Now just HOW well does that describe your condition honey?
If not too well, then thank your living stars. You have an angel for a partner, and one who is TRULY liberated, unshackled from age old hand-me-down social conditioning and who genuinely believes that being a primary care giver is a two parent deal.
I have a darling of a husband. He's a friend, philosopher, guide, buddy, pet, teddy bear, confidante and lover all rolled into one delicious one.
What he is NOT is a full time dad.
And so I say. I am a married woman. But a single mom. When it comes to raising our daughter, my husband suddenly becomes a room mate. A sweet, accomodating room mate who will always extend a helping hand with the baby when asked. Who will always be a great support in times of crisis and emergency.
So what's wrong with the above sentence? These phrases, to be precise:
'a helping hand'. 'when asked'. 'great support'. 'in times of crisis and emergency'.
Hey, that wasn't the deal remember? It was all very great for Rachel in Friends to have a super supportive roomy in Joey (who was ok with everything except sharing 'hugsie') but Mr. Husband, we did this together right? We decided together right? We made her together right?
Then I sort of took over and went through the minor part of pregnancy and delivery and breast feeding - but these three things apart, WHAT is it exactly that you find so difficult to do?
The truth I guess, girls, is that no matter how liberated, how forward looking and how progressive a man is, he does fall back upon social conditioning in all areas that are a bother to him.
To some men it may be the kitchen (with my hubby it isn't. The kitchen is his turf, not mine) and to some others, it may be child rearing (thats the one thats the one thats the one!!!).
As tokenism, my hubby has done it all. He has changed diapers (about six times), he has washed up after her poop (about thrice), he has rocked her to sleep (twice, so far I think) and he's taken her for her vaccination shots (once alone, about five times with me).
Our daughter is one and a half. I have held her and rocked her and fed her and soothed her and woken with her and slept with her and gaa-gaa-goo-gooed to her each day of each month for 18 months.
Not let up. No break. No sleep aways in the study. No weekend getaway.
And I have been working for nearly 15 months of those 18. The first 3 from home, the balance 12 from office.
Thankfully I work in a great organisation where I am ridiculously senior and ridiculously indulged, because I just happen to have been around for 8 years. And for the first six of those eight years I have busted my ass. So I am now granted my down time. And my team continues to do brilliantly well. And in this day and age of wi fi, blackberry and WAPplications, geography is an irrelevant detail.
So I work from home, I work from my mom's home which is also my daughter's day care centre, I work from the car, I work from our terrace study, I work from my bedroom, I work from my gym or any other goddamn place that the world can reach me.
And hear me over the din my baby is making at that point in time.
Whenever I need to get out for a drink with friends, or a movie, my husband dutifully babysits. As long as the nanny is around.
In 18 months, my husband hasn't spent a single hour alone with our girl. If you suggest that he be alone, truly alone with her, he'd double freak, flip out and run away and hide.
You know why? Oh no, not because he's a bad guy. He's a super good guy.
But because he genuinely believes he has a choice.
And I don't.
Simple. That's where the debate ends. And single parenting starts.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
She's Alive.
Working moms are clearly immortal.
They have to be. Else they'd have died long ago.
Died of exhaustion. Died of anxiety. Died of overwork. Died of sleep deprivation. Died from an overdose of unwanted advice. Died of multi tasking mania.
Died of guilt.
Honestly, before we get into what a working mom lives with, works with, deals with, copes with, lets spend a moment in sheer wonder at the fact that she is still alive. And even more fascinating - she is still sane.
Be glad she's alive. If you listen carefully, if you pay a little bit of attention, you will get life's worthiest lessons from her.
Lessons on big heartedness. Lessons on patience. Lessons on sensitivity and compassion and empathy and fortitude and committment and caring.
Lessons in love. Pure unconditional love.
So go ahead. Spend some time with her. While's she wrecking her own physical mental and psychological well being, she can contribute hugely to yours.
They have to be. Else they'd have died long ago.
Died of exhaustion. Died of anxiety. Died of overwork. Died of sleep deprivation. Died from an overdose of unwanted advice. Died of multi tasking mania.
Died of guilt.
Honestly, before we get into what a working mom lives with, works with, deals with, copes with, lets spend a moment in sheer wonder at the fact that she is still alive. And even more fascinating - she is still sane.
