Warning: this is a longish read. Because parenting is like that: longish and feels like it has no end.
Why do they call it a “parenting journey”, have you ever wondered? It’s a journey all right, but it’s not one of those last minute ones where you stuff some stuff into a back pack and ride off into the sunset… Parenting is like going on a (sometimes long and arduous) foreign vacation that calls for meticulous planning and visas and serious stuff like that. Let me explain:
1. THE PLAN: Of course, you have to choose the destination. You might want to be scuba diving off the Amalfi Coast and your husband wants to check out the night life and cabarets in Paris. So you need to come to an arrangement which has a bit of everything. When do we go, where do we go? Shall we book ourselves or get a travel agent? Do we need visas? How much money do we need? Of course, planning is everything. Likewise, when do we have the baby? (Is it really in your hands?) How many will we have? What will it do to the budget? Do we need help? Speaking for myself, I had no body clock issues. I was happy without children. I knew someday maybe I would have them but was in no hurry. Then I got married and met my nephew and niece (all of almost 3 and 4 years old!) and I fell in love with them, I would load them in the dicky of this van we had and go off on adventures together. It got to a stage when I would stand in the shop and fall in love with tiny toddler clothes. (Yes, that tiny little t’shirt that says “trouble maker” or the cute dress with embroidered smocking!) I thought we should plan for children of our own. So we did and sooner or later, there they were. Now you know what’s the best thing about other people’s children? You play with them and have fun and all and you’re done. Someone else takes care of the serious stuff. With your own children, now, you cannot just pass them off, they are yours to keep! You think you're perpared for the little devils but you never really are! I need to mention here that not all parents have the luxury of planning, it’s like going on a package tour where an agent hands you an itinerary and brochures and you have a vague idea of where you are going, but not exactly what you are doing there. No matter how you get there, welcome to parenthood!
2. THE TAKE OFF: So you have woken up at an ungodly hour, you’ve cleared immigration, killed the two interminable hours at the airport, your boarding pass and passports are all organised and boarding is announced. You look around, one child is standing next to the water cooler watching with glee as water puddles around her, the other is under the seat hunting for a crayon that has rolled away. You smack one, drag the other out by the feet and board the flight. Parenting is nothing without its share of surprises. Just when you think you have one thing sorted, another will hit you smack between the eyes. You think the breast-feeding stage is over, the bottle-sterilization saga starts. You’ve moved on from Lactogen and Cerelac, but the pureed peas have been pasted on the floor. You congratulate yourself that the Pediasure has gone down the hatch, don’t worry, some of it was just regurgitated on your new sofa! And what can I say about toilet training? I do not think there is a single loo in any restaurant or hotel or airport or Mall or even shop that I have visited with the kids that I do not know. All of a sudden, a perfectly happy child will press her legs together and look at you with such an expression that you will be compelled to run… to the nearest washroom! I recall this time when I left the house with a toddler to visit my in laws who stayed quite a distance away. She was in the back seat and barely had we gone halfway that she said "potty" in that voice that any mother will know. Luckily it was a Sunday and I floored the accelerator. A cop on a bike decided to follow. He finally caught up with me just as I reached a red light near my destination. He looked angry, he tapped on my glass. I just pointed to the child and said 'potty'. He looked at my daughter who still had that expression on her face and muttered something about going too fast and waved me on. Thankfully we made the pot in time.
3. THE FLIGHT: the flights are long and cramped. You have planned to settle down, enjoy the in-flight service, grab a nap and reach your destination feeling refreshed. No. There is nothing relaxing about a long haul flight. There are too many distractions. All those movies to watch, the meals, the constant chatter of people as uncomfortable as you, the fat guy in front who has reclined his seat so far back that it feels like his head is on your chest, the child whose feet keep kicking the back of your seat. It's impossible to relax. Parenting is like that. No matter how much you propose that you will sit back and relax, there are too many distractions, be it in the form of friends, pre-school, cuts, bruises or just storytelling. There's always something more to do. I am an avid reader. For years I have been reading, specially at bedtime. When the girls were small I forgot what it was like to read. I couldn't go past a page without a plaintive "ma" cutting in. Other times I was too exhausted. And for those who think escaping to the loo is a solution, banish the thought. That is exactly when the child will decide to stuff cotton up her nose or break something.
