To all parents out there in general, to my Mom in particular
Posted on | May 14, 2010 | 21 Comments
Everyday is blessed. Everyday is buried up to the tip of my nose with chores, I can barely breathe. But everyday is a joy, the joy of living life to the fullest, all thanks to my kids.
The greatest change that has happened to me after having a kid of my own is I started seeing the world thru’ my mother’s eyes, I started walking the long road of life in my father’s shoes. Until that point, in my adult life, I might have said or internalized it a thousand times, “Yeah, I understand the sacrifices my parents made for me, I understand their love is unconditional (by default),” and similar heavy rhetoric that made me sound responsible and grown-up.
The truth was I thought I understood “it”.”It” is a vague all-encompassing term standing in for the complex apparatus of life. When a new being was brought to this earth via the organic machinery of my body, all the faux-knowledge flew out of me, heavy philosophical statements that one is prone to utter in one’s breezy twenties became null and void. I realized that I understood nothing. Even now I don’t know much, but I am getting better at the process.
Being a parent adds a whole new dimension to understanding your parents. You may be a mother who birthed her child thru’ sweat, pain (and wonderfully easing epidural anesthesia in some cases.) You may be a father, an adopted parent or some one who is taking care of a fragile creature as a child, whose best wall of defense against the big bad world is you. The day you don this role of a child’s protector, you make the biggest leap across the chasm separating the two types of people in our world: airline passengers who snicker/glare/frown at passengers with kids and those who don’t.
Today I can comprehend my crazy mother(I thought she was off the rocker, blame puberty) coming home on 11pm train and leaving at 5am by the first train in the morning after making our lunch for the day (an Indian lunch made from the scratch.) Her place of work was in a town 150 kms away and I thought she was crazy to come and see us every other day of the week. I can be my Dad who paced our hallway ten hours non-stop during the nights long ago rocking my 2 year old sister who was suffering asthma at the time. He’d go to work in the morning without an ounce of sleep.
When I told the news of my first pregnancy to my ex-boss (a respected figure in her field of work) she told me, “I am proud of my work, it is invaluable, but my children are my life’s greatest achievement.” No wonder before women started having careers; they bore ten or twelve offspring without any complaint.
Mothers who are career women take a lot of flack for neglecting their home and children. I am one, my mother was one. Despite her frequent absences from home due to her transfers to far-off towns, I was plenty proud of my mother, proud to be my mother’s daughter. For she was the one with her own cabin in an office overrun with cubicles and men. I remember my mother’s colleagues, mostly men, prodding us kids, to get the skinny on who took care of children and cooking, and chiding my mother for marrying such a good home-maker of a husband.
The truth was my father hardly ever entered kitchen. As years passed my father would become more dependent on my mother for most everyday jobs with exception to his morning walk, newspaper reading, eating and tinkering with old gadgets, like most men of his age. My mother on the other hand has not slowed down, it scares me to think that she is not eternal.
But in the end it was me who made my mother quit her job and career, indirectly in a way. My mother took voluntary retirement to take care of my second baby. That is what children make us do, they change the hitherto known course of our lives. They make unsuspecting people morph into mothers, fathers, grandparents, uncles and aunts.
Like most of her fellow beings my mother lacks a fancy name (ref:Shakespeare) or wild hair (ref:Einstein) to stay in human kind’s collective memory forever[;-)] As is the case with millions of mothers before her she has nothing in her to bestow upon the world that it hasn’t seen before. She will definitely flunk in the first round of The Best Mom in the World Contest because I’ve not been called to judge the said competition.
Her legacy is the emissaries of her values – us, her kids and her grand kids – a smattering of her gene copies dispersed to the wind of generations. We may prosper or wither or die, but she has done her part in the best way she can and is still doing it (thanks to Graham Bell & Berners-Lee.) Happy Birthday, Ammae!
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21 Responses to “To all parents out there in general, to my Mom in particular”
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May 15th, 2010 @ 4:55 AM
A beautiful tribute to a wonderful mother, and a lovely essay on motherhood.
I enjoyed reading this.
May 15th, 2010 @ 5:48 PM
Yes, oh yes. Happy Birthday to your Mom… 🙂 Waiting to see pics of your chhotus… 🙂
May 15th, 2010 @ 7:56 PM
Aww. I was wondering why you didn’t post this on Mothers’ Day, until the last sentence.
As Sue Sylvester once said, I’ve long believed that the desire to have children is a sign of deep, personal weakness. Well, not actually, but I’ve never had much of any desire to have kids (for a whole litany of reasons). Still, having worked at both OCS and the school district (and a product of my own parents), I’m in awe of those parents who really do a good job, who do give a shit, and who are trying to mold their kids into good people. Because there are a lot of worthless parents out there.
May 16th, 2010 @ 3:43 AM
This was touching…sweet tribute! Happy Birthday wishes to your amma..