Be glad she's alive. If you listen carefully, if you pay a little bit of attention, you will get life's worthiest lessons from her.
Lessons on big heartedness. Lessons on patience. Lessons on sensitivity and compassion and empathy and fortitude and committment and caring.
Lessons in love. Pure unconditional love.
So go ahead. Spend some time with her. While's she wrecking her own physical mental and psychological well being, she can contribute hugely to yours.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Bottle The Bitch
No, I'm not talking about pickling and bottling any villanous bitch in my life.
I am talking about feeding bottles. And what big bitches they are in a new mother's life. I have envisaged many scenarios in life, I am fully aware of the 'aggressive person' tag that I carry and therefore have often thought there could various types of rivals in my life... funnily enough, there never were any. Maybe its arrogance; maybe I never considered anybody good enough to be a rival in the school, college or the work space.... call it absent mindedness; maybe I never noticed when one popped up... whatever the case may be, the fact remains that I don't remember ever having a rival....
Until now.
When I was planning and shopping for my new baby, right up to the 7th month of my pregnancy, I bought many things. My mother in law, sisters in law and my mother too put together a lot of stuff they thought I'd need.
Therefore, one of the very first things I acquired were bottles, bottle nipples and bottle sterilisers. Simple enough, you'd think, right?
Wrong.
As soon as the baby's been born, and your stitches hurt, you look like a bloated balloon and all you want to do is sleep, one ham handed nurse appears out of nowhere and starts squeezing your breasts pretty much with the same delicate touch and sensitivity as one juices a lemon. With pretty much the same results. A reluctant sticky trickle.
Then she makes a disgusted face, picks up your precious wrinkled bundle and stomps off. You look on bewildered.
Thats when the head shaking and tongue clicking begins. Congratulations. A nemesis called Breast Feeding has just entered your life.
Little did I know when the bottles, nipples and sterilisers were acquired, that the very use of them will be considered akin to black magic. All real mothers, all good mothers ONLY BREASTFEED.
Get used to these two words. In large font, bold, all capitals. They will come back to haunt you, new mom, every day, every moment, every miserable inadequate trickle by trickle in those first few nightmarish weeks. Doctor's prescriptions to friends' advice, notes comparing colleagues to internet information, slightly older new moms to slightly interfering old maids - everyone and everything will extol the virtues of great milk engorged breasts and of mothers who have gushed out rivers of the white nectar for their babies to draw sustenance from.
Every single paediatrician's prescription I have so far - whether I went for my baby's vaccination or a common cold - had those formidable words printed at the bottom: BREAST FEED ONLY. NO BOTTLE FEED. The icing on the cake was what I noticed on my second visit to the doctor's clinic, on the soft board in the reception area - believe it or not, a roll call of honour, of all those babies who'd never been given the bottle! With a little 'take a bow, mothers' congratulatory line at the bottom. The sheet of paper had row upon neat row of babies' names, mothers' names and mothers' mobile numbers - apparantly these milk flowing demi goddesses had happily consented to having their phone numbers plastered all over a doctor's reception because they didn't mind their privacy being invaded if they could be of some help to us hapless lot.
Ok, so you're still not getting the drift? Whats the big deal you ask?
The big deal my dear is the simple truth that some women simply don't have enough milk. They need to either add on formula feed to breast feed, or at times, totally substitute with formula. HOWEVER, when you are a new mom, you NEVER seem to come across such women. All the moms you meet were milk river gangotris. They had so much milk their breasts hurt. They had so much milk they had to let it all out during their baths. They had so much fucking milk that their babies gagged on the mighty streams.
Bah.
Except for one very dear very honest friend who called me from the U.S. and told me not to feel guilty about formula at all, none of my contemporaries said anything about inadequacy. They were all splendidly adequate. If anything, they didn't know what to do with all this milk of human kindness. They spurted, they soaked, they overflowed. Paucity? They had never even heard of such a problem apparantly. I was a freak.
Well, my baby is nearly four months old now and I know I am not a freak. Many women face exactly the same problem. Some don't realise or recognise it. Some are in denial. Some hide it. And yes, of course some also genuinely don't have it. But guess what? The genuine ones don't send you on guilt trips. They tell you to chill, relax and enjoy your baby, and let good old lactogen step in to save the day if need be.
