Obsessivemom

09/03/201615/04/2017

Somedays I am a 9-year-old

I was out shopping for a birthday gift for N’s friend and I spotted an Elsa bag. What? You don’t know Elsa? Elsa from Frozen ? Don’t let N hear you say that, she wouldn’t think much of you.

N has been in love with Elsa for some time now. She sings Let it Go till the rest of us beg her to stop, sleeps with her Elsa quilt and an Elsa cushion and has made an Elsa collage that she’s stuck onto her cupboard. I have nothing against the Frozen girl. I loved the film as much as N. More importantly I shall be forever grateful to her for ridding (well almost) N of her Pink obsession.

Blue-Green is the new pink, ever since Elsa came along.

Anyway so when I saw this slingbag I thought I just had to pick it up for N. But then something made me stop. I mean, why was I getting all excited? Why on earth was I behaving like a nine-year-old? Wasn’t it my place to think whether N really needed the bag at all? Which of course, she didn’t.

If you’re a parent and have been in my place you know why we do it – why we go to Mc Donald’s and eat happy meal after happy meal and demolish our diets, why we buy Spideman bags and Chhota Bheem bed spreads, even when our kids aren’t begging for them – all for that smile on their faces.

And then there are days when we complain about the obsession and the cost and about how marketing companies make children a target of their strategies. They are simply doing their jobs, though some amount of social responsibility wouldn’t hurt.

The kids are of course just being kids.

So then it has to be us who has to put on the brakes, even at the cost of that dear smile from our little one, for it is but transitory. I know I’m stating the obvious but I’m doing it because I need to hear me say it.

We have it tougher than our parents who had fewer choices and didn’t have to struggle with these dilemmas. I wish I could summon my mom’s classic don’t-be-silly look, the one she would have given me, had I asked for something like this – the best ever antidote to smart marketing strategies.

01/03/201615/04/2017

Sports day and a regret

Last week the twins’ had
their Sports Day and H won a bronze in the class race. Instead of celebrating, my first reaction was to look out for N and her reaction. The thing is, N is the sporty one.
She’s the one who comes home with a medal and is heartbroken if she
doesn’t get her moment on the victory stand.

H makes things worse by not being sensitive at all. I could almost
see him revelling in his medal and how that would make
matters worse for N. So when I went to pick them up I hugged them both, underplaying H’s
victory.

As it turned out, to his complete credit and my amazement, H was pretty nonchalant
about the whole thing and didn’t blow his trumpet one bit. Very surprising indeed!

What surprised me even more
was N’s reaction. She was a little upset I could tell, but she kept a smile
firmly on her face and was over it soon enough. It might have to do with
the fact that she was part of the
gymnastic display and so didn’t mind not winning. It might have to do with her recent
dance performance where she’d taken centre-stage already.

It brought home the importance of helping kids find their niche – something they’re good at – academics or a sport, a dance
form or a musical instrument. It does wonders for their self-esteem and allows them to
handle failure better. That’s what seemed to have worked for N.

Maybe I’m over analyzing this and the
kids are just growing up.

Whatever it is, I was a
relieved mum that day. I do have a regret though – I wish I’d had that one moment of unadulterated happiness
and of praise for H – it was the first time he had won at sports
since when he was a toddler.

That’ll remain with me a long time.

It’s good for the kids though: to learn to look beyond themselves – to be empathetic as also to be happy for a sibling or a friend.

If you have more than one child tell me how you handle it when one child does really well and the other doesn’t? How do you praise one child while comforting the other?

25/02/201627/02/2019

Proud, happy and grateful

N’s Bharatnatyam annual day was round the corner and her dance guru called a meeting for parents. I found an inconspicuous corner and sat listening dutifully to the instructions. And then the teacher said, “All women have to come in saris.” (That five meters of traditional Indian garment which can be such a nightmare to drape).

I sat up in some alarm.

I had ended my relationship with the sari some 10 years ago when the twins were born. I tried to renew it once rather tentatively and promptly tripped and fell flat while carrying a two-year-old N. That was when I swore off it. Forever.

I had no intention of going back now.

The announcement propelled me from my corner and I heard myself ask, “Can we come in a suit?” For the first time, I found the full glare of the guru’s eyes on me. I have to confess here that she is rather intimidating. You know how these gurus are – unbending principles, strict discipline and all of that. While I appreciate that an unflinching attitude is essential to teach a serious dance form I have to admit it stresses me out because I am forever fumbling unsure what I might do to upset a rule. That is exactly why I try to make myself invisible at these meetings. “Let’s keep it formal,” she said shortly, “Saris only”. I quailed and looked around for support from the other mums but all of them stared back at me with a don’t-waste-time-with-such-a-non-issue look.

For once I wished I were a man. The only instruction they had was ‘don’t come in jeans’. Hey hello! How unfair was that! We are sentenced to a struggle with five meters of cloth and all they have to do is change out of their jeans! Arrrrrgh!

I receded to my corner wondering what I’d do. Should I send someone in stead of me, I thought desperately. But I wanted to see N on stage and I already had the saris but the blouses – I wouldn’t fit into any of them any longer. Something ready made perhaps would have to do. Pushing down the panic, I reasoned, once the blouse was sorted, it wouldn’t be too bad. All I had to do was dress up, sit, watch, collect N and come home. Yeah! I could do it. I’d manage.

And then I heard the guru’s assistant calling out “Where is N’s mother?” (Yeah she doesn’t even know my name – told you I always hid away) “You’re the volunteer for the Ashtalakshmi performance.” With that she
gave the word ‘volunteer’ a whole new dimension and me a whole new world of panic.

