"Stages" of growing up!

Ok so this one is a total 'proud mommy' post.

Little Shaayari walked into the Durga Puja pandal on Saptami night, when the talent competition was on. She insisted on going up on stage, although we had prepared nothing.

I asked her if she'd like to recite Incy Wincy Spider - one of her favourites, and a rhyme she delivers exceptionally well - and she gave me withering look, like I was some slimy creature that had crawled out from under a rock.

"Incy Wincy Spider nahin bolna, Tumhi Ho Mataa, Pitaa Tumhi Ho gaana hai". Of course, we were at a Durga Puja after all. Was I daft. I stood suitably chastised.

When I went up to the organisers they asked me if she would be in the 0 to 3 category or the 3 to 6 category. Tempted though I was to say the former (chances of winning clearly doubled), I sort of erred on the side of honesty. 3 to 6 I said. She turned 3 two months ago...

Anyhow, this isn't about winning, I told myself!

Shaayari had a blast! We did two quick rehearsals back stage and then bam, there she was on stage, in front of a mike for the first time in her life, smiling confidently at a bunch of benign bongs.

"Good evening, my name is Shaayari" she started... and instantly dissolved into giggles. She had just heard her own voice over a microphone....

The crowd giggled with her.

After a bit of gentle, focus proddding, she continued. Confident. Cheerful. And LOUD!! After the prayer was over, madam walked off stage with a smile, a sashay and promptly forgot all about the whole thing. I truly witnessed the pure joy of performance, with no pressure of competition or winning there!

4 days later, on prize distribution night, they called my Mom on stage to give away all the prizes for all the competitions. I was hovering around more out of concern for Maa's health than any other expectation. Shaayari was of course with me. So then imagine my surprise when they declared the 3rd prize winner for the talent show!

Spontaneous impromptu performer Shaayari Madgavkar!

Grand daughter dressed in her ghaaghra choli (which she had insisted on wearing on the last day of pujo) receiving the prize from an equally surprised and insanely proud grandmom.

Some moments in life are just.... sweet!

The Full Time Version

My live in nanny had to run off home for almost 2 weeks, some personal family emergency.

This unfortunately also coincided with the time that my husband was all set to leave for England for a year. In fact his departure was half way down the nanny's leave time.

Needless to say, what with all his last minute preparations, and the lack of baby sitter support at the same time, I had to take off from office and work from home. Whatever little work one can manage that is, with a 3 year old.

I plunged in head first, to 12 days of insanity. Office calls, emails, baby bath time, feeding time, play time, story reading time, husband packing time... and I knew I was in for some very messy times...

And I was totally wrong. Tiring, physically, yes. Bad? No.

I realised that I hadn't been a full time hands on mom for almost 2.5 years. I had spent 6 months on maternity leave after my little girl was born, and during and post that I have always had a live in nanny. Or at least, during their various evictions, illnesses, replacements and leaves, at least some sort of part time support.

In those first 6 months the help were not of much use beyond being extra hands and feet because I wanted to do everything myself, even my little baby had decided in her preocious, pre verbal way, that she only wanted mommy...

But after that I needed to rejoin work. I got very good support, my daughter would be dropped off everyday to my mother's, and gradually, while mommidom remained a spectacular, central part of my life, my other inate personality began to take over, like beautiful shrubbery in an untended garden...

My baby and I continued to discover each other in the most unique and myriad ways, in that profusion of our various selves...

However, this last week brought me back to bootcamp. The brass tacks of one of the simplest and oldest roles in the world.

Being a mother has been not just the central but often the only identity a woman has worn across societies, over generations. Some of us, brought up in our liberated, cosmopolitan, privileged set ups, have then gone on to challenge that automatic role playing and outsourced a lot of the drudgery, to put it bluntly.

Yes, I am one of those women who don't derive satisfaction from the basic wash-bathe-feed-clean routine of rasing a small child. I often feel that women treat these chores as exalted only to lend meaning to their own dull lives.

That may be true. It may also be a very one sided view of mine. I don't know. Because I will not be doing this full time bit much longer than another 4 to 5 days. But I know for sure that its given me pure joy, pure satisfaction and a lot of relief from the heart wrenching sadness of seeing the man I love leave for a year.

Thanks to my kid, I have been too busy and too cheerful to mope.