God bless my mother, my mother in law, my gynaecologist and my husband who relentlessly encouraged me to give my baby girl the bottle whenever I felt inadequate, restless or tired. God bless them for being practical, sane and yes, very importantly, funny. Thank god for my nut of a husband who kept saying - "look at me, bottle fed and VP at a radio network. Look at you - bottle fed and another VP at the same network." Idiot.
Their support helped me cope with the fact that I had had a baby in my mid 30s, and after my history of huge gynae issues it was a miracle in itself that I'd conceived naturally and delivered a healthy child. Their lack of judgement of me or my milk supply allowed me to rediscover my real self sooner, because I could step out for a meal or a coffee and not worry about my baby's next feed. Their refusal to see the output of my breasts as a sign of my competence as a mother helped me get back to a dieting and exercising regimen sooner than I could have otherwise.
Now that I have gotten over the guilt and the angst and the sheer sense of failure, I hear of new mothers who can't go anywhere or do anything with themselves because their babies are stuck to their breasts like leeches. Hey, thats exactly what I went through. 5 hours non stop and the baby still cried and still wanted more. First of all, I didn't want to be cruel to the poor kid: she obviously wasn't getting enough. Secondly, hey, is it a crime, I DIDN'T LIKE BEING THAT WAY. Stuck, rooted, bored, fat, useless, brain dead, baby breasted and glassy eyed. I am sorry for not being sorry. I am sorry for opting out of that way of being. I don't think that that kind of exhausting, demotivating and completely energy sapping way of life was the only way to prove to the world that I was a caring mom and my baby was my biggest priority.
Heck. Why should their be any way to prove anything to the world? What my baby means to me is something for me to know and her to feel. A few bottles of formula will not determine how much I love my child.
Trust me, I am not making a big deal of a small issue. If you are planning to biologically produce a a baby, or if you partner is, believe me, this will become a bigger deal than you can even begin to imagine.
So whether you are male or female, in case you are planning a family, here's my little bit of advice: do certainly breast feed / encourage your partner to breast feed because it is genuinely beneficial, genuinely healthy for the baby. Nothing compares to breast milk in terms of nutrition, immunity and basic bone building. But, please please please don't kill yourself over it if you find that you can't do it, or can only do it partially. It is ok. Genuinely ok.
Because, like my mom said: if you go insane, its unlikely to help your baby.
I am talking about feeding bottles. And what big bitches they are in a new mother's life. I have envisaged many scenarios in life, I am fully aware of the 'aggressive person' tag that I carry and therefore have often thought there could various types of rivals in my life... funnily enough, there never were any. Maybe its arrogance; maybe I never considered anybody good enough to be a rival in the school, college or the work space.... call it absent mindedness; maybe I never noticed when one popped up... whatever the case may be, the fact remains that I don't remember ever having a rival....
Until now.
When I was planning and shopping for my new baby, right up to the 7th month of my pregnancy, I bought many things. My mother in law, sisters in law and my mother too put together a lot of stuff they thought I'd need.
Therefore, one of the very first things I acquired were bottles, bottle nipples and bottle sterilisers. Simple enough, you'd think, right?
Wrong.
As soon as the baby's been born, and your stitches hurt, you look like a bloated balloon and all you want to do is sleep, one ham handed nurse appears out of nowhere and starts squeezing your breasts pretty much with the same delicate touch and sensitivity as one juices a lemon. With pretty much the same results. A reluctant sticky trickle.
Then she makes a disgusted face, picks up your precious wrinkled bundle and stomps off. You look on bewildered.
Thats when the head shaking and tongue clicking begins. Congratulations. A nemesis called Breast Feeding has just entered your life.
Little did I know when the bottles, nipples and sterilisers were acquired, that the very use of them will be considered akin to black magic. All real mothers, all good mothers ONLY BREASTFEED.
Get used to these two words. In large font, bold, all capitals. They will come back to haunt you, new mom, every day, every moment, every miserable inadequate trickle by trickle in those first few nightmarish weeks. Doctor's prescriptions to friends' advice, notes comparing colleagues to internet information, slightly older new moms to slightly interfering old maids - everyone and everything will extol the virtues of great milk engorged breasts and of mothers who have gushed out rivers of the white nectar for their babies to draw sustenance from.