‘Volunteer’ meant no sitting down quietly, in fact no sitting down at all. It meant tucking your palla at your waist and taking charge of a group of girls. Their entry on the stage and their exit, their makeup and accessories, which are mind boggling by the way. N is a junior and her costume alone had 5 pieces. Then there were some 10 bits of jewellery to go with it.

Me.. a non dancer, a non ‘makeuper’, a non stage person, a non sari wearer – me – had to do all of that! And I have no clue why I was picked. I put it down to some really bad deeds of my past birth. Karma.

But it all worked out …

… just as most things in my life have a way of working out. Have I said this before? That I am exceptionally lucky? No, really, I am. It turned out the SIL had the perfect sari and I managed to squeeze into her blouse too. How’s that for luck?

I got dressed in 10 minutes flat. It’s amazing how it all came back to me, just the way my mum had taught me decades ago – what went where, how many pleats to go on the shoulder, how to tuck in the sari firmly so I needed just a single pin. Oooh I felt accomplished!

Besides, I had no time to fuss since N had to be dressed and we had to report early and then there were those 8 girls waiting for me at the venue.Once there it was a blur of getting the giggly talkative bunch ready, running around with hair clips and safety pins, someone had forgotten her dupatta while another one broke her jhumka. Oh it was such delightful chaos.Finally they were all ready and everything was perfect, N looked beautiful as did every single girl on stage. Watching the delighted, proud, excited faces around me I felt a wave of happiness wash over me or was it gratitude? Gratitude, that everything had come together so wonderfully, gratitude for being a part of so much happiness.

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. And to think I considered not coming for the sake of a sari.

Linking up to Vidya’s Gratitude Circle Blog Hop. Do click on the link and head on over.

23/02/201615/04/2017

Bringing up Tweens

The twins are officially in their tweens now – that rather ambiguous age from 9 to 12 when they’re beginning to think of themselves as ‘all grown up’ while we parents are still struggling to get used to them being ‘no longer babies’.

It’s worse, if that’s possible, for twins of different genders because this is the time when gender stereotyping takes over more than ever and their differences become even more pronounced.

The boys become more boyish with the painful ‘I hate girls’ phase at it’s peak before the decline begins when the teens set in. And no thank you I’d much rather not think what that’s going to be like.

As for the girls, well they become girly, annoyingly so – dressing and preening till the mirror throws up it’s hands in frustration.

If you’re looking for some help with your tween do check out my debut piece at Parentous and don’t forget to share your own dos and don’ts. I can always do with more help.

18/02/201615/04/2017

On standing up for yourself

I am a non-confrontationist. I’ve been one all my life. During the decade or more of my working life there were a few times when I had a difference of opinion with a colleague, an argument maybe, but mostly I managed without much of a fight. When a co-wroker was specially infuriating I fretted and fumed endlessly but always in solitude or I would unburden myself before the hapless husband. Having done that I would always go back to work the next day with a smile on my face.

When people stepped onto my toes, I’d not just remove my toes I’d also have a smile for them. Nope I wasn’t a Buddha. I resented each unfairness. But I let it go because of my fear – an irrational dread – of creating a scene. I’d back off even if I was right, even more if the other person was rude, loud or overly aggressive. Some of it sprang from being a very self-conscious person. I wrote about it earlier here .

But I thought it was a good philosophy – I mean, why rankle someone when you can get by without?

Then the twins came along.

It’s one thing to voluntarily subject yourself to unfairness, however small, and a whole different thing to watch the kids being subjected to it either by inclusion (because I wouldn’t stand up for them – ‘Let it go’, I’d say) or because they were picking up what I practiced.

I watched N agreeing with things she didn’t really like, letting people take her for granted, bending backwards for her playmates.

“There really is nothing worse than seeing your weaknesses reflected in your kids.

H was a different story. If I said ‘Let it go’ he’d say ‘But why? Isn’t it unfair.” It was. He was right. It was unfair and dishonest – dishonest to your own self. He bugged me till I had to face up to what I was doing:

“I was being nicest to the nastiest person.

That was the unpleasant truth about me : My best side was reserved for the person most likely to be nasty to me.

Once I knew the truth I could no longer talk myself out of answering some more uncomfortable questions.
– Is that what I want the twins to be?
– To give in to bullies (kids or adults) just because they were afraid of a scene?
– To bear with untrue/unfair allegations because they didn’t want to put up a fight?
– To give in to pressure because they didn’t know how to protest?
– To always take the more peaceful, the easier way out of situations?

I knew the answer to that one.

And I made myself start over. It isn’t easy to let go of a personality trait – one you’ve lived with for decades. However, I have started to ‘take the bull by it’s horns’ to use a cliche. I’m not good at it at all. Repartees don’t come easily to me. I still am dumbstruck by outright rudeness.

Yet I have begun to find my voice sometimes. I register a protest, even if it is a tiny one, even if it is much after the incident, even if it seems a tad out of context. I make myself go back to the offender and say what I have to – that I didn’t think their behaviour was appropriate, that I did not agree with the way they treated me or the kids.

It’s hard but I’m doing it. It’s not perfect either but it’s a start. Sometimes it’s necessary to tell the person stepping on your toes to take his feet elsewhere.

That’s a lesson I want the twins to remember.

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Linking up to Finish the Sentence Friday. Heartfelt thanks to Leah from Little Miss Wordy for this chance at introspection with her sentence prompt ‘Once I knew the truth I could no longer talk myself out of…’ Also thanks to Kristi from Finding Ninee for hosting.