It would be an exaggeration to say I got to know my child better in these days. No, I know my child even otherwise; we are extremely intuitively bonded. But what I did get to know are those little things that impact her daily schedule, her appetite, her physical comforts and therefore her moods... I discovered the basic, the simple, the day to day part of parenting. What I got to experience was the sheer ordinariness of motherhood.

And that precisely turned out to be extra ordinary.

If you are reading this blog, you are probably a working mom like me. And therefore you probably also have a pretty established support structure. I know the other wonderful facets of your myriad personality are important to you. I know that you have allowed choices to govern your life, and not compulsions. And possibly, what makes you gloriously you is the fact that you view motherhood as extraordinary rather than ordinary, a vibrant choice and not a given fact.

Here's a suggestion: stay who you are. But tell the help to take off for a week, every 6 months or so. I know I will!

Haven't written here in a long time.

And that is certainly not because life with a 2 year old is dull or predictable or uninspiring.

Quite the contrary in fact. It is so full of living, breathing, breathstopping moments that it becomes a kaleidoscope of feeling well nigh impossible to render on paper at regular intervals.

Today however I felt compelled to pause and put paper to pen - or finger to keyboard if you please - and talk about the one thing preoccupying so many working mothers, all the time.

Guilt.

During a recent visit to Pune, a friend of mine, who has a 1 year old, invited me for coffee. As soon as we sat down across each other in the cute colourful cafe, her first words were: 'does the guilt ever go away?'

I will repeat here, what I said to her. Immediately. 'No'. I said. Emphatically. 'It never does'.

So breathe. And learn to live with it. And to negotiate life around it. It is years of socialisation and gene pool mutation probably, but the guilt of leaving your child in another's care and going away, simple doesn't go away! Even though rationally you know that the kind of quality time you are spending with your child is probably more enriching than the old world bathe, feed, put to bed routine. Even though you know that the 2 hours of playtime in the evening and the half hour of cuddle and fun in the morning is bonding you beautifully with your little one, even though you know that because you have a nanny to take care of the boring stuff, you are able to present your most cheerful most energetic most playful self to your toddler, even though you see the child's face light up every time you enter the room...

Even though you see your baby run into your arms and hug you and kiss you and altogether let you know how precious and how central you are, you STILL FEEL GUILTY.

Paradoxically, the child's unquestioned devotion makes you guiltier. Because you probably belong to the same generation as me, where most moms were stay at home moms. Where your mother spent a lot of time taking primary care of you (read food, clothing, cleaning) and she never suffered any guilt if she couldn't make time for play or piggy back rides or crayoning sessions.

Today you keep asking yourself: have I abdicated mom responsibilities and taken to being almost a sibling? Why am I not doing all the stuff that my mom did and why am I doing all the silly things that moms don't normally do?

My daughter thinks that pillow fights and tickle sessions, play with words, and building blocks is par for the course with mommy. Cuddling up and sleeping arm in arm is our biggest joy. Splashing about and turning bath time into water wars is regular. The nanny is boring. Mom is fun. The nanny is taken for granted, time with mom is precious.

That itself makes one guilty again. Hey, mom was supposed to be the one you could take for granted! In a bizarre twist to envy you suddenly want to be the boring stable presence in the child's life rather than the exotic, perfume twirling, heels clad, now-you-see-me-now-you-don't avataar of yourself you have turned into inside the fantasy film in your head.

And you don't stop to reason. Or to realise that this image of yourself is truly pure fantasy. You don't notice how it is still only you that the child will sleep tucked in next to at night. You don't appreciate yourself enough when it is only you who can understand what the toddler needs in her broken half speech, when everybody else has given up.

You don't notice when it is only you who can pacify the child when she's upset. And you certainly don't pat yourself on the back when the child comes running to you with shiny eyes as she learns a new word or phrase or rhyme in play school. Because you are too caught up with patting her - and that is the way it should be of course.

But stop for a second. To applaud yourself. You are doing a very good job. You are redefining motherhood even as you redefine womanhood. Maybe you abdicated some other gender stereotypes with greater ease: maybe it was a traditional wardrobe that you gave up for unisex wear. Maybe it was a role in the kitchen that you happily delegated to the help - or, as in my case, my husband! Maybe it was a personality type when you cashed in on your assertive aggressive side and said 'balls' to the notion that women accept and adjust...