May 16th, 2010 @ 5:51 PM
this post made me sad for some reason…not sad sad…but sad enough…i guess it is the angst knowing that you cant really thank enough the people who truly matter in your life…
May 18th, 2010 @ 10:00 PM
Appreciate you stopping by and commenting
-one Mom to another Mom 😛
May 18th, 2010 @ 10:00 PM
Will definitely post some soon, Locks.
May 18th, 2010 @ 10:06 PM
Had to google Sue Sylvester, having children surely eats into a lot of time I could’ve used for nourishing my pop culture IQ 😛
Maybe not all men has the ‘maternal instinct’, womb being essentially a female organ and I’d the think the manifestation it’s emptiness will be felt more by women than by men.
I like to believe most people want to be good parents, if given a choice. Those who are classified as bad maybe were victims of bad timing and unfortunate circumstances?
May 18th, 2010 @ 10:09 PM
Thank you for stopping by and commenting, in addition to keeping one of the few regularly updated blogs out there and going to school 😛
May 18th, 2010 @ 10:12 PM
I am counting on the ‘action’ sequences when it comes to saying thanks to people who really matter in life, they are rumored to speak louder than words.
May 20th, 2010 @ 6:52 AM
An excellent tribute! Really enjoyed reading this.
May 20th, 2010 @ 8:13 PM
Great tribute 🙂
I must point out that some of us without kids of our own nevertheless do love kids, and don’t snicker/glare/frown at passengers with kids 🙂
May 20th, 2010 @ 8:13 PM
Great tribute 🙂
I must point out that some of us without kids of our own nevertheless do love kids, and don’t snicker/glare/frown at passengers with kids 🙂
May 21st, 2010 @ 4:17 PM
Beautiful writeup, D. Its good to see post again..
May 23rd, 2010 @ 2:47 AM
There are indeed some that don’t care as much, or some for whom the responsibility overwhelms the joys. I have known a few parents who simply didn’t want to be parents and who never took to the role.
I am thoroughly enjoying my journey into motherhood, but I don’t feel as though I crossed any big chasm or changed my life in any huge way, or even understand something huge that I didn’t before. My daughter is a beautiful progression of my life. Although the ways in which she evolves me are fresh, the fact that she would evolve me itself is no surprise.
Motherhood, has, as you said, evolved my understanding of my own parents. And seeing my parents become grandparents has given me a chance to see them in a parental role with my adult eyes, but also to imagine myself in their care. The joy in their grandparental personality as contagious and increases my joy as a parent. It renews their parental role to me in a complex and layered manner that is extremely enjoyable.
Overall, as life experiences go, having a child has been the best so far. Sharing with my child the other fabulous life experiences is going to be even more fulfilling than they were in the past.
May 28th, 2010 @ 5:35 PM
Well, look who is here! How are you both? In Switzerland?
May 28th, 2010 @ 5:36 PM
Yes Rileen, I do understand you do love kids, but people(I mean unmarried men) like you are not so common in the developed world 😛
May 28th, 2010 @ 5:37 PM
Thanks Cloud Lady, probably off diving in Malaysia at this time 😉
May 28th, 2010 @ 6:01 PM
Yes, I understand there are so-called ‘bad’ parents. Nevertheless my optimism about human nature ie all people are inherently good at a certain level, made me put the blame of bad parenthood in all of two things: bad timing(ex: a teenage smoker who got pregnant by accident and doesn’t want a kid at this point in her life, doesn’t treat the kid right – so a bad parent) and unfortunate circumstances(which should take care of all the rest of reasons for being a bad parent :P)
Chasm: Or a threshold of change you cross is always there for a new parent. The depth of the chasm, whether it is a low dip on the road(or in your words a ‘beautiful progression’) or a big leap across a mile deep crevasse depends on your conditioning and readiness to accept that change. Your small step towards motherhood was indeed a giant leap for me because by nature I was the least maternal of all the people(women) I knew, I would stay miles away from kids if at all possible before I had kids myself. Most people I know who became parents fall somewhere between you and me.
I understand the change is not instantaneous. You say that having a child is the best life experience you’ve had so far and furthermore it is a continually evolving experience. It shapes your life as time progresses in a way it’d not have if you didn’t have a kid. That is the chasm(maybe I should have used a better word, chasm seem to have negative connotations) I am talking about, we have not seen the end of it, we are at the beginning and our perception of the change is muted or accentuated by our differences as persons.
grandparents has given me a chance to see them in a parental role with my adult eyes, but also to imagine myself in their care. Great point, exactly, that’s something I missed stating in the essay.
June 2nd, 2010 @ 7:24 AM
Thanks Deepti, we are doing good. Yes, we are still at Switzerland and at our procrastinating best (hence the silence).
How are things up there ? I must shake of my eternal lethargy and call you up one of these days! Sending our love to N., Kunjuni and Jr. Kunjuni
January 26th, 2011 @ 6:37 AM
thoroughly enjoyed your letter.