1 Pee, Poop and Privacy

1^st July 2019

I love my mother.

We all do. After all, our mothers brought us up with great love and care(not denying that), she knew what was best for us (most of the time), and knew exactly what she needed to do to make us the who we are (or so we believe).

However it is only after we have our own children that we realize, our entire childhood, we have been just her lab rats. She probably had no clue of what she was doing. It was all trial and error, experimenting on what makes us behave well, eat well and stay alive. We as children, never notice a mother's vacillation.

Being a mother of two children, a 9 year old boy and a 3 year old girl, (my first one was born when I was just 22), staying in a nuclear family in places which were always new to me, so was the local language, and working part-time keeping the kids in daycare, I had a perfect recipe for failure, or so I thought. To top it up to my husband belongs to a different region of India, coming from a culturally different state, having a different mother tongue. Among other issues, we had to decide which language our kids should learn first and finally settled it by choosing English over the regional ones.

I had no clue about what it takes to be a mother, but I wanted to be the best one anyway. I believe I have managed to find a way through it or maybe to find a way around the shit it involves, and do a fairly decent job at bringing up my two lovely kids.

So here I am, presenting you all with“ Motherhood Tales”, a series about everything that goes on inside a mother’s head. It is about the emotions and thoughts, the vulnerability, the overwhelming situations that mothers face, and how they learn to adapt to the ever-changing behaviour of their baby through different phases of its life. 

If you are looking for parenting advice, let me tell you, this is definitely not the place. Here I shall talk about the mother, her challenges, fears and struggles. There will be stories of battles won by me against the tiny warriors at home, or I might share with you a few moments when my kids made me feel very proud and of course, of hundred others which compete to be 'the greatest embarrassing moment' in my life. Like every other woman, I will talk about my endless wish lists…no, not that ‘travel around the world’ kind of mundane stuff! I mean the interesting things, like; need sleep, need waxing, need a finish the book I started reading a year ago etc.

I hope that I can manage to make you laugh, (or cry) after reading this. Consolation would be that at least it helps you to doze off (we all know mothers are always sleep deprived). Lastly, I hope that you find yourself in one or many tales here.

                             1   Pee, Poop and Privacy

Children, babies, in particular, are the masters of timing. They know exactly when to pee and poop…yes…the moment you sit down to eat or drink something. No mother escapes this. If we are using regular diapers then we are constantly changing them and feeling guilty that it is not very environment-friendly. If we are for cloth diapers, we have it worse. We have to change them frequently and wash the smelly load, which is, believe me, only for the bravest. Either way, we have been peed and pooped upon, even on our best dresses.

Slowly we master the baby’s bowel routine timetable and that is no longer a worry. As we wean them after days of struggle and introduce solid food, it brings us the next learning. We start researching, analyzing and fretting over the baby’s poop. Is it bright yellow, mustard yellow or dark green? Is it too runny or is the baby constipated? Visits to the doctor become frequent and we do things we never imagined. We discuss the poop colour, smells and texture everywhere, with everyone, and all the time. If it’s a lunch with your other ‘mommy’ friends, then the discussion can go on till you pay the bill. If your friends are not mummies yet they start calling you as crazy for even bringing up the topic.

As babies grow, so do our challenges. We enter a phase where when we are at a restaurant, we always take the table which everyone else avoids. The one closest to the restroom. If we are at the airport, we pray that the baby doesn’t poop till you have reached your destination. But it always happens right before you board, and you have to carry that stinky bundle, get seated, wait for the seat belt sign to go off, so you can finally clean up the mess in that cramped toilet. We take the toddlers to the loo before and after any car journey, yet our planning fails. They always have to pee when we are stuck in traffic and cannot pull over.  Our kids tend to squat on the floor in the middle of a shopping mall and declare 'emergency’, they probably enjoy giving out false alarms, making us go through the drill when we are trying to get them potty trained.

If that’s not enough, we have add-on problems. Like my friend’s daughter who wanted to pee like her elder brother (who never closes the bathroom door and probably let his sister observe and learn). He said," the way I stand and do it, that’s the right way", and she agreed. My friend spent days helping her daughter ‘unlearn’ the new learning but that lead to another issue; an anatomical one, where she had to explain both the kids what is what and why. This opened Pandora’s Box and questions were thrown at my poor friend who didn’t have age appropriate answers ready in her mind. The discussion ended as she promised a star-shaped sticker to both of them if they pee as she had taught them, in different ways, every day. How easy was that!?