4. CULTURE SHOCK So you've read volumes on the places you are visiting. You know they have nude beaches in Spain and PDA is common all over the West. But nothing prepares you as you as you round a small dune on a beach in Barcelona and find a whole beach covered with naked bodies just sunning themselves. You are unprepared for the passionate kissing on the subway escalator in London. Of course you stare. Till you remind yourself that that is no way to behave. And you teach your children to pop their eyeballs back into their heads and look away. Children are a bit of a culture shock too. They are nothing like you expect them to be. Nothing that Dr Spock can tell you can prepare you for your own children each of who are utterly unique and react to situations differently. If you thought what was good for one child will be good for another, think again. The only good rule is that there are no rules. Right from their personalities to their likes, dislikes, taste in food to music to entertainment, each one is different. And they will not let you overlook it. They will fight about things you did not know existed (like whether Justin Bieber is better than Zayn Something or the dress that someone wore at Cannes was too flashy or whether chocolate fountains are cooler than softy ice-creams!) till you are shocked into silence and learn to look away! Trivial, you say? Nothing is trivial about sibling rivalry, trust me.
5. MISSED CONNECTIONS: Of course, on any long vacation, there are missed connections. Cancelled flights, delays, lousy hotel rooms, mistaken itineraries. Despite the best of intentions and planning, anything can go wrong. And usually something does. At a conducted tour in Venice, the spouse and I missed the bus. After a bit of a panic we reached the gondola station and ultimately had a wonderful experience touring the grand canal before meeting up with our group but that was a happy ending. Not all endings are happy. Having small kids mean not only vaccinations, but also the flu, head lice, tummy aches, abscesses, cuts, scrapes, sprains and sometimes even serious stuff like Kawasaki disease and gastroenteritis and appendicitis and even cancer. What can I say? Shit happens. That’s an important part of parenting; to take things in your stride and do the needful. Visit the doctor, in fact make friends with your pediatrician if you can, chat with him if you meet socially. It will come to use. I remember long sleepless nights of sitting with a sick child; there is nothing quite as heart wrenching. Nothing makes you feel as helpless. The older child was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease at age 3. No, despite her having gone through a surgery at age one to a hospitalization for gastroenteritis at age 2, nothing prepared us for that night at the hospital when the drip was changed every hour as a special injection was flown in from Bombay and we basically sat there helplessly. Don’t forget I had another child at home who was distressed that her sibling and parents were missing. The younger one was diagnosed with cancer. She was older but nothing prepared us for that either. Get used to it. I would not wish it on anyone but being a parent means wearing your heart on your sleeve and having your feet firmly on the ground. One does not know when life will serve a curve ball to you.
6. COMMUNICATION ISSUES: So you’ve gone for a holiday to Europe. You have your smile and a few Ouis and Mercis and Gracias and Dankes in your dictionary. You think your English will see you through. Mostly, it probably will, but prepare to be surprised, there is always that Greek shaking his fist when you haggle too much or that Swiss lady who mutters away incomprehensibly when you have not finished all the potatoes on your plate. Raising children sometimes feels like communication in a foreign language. No matter what you say or how you say it, you are better off talking to a wall. You tell them to clean their room, they hear ‘shove the stuff under the bed and watch TV’. You tell them to come for dinner and they hear “start a video chat with friends”. And school is a whole new ball game of Double Dutch. Half the time you feel the teachers are speaking in some foreign language. To my girls it sounded like gibberish, they never could understand anything said to them in class. At parent teacher meetings I used to squirm as if I was in class three again and being punished for some naughty escapade. And teaching them to write? They came up with a script unknown to man. There was a stage when there were so many letters of the alphabet facing the other way that I thought my girls were dyslexic. Trust me, that feeling passes, just like that feeling when you get back to the hotel room after haggling with the cute Italian shopkeeper only to find the same souvenir at half the price at another shop the next day!
