7 Pink and blue

Yes, I bought everything blue for my son. None of his clothes ever had a hint of pink or purple or even a lace on it. I never found a pink coloured shoe pair, socks with laces or a shirt with hearts printed in the boy’s section. Finding a Barbie there was out of the question. Whereas the girls' section had pink spilling over from all counters; clothes, shoes, stationery, toys. Most of the toys were even packed in pink cardboard boxes. Having said this, I never actually told my son that, “Pink is for girls and blue for boys”

Yet, one day while hunting for a gift for my son's classmate, a girl, I spent just an extra minute looking at the toy cars. And there it came,” No! Ma, we cannot buy a car for her! Girls like dolls! I want to give her a pink one”. I was surprised to hear this from my son with whom I never had discussed all this. Where this knowledge about cars did are not meant for girls come from? Who told him? Did I ever utter something which made him think so or was it someone else who discouraged him when he picked something pink earlier?

I had never given this much thought earlier. Now when I look at my childhood photos, I realize my parents never really followed this colour code. Nor did my uncles and aunts. Me, my cousins even my friends were dressed in all possible colours. My brother is seen wearing a hat with lace and my cousin sister is holding a car in her hand in one of the old photographs.

If I look around now, however, it has all changed. A little boy holding a Barbie would be stared at and girls are never gifted cars, robot toys but only dolls, kitchen sets and DIY jewellery kits.

It didn’t matter earlier, but now I realize how my choices are influencing my kids. My heart sinks every time my son reminds me to buy a blue kinder joy chocolate egg and not a pink one. As parents, do we really have a choice? I can only imagine the disbelief and disappointment if I would ever try and give my son a pink one.

I always ask my son and husband to help around in the house, hoping I am bringing equality into practice. However, it’s a long way to go before I can actually show my son the same happening in the neighbouring houses or even in my own extended family. The bar is set so low for men that it is a big deal if they manage to cook dal rice or do a load of laundry in the washing machine. Whereas the girls need to be master chefs, all the housework they do goes unappreciated and their career ambitions are kept under check right from childhood.

Honestly, I feel our parents and grandparents had the roles and responsibilities sorted. These days we all preach equality while we are still struggling to truly understand it ourselves and bring it into our own houses.

Women can work, yes, but only if the household is running smoothly. Breakfast, lunch, dinner should be ready, children should be looked after, their studies and extracurricular activities should be taken care of, and the husbands’ schedule should not be disturbed. If everything is handled well then yes, please go pursue your career. This is the reality that the mothers face. They are so exhausted with this double shift that they let go of one job, the one outside the house.

It is only after we get it right ourselves and change that we can truly teach our kids gender equality. It is something that they will learn from the community, not from the parents alone. 

6 In sickness and in health

Unlike all other promises that we make, which we tend to bend and break, the promises that we make to our children,(not to them directly! That candy you promised. Forget about it!) …yes so, the promises we make to them especially when they are still in the womb are never broken. We take those early promises, like” I will protect you and take care of you all my life and guard you against all the bad and evil things in the world” very seriously.

Right from day one we wash the babies clothes with disinfectants, scream at anyone who sneezes in the baby’s room, we have hand sanitizers all over the house, we wipe and clean all cupboards, floors every two hours when they start walking, we boil and cool their drinking water, we wash and scrub them every time they come back from the park, we deny them candies, ice creams, roadside food and lock them up in the house if we know there is HFMD going around among school kids. We do everything we can think of and yet the children fall sick. The first time they have a fever, cold and cough we are lost. We run to the doctor, monitor the temperature, keep records of it and pamper the child to the core. Slowly we learn to administer a few basic medicines and dare to wait for 3 days before going to the doctor, we give them a dose of medicine and send them to school anyway. We know when they are really sick and when they are faking it to bunk school. In any case, it is never easy for a mother to see her child getting sick… Our heart bleeds every time they complain of pain, we feel so helpless. We act strong and keep telling them that they’re going to be okay soon but we have this fear ourselves, we hope are pray every minute that it doesn’t get worse. We want our kids up and running ASAP. We leave all the housework aside, take leave from office and sit with them day and night just to keep them company. Nothing and no one is more important at that time. Once they get better, we are relived. The next day we miss the quiet house and start wishing that they sit in one place at least for a minute.

The reverse happens when you are sick, you want to sit down and do nothing, never get out of the bed and you want all the housework and cooking to be taken care of, by someone, by anyone…you want a fairy to come and make all the work disappear, you want her to make your children well behaved and mainly you want her to make it all quiet in the house, you don’t want to hear all that crying and howling. You just want to become invisible to everyone so that no one bothers you, you don’t need anyone to pamper you or look after you, and you just want them to leave you alone. That never happens.

You get out of bed, earlier than usual because you could never sleep in the first place, you cook, you get the kids ready, do all the housework, go to office and work, come back home, work again, and finally crash in bed, late after everyone is fast asleep hoping you get at least that 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

It is not that no one notices that you are sick, children will ask you,” what happened mummy?” and might even be the pretend doctor and give you a fake injection. They will run and get you a glass of water and ask “Are you feeling better now?” You wish that was enough to make you better. You lie and say you are all okay, thanks to the little doctor at home. Your husband will come and hand you a tablet to pop in, will offer to take you to the doctor too, but you know that kids cannot be left alone and you don’t want a family trip to the hospital where you will end up having more trouble keeping them entertained while you wait to see the doctor. You choose to stay at home.

 Being a mother gets you a lot of love, but it never gets you the rest you need. On days like this when you just want to lie in bed, the children just choose to be around you all the time. You want them around of course but you want that silence and sleep more which is then a deal-breaker to having their company.