Sometimes children hog the limelight when you have guests. They declare loudly in front of the visitors that they have successfully taken a dump or need to take one badly. All you can do is excuse yourself and get to work.

You clean them up nicely and get back to that coffee which is now lukewarm, heat it up again and as you take a sip, they want to go again.

“But you just did ”, you say assertively.

“No mummy, I am not done. You know little potty is…”

Before they start giving you any gross details about why you have the honour of wiping their butt again, you say, “it’s okay, let’s go”.

While the children’s bowel routine is hot news, we adults like to keep ours like a national secret. Nobody wants others to know that they missed someone’s phone call because they were doing their business in the bathroom. But there are traitors at home. You teach your kids not to answer your phone when you are in the loo, but they will. You teach them to say mummy is busy in the kitchen but they will always say," mummy is in the bathroom”. This makes you wrap up whatever you are doing inside and run to the door.

 Once you have kids, privacy is not a ‘need’ anymore. It becomes a ‘want’. You will never take a dump in peace or shower without the kids banging on the door, asking you the most random questions or begging to let them in. Their favourite questions are the ones you hate to answer.

“What are you doing?”

“How long will it take?”

Well, how do you answer that really? Do you say that you are just peeing, or do you tell them the entire truth? That you are browsing on your phone, or shaving your legs and sometimes even crying because you are having a tough day, thanks to them.

Honestly, bathrooms breaks mean much more to mothers, especially those who have toddlers, or preschoolers. The children keep asking to be carried around, even when your arms ache, they are clingy and messy. You are cleaning up after them every minute. They are loud and cranky, you don’t know why they are crying and why they won’t stop. They are like leeches, they want to be next to you all the time when you cook, do the dishes when you are trying to drive. They are irrational and illogical, none of your answers will ever satisfy them. You are clueless at times, not knowing what's bothering them really and need a break from them. You cannot convince them to listen nor can you yell at them, that will give them another reason to cry louder. You won’t hit them, that’s not going to help and you are against it. So, what do you do?

That’s when you lock yourself inside the bathroom and breathe. Just breathe and let the moment pass. Those few minutes of the pee break are precious. Finally, you are alone, you can massage your arms a bit, look in the mirror and find that patience and strength again. Once you open that door, the little ones hug and welcome you as though you have been away for days. Just then you remember, that you forgot to pee. No way are the kids letting you go in again.

That has to wait now, hold it in!

2 Scapegoat and the saviour

The scapegoat and the saviour

Have you ever heard the joke about the respect that mothers get?

“If there is a woman speaking in the house and no one is listening, she is probably the mom.”

Such a precise observation, true in all houses. Being the lady who has to play many roles inside the house, you always have a lot to say, ask, inform and order. You are the cook, the maid, the baby-sitter, the accountant, the driver, the overworked and unpaid employee and yet the boss of the house. Everyone follows, or let’s say pretends to follow your word. You are the ultimate planner; plan meals, plan grocery shopping, plan family trips, plan birthday parties and sleepovers, plan what the kids wear, plan their studies, their evening classes, plan weekly phone calls to grandparents and fix up the kid’s FaceTime appointment with them, and even plan the planning. One of the most interesting roles you play is that of a ‘finder’. If anything goes missing, you are summoned.

“Where is my pencil?”

“Where is my sock?”

“Where are the plates? “

“Where is the TV remote”

You are in demand when things are in place but others cannot ‘see’ them. All you have to do is, go and take a look around. Go to the study table and bend down... yup...right there! The pencil. Waiting to be picked up by you. Simply open the neatly folded sock, and voila! The second sock is tucked in. Open the kitchen drawer. Plates! Yes, there they are, hiding from the world. If you give your family that mean look, the kids and the husband will unanimously agree that you changed all the places without informing them. Thanks, Marie Kondo, but my family finds stuff more easily when everything is lying in a mess.

Your family also thinks that you have the memory of an elephant, which you definitely don’t. You are expected to remember the birthdays of all the children in the neighbourhood, of your child’s friends at school, their pet’s name, and their house phone numbers and also remember to remind your kids to wish them on that day. In case you forget and they find out later, be ready for a lot of drama.

You are also expected to know what their friends like to eat, which toys they already have so that we don’t gift them the same and all other such ‘important’ things. Any detail that is missed out will cost you. You will end up saying sorry every ten minutes, living a guilt-filled day remembering that, which may end up in you agreeing for extra TV time or junk food for dinner.

