working Mommy, considering that the families lived away from homes and with visa restrictions and stuff, it wasn’t possible to have help on hand more than a couple of months at a stretch.

Everyone can agree that this is one change that is truly life-altering. It is so important to respect the fact that you are bringing in a new life to this world that is totally helpless and dependent on you for everything. While in short thinking it might seem as an excellent camouflage to get that attention from the husband/family or to stop those incessant fights amongst couples or to even stop having those unpleasant conversations with the grand old ladies who tell you they won’t live to cradle their great grandchild in their arms, it’s the most important thing to realize that the child needs to be born(e) because you want him/her, not because of anything else. Listen only to yourself.

On a different note, Happy mothering to all my expectant friends. :)

This post marks the 500th for MindBlogging! Cheers, MindBlogging!

Playing Mommy?

I saw a screen t-shirt that someone was wearing yesterday at school. It read "I don't need to have kids. I married one." Yes, it's funny. And I know it's supposed to mean that the person they married is childish. But it also set me thinking on a parallel track. On whether some of the new generation married people had gotten the whole marriage deal right. I, for one think that many women tend to turn their mommy-ing instincts to the wrong object of attention - their husbands. Maybe that's because of the lesser age difference between couples these days as opposed to our previous generations, as SM pointed out. And of course, not being one of them ensures that I can look at it objectively and point out how weird the whole idea is.

Sometimes it's tempting I suppose to tell someone you can, for example your husband to do certain things. And well in the grand scheme of things, you are replacing his mom's role in his life, in that you take care of him now. So it's easy to place a misguided sense of babying on the husband and what's worse is that I've seen some men enjoy it and wrongfully take that to mean that their wife "loves them so much". Don't get me wrong... I love my husband as much as the next girl on the street loves hers, but I don't take it up to me to baby him around. He is free to do what he pleases however and whenever he wants. For instance, although I enjoy eating together with him, my rumbling tummy has sometimes propelled me to the dinner table sooner than him. And I know when he is hungry he'll eat. I don't have to keep going on about it or worse, spoon-feed him. Believe me, I've seen that happen. So what's wrong with that? Many women in the situation, I think want to make sure that they are a stellar wife. While it's easy to understand that urge, it does affect you finally. How? It makes your husband depend on you too much, makes him unwilling to do anything unless exclusively requested or told and anything that remains undone will turn out to be your fault because you did do it sometime in the past. And then throw-in the baby-talk and you have a muddle here. Yes, we all have pet nicknames for the 'significant other'. But does it really have to go- 'Does my honey-bunny need a huggie-buggie?' or something? Sorry if that sounded weird.

I guess it's time for wives to realize that they can be stellar in their "wifely" duties without going overboard. Being attentive is an entirely different thing than being nagging. They can be compassionate without being smothering. And if they are too much 'in-love' to notice it, maybe the husband who no doubt enjoys all the attention for a while should snap out of it and point it out. Think of it this way. As a wife, Mothering may just be smothering.