Every single paediatrician's prescription I have so far - whether I went for my baby's vaccination or a common cold - had those formidable words printed at the bottom: BREAST FEED ONLY. NO BOTTLE FEED. The icing on the cake was what I noticed on my second visit to the doctor's clinic, on the soft board in the reception area - believe it or not, a roll call of honour, of all those babies who'd never been given the bottle! With a little 'take a bow, mothers' congratulatory line at the bottom. The sheet of paper had row upon neat row of babies' names, mothers' names and mothers' mobile numbers - apparantly these milk flowing demi goddesses had happily consented to having their phone numbers plastered all over a doctor's reception because they didn't mind their privacy being invaded if they could be of some help to us hapless lot.
Ok, so you're still not getting the drift? Whats the big deal you ask?
The big deal my dear is the simple truth that some women simply don't have enough milk. They need to either add on formula feed to breast feed, or at times, totally substitute with formula. HOWEVER, when you are a new mom, you NEVER seem to come across such women. All the moms you meet were milk river gangotris. They had so much milk their breasts hurt. They had so much milk they had to let it all out during their baths. They had so much fucking milk that their babies gagged on the mighty streams.
Bah.
Except for one very dear very honest friend who called me from the U.S. and told me not to feel guilty about formula at all, none of my contemporaries said anything about inadequacy. They were all splendidly adequate. If anything, they didn't know what to do with all this milk of human kindness. They spurted, they soaked, they overflowed. Paucity? They had never even heard of such a problem apparantly. I was a freak.
Well, my baby is nearly four months old now and I know I am not a freak. Many women face exactly the same problem. Some don't realise or recognise it. Some are in denial. Some hide it. And yes, of course some also genuinely don't have it. But guess what? The genuine ones don't send you on guilt trips. They tell you to chill, relax and enjoy your baby, and let good old lactogen step in to save the day if need be.
God bless my mother, my mother in law, my gynaecologist and my husband who relentlessly encouraged me to give my baby girl the bottle whenever I felt inadequate, restless or tired. God bless them for being practical, sane and yes, very importantly, funny. Thank god for my nut of a husband who kept saying - "look at me, bottle fed and VP at a radio network. Look at you - bottle fed and another VP at the same network." Idiot.
Their support helped me cope with the fact that I had had a baby in my mid 30s, and after my history of huge gynae issues it was a miracle in itself that I'd conceived naturally and delivered a healthy child. Their lack of judgement of me or my milk supply allowed me to rediscover my real self sooner, because I could step out for a meal or a coffee and not worry about my baby's next feed. Their refusal to see the output of my breasts as a sign of my competence as a mother helped me get back to a dieting and exercising regimen sooner than I could have otherwise.
Now that I have gotten over the guilt and the angst and the sheer sense of failure, I hear of new mothers who can't go anywhere or do anything with themselves because their babies are stuck to their breasts like leeches. Hey, thats exactly what I went through. 5 hours non stop and the baby still cried and still wanted more. First of all, I didn't want to be cruel to the poor kid: she obviously wasn't getting enough. Secondly, hey, is it a crime, I DIDN'T LIKE BEING THAT WAY. Stuck, rooted, bored, fat, useless, brain dead, baby breasted and glassy eyed. I am sorry for not being sorry. I am sorry for opting out of that way of being. I don't think that that kind of exhausting, demotivating and completely energy sapping way of life was the only way to prove to the world that I was a caring mom and my baby was my biggest priority.
Heck. Why should their be any way to prove anything to the world? What my baby means to me is something for me to know and her to feel. A few bottles of formula will not determine how much I love my child.
Trust me, I am not making a big deal of a small issue. If you are planning to biologically produce a a baby, or if you partner is, believe me, this will become a bigger deal than you can even begin to imagine.
So whether you are male or female, in case you are planning a family, here's my little bit of advice: do certainly breast feed / encourage your partner to breast feed because it is genuinely beneficial, genuinely healthy for the baby. Nothing compares to breast milk in terms of nutrition, immunity and basic bone building. But, please please please don't kill yourself over it if you find that you can't do it, or can only do it partially. It is ok. Genuinely ok.
Because, like my mom said: if you go insane, its unlikely to help your baby.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
