Category: Parenting

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J is for being Judgmental

The other
day I was down in the garden. A bunch of kids were playing close by while some
mums and some maids stood by chatting. A fight broke out – we have one almost
every minute. One of the kids boxed the other one, only to be punched in return.
A mum and a maid rushed to separate their charges. The mother turned upon the
maid in righteous anger and gave her an earful. “Why can’t you keep an eye on him?
Do you come down to chat?” She said before retreating with her son. “This is
what happens when kids are left to the maids,” she added before admonishing her
son to ‘never play with that boy again.’
As if that
were even a possibility! Five minutes later, the kids are back again.
How quick
are we to pass judgements, and how wrong. Among many things motherhood taught
me – this was one valuable lesson.. 
People cannot be bracketed.

One of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite books.. ‘To kill a mockingbird’



She’s a SAHM
– she’s a good mum.
She’s a working
mum – she doesn’t have time for her kids… wrong again!
She wears a
sari/ abaya – she’s conservative. 
She’s pushing her daughter to have fries – she’s a bad mum.
She’s fat –
she’s lazy (that one’s for me).
Oh it can
make you feel good about yourself for a while. But when you judge others you also
end up judging yourself. And sooner than later you will fall short. You cannot
possibly think you are the only perfect person on earth! If you do think you
are, well then you’ve reached nirvana and can stop right here. But if you do not, you will fall short of someone and will end up feeling not so
good about yourself. The first step to accepting yourself is to accept others
as they are.
This becomes
even more relevant in a country as diverse as India. People from different
regions, states and ethnicities, speaking different languages, dressing differently,
looking so very different… it’s as crazy as it can get. 
While I was working in
Mumbai there was just one other girl from my hometown in North India and it was
assumed that we’d be best friends. However my best friend came from the other
end of the country – from down South. We bonded over books. We ended up being roommates and are still
friends some 20 years later.
Being
judgemental can make you miss out on some really good friends.
Over the
years I learnt to reserve my judgement. Oh I’m not perfect just yet but I hope to get there.

Linking to ABC Wednesday the grand initiative now in it’s 14th round.

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E is for Embarrassment!

Having kids is great therapy. They are free souls and ensure you become one too, whether you like it or not. It’s quite a journey – this transformation from a self-conscious person to a free soul.
Along the way there are scores of moments when you crave Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, when you wish you were anywhere but there, when you wish you were anyone but their mum.. But does that happen? Nah never. So you grin and bear it.

 

That’s what I did.

From my early days as a parent, here are my top five may-the-earth-open-up-and-swallow-me moments.

1. When N was barely two she got into a brawl with a shopkeeper. She tottered into a shoe shop and took a fancy to one of their footstools. Without so much as a ‘May I’ (she could barely talk.. so one may consider that as an excuse) she decided she had to have it. When I reached the crime scene the gentle shopkeeper was trying to wrest it out of her grasp, while she hung on, babbling profanities (I presume). It took some serious persuasion before she let go.

2. Then there was the time she had a tantrum in a mall. She lay down on the floor screaming. I was trying to wean her out of her tantrum throwing so I pretended to walk off, then stood at a distance watching the drama. Within minutes a crowd gathered. Before I could go claim her there were about 20 people looking on and wondering which heartless mother had abandoned her thus. Yeah.. this round went to her completely!

3. Then once H started craving pineapple. What with my crazy schedule, I kept putting him off. One day he spotted it at a juice stall. Before I could say ‘pineapple’ he had picked up the huge fruit and sprinted off followed by the stall owner, followed by me with all my post pregnancy weight, followed by N who thought I was deserting her. Phew! Quite a race that was.

4. Another time at the mall while playing hide and seek among the clothes, H discovered the accessories stand. I presume he took it to be a tiny merry go round of sorts with girly jewellery as its boring occupants. So he decided to perk things a bit and give them a memorable ride. He spun it so hard hairbands and earrings went flying out in all directions. That was perhaps the last nail in the coffin of my self-consciousness.

5. Oops did I say last? Correction! The last nail was the day they discovered the lingerie section. See the possibilities? That day the kids, all of three, discovered more ways to work with those wares than you and I can ever imagine. Trying to figure out how/where they were worn, coolly discussing which was a better colour – Turquoise or pink – and even calling out to my sister.. Masi which colour do you want? My sister vowed never to go out with them.

They scarred me for life. For years ‘MALLS’ meant ‘DANGER’. Read the whole story of me being mauled at the mall here. Not that they needed to be in a mall to embarrass us. They were pretty flexible that way and could work with any situation.

And I’m not even counting everyday stuff like peeking under changing rooms (Mama do you need help?) or holding conversations while you’re in a public loo (What are you doing Mama? Mama how long will you take? Mama come out now. Mama we’re getting bored… all in the space of two minutes), or kicking co-passengers’ seats during flights (Don’t even get me started on that one).

However, this is in no way meant to deter my yet kid-less friends. Learn from them, I say. Keep an arsenal of apology and a winning smile at the ready even if in your head you’re going ‘oh shit, oh shit oh shit’. (Nope you CANNOT say that aloud, kids are listening, remember?)