Whatever it was, is or may have been, you have negotiated and forged many new identities. This is but another glorious one in that journey.

So enjoy it. You don't cook like your mother, you don't dress like your mother, you don't talk like your mother, you don't pray like your mother. You don't need to mother like your mother.

Ending the War

For all generations to come
And for all generations behind
The difference between people
And mothers
Is this:

"The war could begin
At my doorstep
Anytime.

I must protect my child."

That's why if world peace must be realised
It will be by mothers,

One child at a time.

Magirents

We have more money. We have more resources. We may not have more imagination, but we certainly have more will to bring that imagination to life.

And without realising it, we are becoming 'magirents'. Magician Parents. Our child has to but express a wish, and the sheer, ironically childlike, thrill of making that wish come true, blinds us to the severely debilitating impact of such behaviour.

My son loves Thomas the Train so let me get him the entire 15 grand worth set, just like that. Not on his birthday mind, just like that. My daughter is obsessed with Miley Cyrus so let me actually plan a London holiday where she can see Hannah Montana in concert. My twins look so cute together so let me actually ship down custom made baby sized genuine Mickey and Donald costumes directly from Disney Merchandise.

No expense, no trouble, and absolutely no effort is too much or too wild for us Magirents. The thrill of the quest itself is our reward. The journey is the destination and the fact that our child smiles, gives us the well trained hug and thank you and promptly moves on to the next toy, seems no impediment or dampener to this wish fulfilling style of parenting.

The child is not ungrateful. The child is - whoa, and that is scary - simply attuned to thinking that this gargantuan, unrealistic, unbelievably expensive, fairy tale like way of life is normal.

Gulp. What have we done?

I know we can afford it, and I know the internet makes organising and sourcing just about anything a matter of but a few clicks, but what happened to some good old middle class values along the way? What happened to phrases like 'choose one', 'next time', 'on your birthday', 'if you learn to tie your laces' or the simplest, baldest, most honest 'mom can't afford that'.

What happened to atleast waiting to be asked?

Most of us magirents aren't even fulfilling wishes. We are pre empting even that. No wonder then that the reaction is luke warm. The child didn't even know that what was just sprung upon him was something he wanted in the first place. Or it was to be had.

Sometime ago my daughter discovered the purple dinosaur from the learning DVD series called Barney. She promptly fell in love. She wanted to watch Barney all the time. She wanted to hug him, kiss him, be with him.

She never asked me for Barney because it didn't strike the 2 year old that 'Barney could be had'. Barney was this awesome, adorable big purple guy on the TV screen. How was she to even know that Barney could be brought home?

I however embarked on this project. My husband was in England at that time and I urged him to search. He scoured all of Oxford Street and every toy store there. But Barney is being 'phased out' now and the stores simply didn't have the soft toy.

Simultaneously I messaged all my friends in all corners of the world to let me know if they can spot and ship a Barney to me from anywhere at all.

Needless to say I was doing all this because the internet had not yielded results. Every on line store said Barney was out of stock.

You know how this story ends. My daughter got her Barney. Not one in fact but two. Because my best friend who dotes on her managed to procure one through complex means as well.

My daughter smiled, played with the Barneys, and forgot about them.

We had spent over a month and a decent amount of money to get, what for her, was just another toy. Nowhere near the real Barney who could jump out of the toy and become a real big fuzzy friend who sang and danced. I believe that inability in her toy Barneys actually frustrated her for a bit.

When I was about to pick up a hugely expensive Thomas Train set for another dear friend's son, she dissuaded me. I actually protested, saying, hey I know how we don't want to spoil our kids, but this is his birthday. My friend was firm. No, she said. A 4 year old's birthday should still have some limitations.

I so totally agreed with her that I promptly abandoned that gift for a cheaper Thomas Train variant. Of course the 4 year old was equally thrilled with it. He didn't know about the other one!

Its good to indulge, even pamper the kids. I know sometimes its compensation for time less spent, hectic work lives and other preoccupations.

But this fairy tale recreation - whether it involves money or not - is simply giving the child wrong cues. The rest of the world for the rest of his or her life, will not live up to that way of being. It is really not just about the money. It is about the fallacy of 'custom making a world to suit the child's wishes, dreams, desires'. The real world is not custom made. So even if it doesn't cost you a penny, it is still a dangerous thing to do.