Mothers always carry a lot of guilt, for the tiniest of things. On the days like these when they are unwell, it multiplies and you end up blaming yourself for falling sick as if you are not allowed to do that, you will blame the timing of the sickness, asking yourself why couldn’t it happen after my son’s exams? You will be unhappy about the gravity, a cold would have sufficed, why the fever and cough? With cold I could have managed to do more. You get worried and anxious as if your children are starving, seeing them (happily) eat a simple bread toast which your husband has managed to prepare. You see the laundry piling up and get scared that children will have to run out of clean clothes the next day. That’s not true, you have all those new ones lying around still with the price tag on, remember? Ah, but make sure to ask your husband to get their school uniforms washed and ironed, you don’t have many sets of those, do you? Leave from office is reserved only for children’s sickness, and now when you really are looking and feeling like shit, you will still show up at work. You come back home, help them with their homework, prepare dinner, put them to bed, again swallow a pill and hope that tomorrow you feel better, not for yourself, but because you can’t see the kids suffer eating the food ordered in and late bedtimes. (Which they are actually enjoying, no surprise there).So that is the story, we remain caregivers 24*7, no matter what else changes around us or within us. That is the promise you have made to your child, “I will look after you in (my) sickness and in health too”

5 Your kid, my kid

Photo by RUN 4 FFWPU from Pexels

Among other things, motherhood is probably one of the best soft skills training which sharpens many of your skills such as time management, leadership skills, problem-solving capabilities etc. Resolving a fight between your child and another one in the park, while all the other mothers are watching is one of the trickiest situations which helps you excel at diplomacy.

The reason why your child and his friend have become sworn enemies, is irrelevant. What you need to do is, repeat standard statements such as:

 “Kids, say sorry to each other, you are friends…it was a mistake”

“She is your friend, share your toys”

“You can all play here, take turns…” or something similar. You should not give up until the children get bored of listening to you resolve their fight and finally, realize that it is better to be friends and run away from you.
You may also warn your own child of the consequences if he does not stop fighting. One such acceptable warning (in public) is as follows:

“I will not allow you to go play for 1 day/ 3 days/ a week (progressing depending on his stubbornness to give in).

However, when it comes to the other kid, you have to be the sweetest and use the choosiest of words to convey the same message to give up fighting. You may not raise your voice. Most importantly, keep smiling.
Once you are back that the park bench, make it look like it was nothing. You must declare that you effortlessly resolved the issue, got the children to be best friends again. Do not give out any details about which child was at fault, who is the worst behaved or anything like that.

There is no point disclosing this information which only brings unhappiness to the mother concerned. It is an unsaid agreement between mothers to look out for each other’s children, scold them if necessary, and be assured that the other mothers are not going to judge you for that. We all know that it must be for some good, to protect the children from something dangerous, like touching an electrical pole in the park. All the children are the same here, they are all, at some point going to misbehave. So, we mothers are a team there, we are all in it together.

 Having said that, there are times when we literally dissect and criticize the parenting skills of the mother who isn’t there at the park on a particular day. There are mothers who proudly announce that their children eat all-natural, only natural stuff. Do we believe it? Not at all. There are those new mothers who say that their children do not know what chocolate is. Yes, we say, wait till he goes to school. No mother having two or more kids will probably say that. They are at a stage where if the child agrees to two spoons of rice for one M&M, we will rejoice and happily comply.

 New mothers have patience, they will shield the child from everything possible, and however as they start growing up or the second one arrives, all the patience vanishes. You just want to make sure the kid is safe and healthy; he is eating enough good stuff. You stop getting up and running to the child every time he falls in the park. You shout sitting on the park bench” You are brave. Come on, get up” and we get back to our conversation with the other mommies.

As the children grow up, you start expecting them to behave in a certain way and be the best at what they do. You start pushing them into all classes, learn guitar, learn karate, and go join weekend robotics. You start worrying over their exam results. You start comparing. Your child’s and achievements versus his peers. You get worried and frustrated over his lower grades, or cry foul if he doesn’t win some poetry recitation competition. We know it’s wrong, we know it’s not fair. We don’t show these emotions to our child. We say” well done, you will win the next time” and pat him on the back for participating.

The failure bothers you more. You start blaming yourself. I must be doing something wrong, or maybe I am not doing enough. How does the other lady manage it all? She seems to have everything under control, her child’s behaviour, his grades, his food, and the house!

 Being a mother is a tough job which is not appreciated enough. There is a no-growth as such, no appraisals, no recognition, and no interaction with people beyond a certain group, no monetary gain of course and is very monotonous. The contests, events that your child participates in bring you excitement, it gives you a chance to prove something, to others and to yourself. You put your heart and soul in the preparation and the child’s achievement becomes yours. They give you happiness, challenge, the appreciation that you crave for.

Mothers who are not working outside are very lonely these days. Being a nuclear family and staying in a city where you have no relatives or friends, perhaps in a place where you don’t know the local language, makes it tougher for you to meet new people, and interactions do not go beyond greeting one another. At such a point, when all your work and time is invested in your child, you feel like you need to rewarded, recognized for your masterpiece: your child. The failures of your child lead to mothers envying one another, sometimes even chiding your own child.

I have been fortunate to find friends while I went through these tough emotions. All you need is someone to hear you out when you are having a bad day. We mothers have a deep understanding of what we go through individually, and we assume that the other one has it better. Trust me no one has it better. We can go beyond thinking it is some kind of competition or race as to who has it all under control and rather just be companions in this journey.