One thing I can promise, you never will have a dull moment.

*********

Linking to ABC Wednesday. For more Exciting Entries go  here.

 

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A is for anger

Once upon a time I used to be an even tempered, ever smiling person. I got along with almost everyone.. at office, with the maids at home.. everyone. I remember one of my nephews was quite a fan because ‘Chachi (aunt) is always smiling, mama,’ he would tell my sis-in-law.

And then I had the twins.

One day my two-year old was throwing a tantrum and I remarked, ‘Gosh! what a temper, she has!’ ‘Well she’s your daughter, isn’t she?’ shot back my maid. That’s not true, thought I even as I felt the anger bubbling up. How cheeky of her, I thought. But I let it pass thanks to the years of training of not being rude and also because she was years older than I was.

Then a few days later I was having a specially bad day. All my maids were on leave (I had three and one point of time) and the husband was travelling. All alone with the twins who were well into their terribly terrible twos it had been a harrowing day with the cooking, cleaning, feeding, bathing. Finally late at night dog tired, I walked into the bedroom with the two bottles of milk. There were the kids with their beach baskets pouring water on the beds. ‘Pool…’ Lisped my daughter. 

And I exploded.

I don’t think I’ve talked about this incident but the look on my daughter’s face after that hard whack on her backside remains with me even today. She didn’t cry.. not at all. She just stared back, uncomprehending. I cried then. 

Oh..the regret!

That was the day I realised I had a temper and that I had to do something about it. 

The first thing I did was to start yoga. I am still not sure whether it was truly therapeutic or whether it was the simple idea of doing something about the problem, but I felt better. The fight was not over though, is not over. It’s been a continuous struggle.

In this struggle I was directed to The Orange Rhino by friend and blogger Shailaja who successfully completed the one-week no yelling challenge. They have some very useful tips to offer harried mums out to conquer their rage. Do take a look. 

The twins are almost 8 and anger is now a familiar feeling. It still wells up suddenly, without warning, in a flash. However, often I find myself prepared to meet it. I have learnt to recognise the red flags, so to say, and begin to prepare to not yell when I spot them. Spilt milk, broken crockery, the early morning rush, even the continuous noise when they’re simply having fun are all red flags.

That’s the positive change I  like to dwell upon. Not everytime do I succeed but I’ll get there someday I hope.

Linking to ABC Wednesday, which is starting it’s 14th round. Isn’t that Absolutely Amazing! Do join in. 

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U is for Unperturbed

… by the mess, there she sits.. reading and playing a flute.. playing a flute for godsake. Amazing, isn’t it.. how some things just do not register with kids, let alone bother them.. while they can drive the adults completely crazy??

If you’re a busy mum like me, here are two pointers that might help..

Get the kids to clean with you rather than on their own.
Break up the whole cleaning exercise into smaller tasks.

I mean look at that room.. it’s daunting for an adult let alone a child even if she’s messed it herself.
On the days that I’m too tired I simply pull a chair and sit and bark out instructions like a military Sergeant..
1. Pick up the books and put them on the shelf
2. Deflate the float and put it in the cupboard
3. Put away the clothes.
4. The flute goes in the toy basket.
… and so on.

It works.

And if you don’t have time for this, simply shut the door to the kids’ room and chill. After all there’s always tomorrow.

Linking to ABC Wednesday

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The F word…

…. made an entry in our home. Yeah the real one.

Last night over dinner N asked me ‘Mama what does F*** mean?’ She rhymed it somewhere between the real thing and the word ‘hook’ so I took a while to absorb the question. That and the fact that the kids are not eight yet. I cannot even begin to explain what I felt. Here I am insisting on the ‘aap’ instead of ‘tum’ and freaking out if I hear a ‘shit’ from them and they’re onto this!

A ‘talk’ followed. I told her I was glad she’d asked me what it meant, that it was a ‘bad’ word not to be repeated, ever. However the damage will remain. I cannot possibly erase it from her memory. In all likelihood it would be even more securely planted since I warned her off it. And I’m afraid it’ll make an appearance in a moment of anger or stress.

The thing that worries me more is that she picked it up from a child from our society. I’ve mentioned earlier how I’m not comfortable with the twins’ playing with older kids, yet I don’t know how to stop it. This is the kind of thing I was worried about. Not that bad language is okay at any age but the older ones seem to revel in it.

I considered talking to his mom but the other mothers warned me off. Apparently they’d spoken to her earlier but she didn’t share the concern (they’re kids, they will pick up all kinds of stuff, she maintains). So now I’m in a bit of a quandary. What should I do? Tell the children to stay away from that kid? That’s not feasible since our’s is a small society with limited playing space. Besides, the children like him. He is a likeable kid and he’s just 10. But what if they pick up more bad language or worse start believing it’s acceptable to use it?

Should I talk to the kid directly? I know him well enough. That’s a thought I might follow through. Talking to the twins and warning them off bad language and bad behaviour rather than off bad kids seems like the best thing to do but it’s hard, really hard to get it across to them. How does one explain that a kid who is friendly, who teaches them cricket, who races with them each evening, who’s the epitome of cool is not so cool after all.

Sigh!

But then who said mothering would ever be easy.

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