I had this realisation this evening, when my daughter was insisting on seeing a particular TV ad that she loves. Sometimes our DTH provider shows it in a loop on the home screen, before you chose your channel. So she's used to getting it on demand.

That deal with the DTH provider must have gotten over. The ad was not playing. My baby was slightly disconsolate. Slightly mind you, no big tantrum.

I found myself thinking, oh, I must get hold of the ad on a cd. Shouldn't be difficult. The company is a regular advertiser on the radio station that I work in, and the client's a good friend. Getting the ad wouldn't be difficult at all. Maybe I can ask them to put it in a loop of five or ten runs so I won't have to keep skipping back. Or maybe I could even ask for their earlier ads, my daughter's bound to enjoy the whole series...

I arrested my train of thoughts. What the heck was I doing? What the heck are all of us doing?

Magicians. Parents. Mutant beings designing a wholly unrealistic world view and delivering it on a shiny smooth show me my deepest desires reflecting platter.

This won't even prepare the child for the disappointment of missing the morning bus.

Guilty Until Socialised Innocent

Some days ago I read a heartening albeit surprising article about parents today.

Apparantly parents, especially mothers, of our generation are racked by far more guilt than our predecessors - that wasn't the surprising bit - but they also spend far far more focused and quality time with their children than those of the earlier generations!

Now this latter bit of information was startling. As a new mom I too am constantly plagued by a sense of insufficient time and inadequate attention. I too feel that I am depriving my child of something fundamental in parenting whenever I am at work, at the gym, working on my laptop, surfing channels, meeting friends.

I was happy to realise that actually the time that we do manage to make for our children is not only quantitatively more than what many in our parent's generation did, but qualitatively better too. More focused, richer in content and deeper in bonding.

Happy research results which I read, filed in memory and forgot.

This evening my husband and I came back early from work, met our daughter at my mother's place, which is barely a few doors away, and then while she was having her supper I realised I had some work to catch up on, so I walked home leaving my husband to bring our baby back.

They followed soon, by which time I was deep in the middle of multi tasking - watching a TV show I had recorded and clearing some mail on my laptop.

My daughter plonked herself on my bed, played with my books and wires, hugged and kissed me, romped around, eventually got bored and went off to play with her nanny cheerily. I continued working.

My 2 year old has taken to trying on every adult piece of footwear lying around the house so I can hear her coming from the other end of the house, clip clopping in my slippers or my husband's shoes.

Everytime she walked into the room I lowered the laptop screen, gave her a big smile and hug and felt that stab of guilt. Why was I working when I had come home early and why was I not giving her my entire attention?

And suddenly there flashed before my eyes images of my home maker mother during my growing years. Ma cooking. Ma serving. Ma tending to dad's needs, his parent's needs, our needs. Ma directing the help. Ma buying grocery.

Ma was always busy. And never guilty about neglecting us. If anything at all, she found raising us to be a full time job, a pleasurable one for sure, but one that only added to that laundry list of other duties that kept her busy. There was no sense that the cooking or the cleaning or the serving was in any way taking time away from her 'parenting' duties.

And then it dawned on me that this guilt that I feel every single moment is a product of socialisation and gender stereotyping at its most fundamental level.

A mother who is too busy to play with her baby because she's cooking, cleaning, running house has no guilt. A mother who is ocassionally busy working on a laptop, working out at the gym, meeting a friend for drinks, is committing a double crime. She is not only depriving her child of her mental and / or physical time, she is also crossing the gender lines and being 'busy' with what 'dads' ought to be busy with.

I know at a conscious level we have all left behind these stereotypes sometime back. None of us are ostensibly thinking like this.

But deep down, the socialisation runs in permanently etched furrows upon the mind. My husband feels no similar guilt when he works at home. And I know, even though I hate cooking and almost never cook, if I were to occupy myself in the kitchen with my toddler romping around, tugging at my shirt ends, I would feel no guilt either.

Because that image would overlap beautifully, seamlessly and therefore sinisterly, over the image of me and my mother when I was a child.

That is the real danger of socialisation. It is comfortable. It is familiar. And it operates at levels that we are not even aware of.

Missing Daddy....

Babaa.... Aa jao. Babaaaaaaaaaaaa.......... Aajao....

Don't know when I last heard a sadder song. Daddy, come home.