As a mother, you are also expected to know-it-all. You are officially the in-house search engine. The children will throw in any query and you ought to know it and get it done. Let us say that you are a terrible cook but you will be asked to bake cupcakes. You do your best, following a recipe online but they turn out to be as hard as a stone.

You will be asked to make a dinosaur out of paper when all you have ever made is a paper boat. You will be asked why there are no flying cars in our town yet and why is our country at war with the neighbouring one or even asked if we can also carve animals out of stone, monolithic structures basically or bring some sculptures from the museum you visited during the school vacation and have them placed in the living room. You are expected to know what happens when we die and if we can ask God to send his classmate to hell for cheating and winning a race at school.

 Well, you try to stick to facts, you accept that you have limited craft skills and resources and even try to explain that some things are illegal but you can never say “I don’t know how to, or I don't know why..”

You try to give detailed answers, take Google’s help, show videos, make a mental note to enrol for a baking class, update yourself on science, religion, even the country’s laws to be ready for their questions and demands. In spite of that, you might get to hear” You don’t know anything Ma!” and so at the end, you direct them to the father. When they do, your husband will give them the most ridiculous, illogical and bullshit answers. No surprise, that the kids will be thrilled and love those more, happily believe them and find them funny too. You feel defeated as after all the trouble you took, your husband earned those brownie points and became the ‘cool’ one.

It is not just your own kids holding you accountable for every little thing that goes wrong. Everyone around you, the neighbour, your extended family, even some random woman on the street might point a finger at you. They all believe they have the right to question your parenting technique. If you try to bring discipline and ask the kids to do some housework, you are being too harsh. If your little boy cries on the death of his pet fish, you are told to make them tougher and not so weak. Really? Since when is sensitivity the same as being emotionally weak? If you try to train your kids to be punctual, your word is brushed aside by an elder at home saying no one ever comes on time in this country, why to make our kids wait!

 Nothing you do is ever ‘correct’, nor will it ever suffice. People are going to judge, advice and criticize. Whether she a stay-at-home mother devoting her entire time to the children, a full time working mother setting a great example for them or even a part-timer doing the balancing act, mothers are always targeted for what they are not.

Mothers take up responsibilities and work willingly most of the time. Right from fetching a glass of water to filling up air in a bicycle tyre, it is all her job. They have a unique ability to foresee and predict the needs of their children. They know that your kid is going to ask you to help with his homework, but they also know that he is going to bring only half of the books needed. So you fetch them from his school bag before heading to the study table. You know that after an awesome outing where they hogged on ice cream, they are going to cough all night and hence you have that warm water ready next to their bed. You will always remember that the school teacher had asked children to bring leaves of different shapes for a science project and the little one might forget, so you pack a few in his bag so that he does not feel left out in class. He comes home excited and says. “Thank you Ma, the teacher would have scolded me if I didn’t have those leaves”. That’s all you need to hear. You know that you have saved the day.

Mothers find out if something is off just by looking at you. They are experts in digging out your secrets, so when you say that you don’t smoke, of course, they don’t believe you. They know that you do, they will list out all the health hazards for you as if you are not aware of them, and then they will wait. Patiently. They want you to give it up by yourself. Deep down they wish they could just hide or throw the cigarette pack away and never let you buy it in the first place just like they did for chocolates and ice creams.

The day you fight with your partner, they know. A mother knows you in and out and if she knows your partner a little, she may as well guess what the issue may be. But she will never probe until you say something first. She knows she needs to give you space. The worst fear a mother has is her child drifting away emotionally from her. Probing and preaching you will lead to that, she fears. It actually kills her inside every day she sees you low and sad. She lets you go through it, till the time she feels it is okay. The day she feels it is getting worse or may do something to hurt yourself she will kick you in your butt and get you off the bed. She will wake you up, shake you, and stir up the sense and confidence inside of you with her loving words, her harsh words and with her silence. In my experience, a mother’s intuition of the people in your life, whether those people are good for you or bad, has always been correct.

There is really no manual on being a perfect mother, no one should even try to be one. Bring down the unrealistic expectation from women to be perfect, all-knowing mothers. And what can I say about our own kids... well we can only wait for them to realize this on their own. Until then, let us get back and check why there is so much silence in the house. Hope they haven't coloured the walls with crayons while you were reading this. :)