7. THE SIGHTSEEING: After all the trials and tribulations and fussing and everything, sightseeing is what you have taken this trip for. And it makes it all worth it. Just as you were awestruck sleeping under the stars at Wadi Rum to the sheer magnificence of the sunset at Oban to the chaotic bustle at Times Square to the imposing silence of Glen Coe to the thrilling rides at the Oktoberfest to the serene underwater experience in Gili T, these are the things that remain long after the holiday is over. Every parent has a fair share of these, through their children’s joys and achievements, their successes and their triumphs. Most of all through their laughter and the joy of moments shared together. You will forget what you were squabbling about but you will remember forever that tiny hand that clutched yours when you took her swimming that first time, or that smile that greeted you when you came home from work, or the cheeky grin when you caught her stealing Nutella from the jar! These moments together make everything new again. Not all experiences are all fun, like that time when my daughter dragged her feet and complained that the Grand Canyon was just a rock and she would rather be walking on Fifth avenue. (Trust me, I wanted to whack her privileged backside all the way to Mars!) But all in all, the shared experiences make parenting worth every paisa and more. Hold on to these, share experiences and make memories for these are all that remain, snapshot forever in your heart, and theirs. I remember after particularly trying days after battling the girls with their spellings and math and dinner and routines and what-not, I would quietly go to their room and from the darkness, a voice would call out, “love you, Ma”, little arms would reach out and hug me goodnight. Moments like these make you want the world to stop. But it never does, does it?
8. THE SHOPPING: Ah. Everyone loves to shop on vacation. Even a die-hard non-shopper like me goes on a holiday and feels like I would not survive another day without that cuckoo clock hanging in my living room, or that porcelain doll that whistles “Memories’ or that crystal hookah that looks so gorgeous. The girls too love to explore the shops, they have their eyes set of things that are beyond our reach. I told them you can look but we cannot buy. Imagine my disappointment when, in Saks, one child actually told the other that when she dies, some of her ashes should be scattered there! Anyway, shopping comes to a whole new level when you are a parent. First of course the diapers and stuff. When I became a mother a single diaper cost 15 rupees, you got it in packets of tens. I don’t know about you but I used to think Rs. 15 was too much for a bit of poop. But buy it we did, specially when we were travelling! We had a friend whose brother-in-law worked with Johnsons and Johnsons and sent them diapers in bulk, how I envied them! Thank heavens there was no Mothercare and all the fancy baby brands you see nowadays, half my life’s savings would have been spent on stuff my kids would outgrow in three months! Having said that, shopping patterns do change as we become parents. At one time it was cheese, at another it was cereals. I think at one point of time every conceivable brand, flavor and shape of cereal took up residence in my house only to be rejected after two helpings. One was bought for the ad, another for the free gift, yet another because a sipper was free! How we fell for those. And you do want the best for your child, so there were health drinks. The children claimed Milo was tasty, so Milo came home. The doctor recommended Pediasure so there it was. The in-laws said Horlicks was best, so Horlicks it was. Someone swore by Complan, do you think I wanted to deprive my child? No way! Of course, don’t even ask about what happened to it all, but early on, the budget went through the roof. As they grew their needs changed. Chocolates, marshmallows, cocoa, peppermint, chips, Maggi, Thumsup, popcorn, pasta, bhujia, the list never ended. It became a part of life. I only realized it fully after the children left home for college. I went grocery shopping and bought only the necessities. The shop-keeper gave me a sad smile, “the girls are away,” he said. And of course, girls and their clothes shopping! I’m not going there at all as it would justify a whole new blog-post but it beats me how such tiny strips of cloth masquerading as ‘tops’ can cost so much!
9. THE FOOD: You visit new places, you try their food. But of course. Why go to Jordan if you will not taste the Maqloba? Or the macaroons in France, or the black pudding in Scotland or the Paella in Spain? It’s like going to Kashmir and not having Kahwa! Parenting is also largely about food. At first you are only trying to get them to eat, then you are trying to get them to develop a taste for food, then you are trying to get them to eat what they ordered and stop wasting their own food and eating your food. And lastly its only about food. I remember there were days on end that I only ate their leftovers, by the time I finished theirs, I had no space for whatever I had wanted to eat! Nowadays too, life centers around food. We can also blame social media and TV for that. In the lockdown whether a day will go well or not depends on what will be served for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. One wants cookies, the other wants cake. One likes kadhi, the other will only pick at it. One loves mutton, the other is bored. The other day we made muttar paneer at home, everyone agreed it was good. I told the maid to make it again today. (I’m also running out of ideas). One daughter suddenly declared at the lunch table that, “if I see muttar paneer again, I will throw up!” Ouch. When they were small and they said they did not like something I used to sternly tell them that I asked them to eat it, not like it. Apparently that does not work anymore!
10. EXHAUSTION: That wonderful much awaited vacation is almost over. Your camera is bursting with captured moments, your heart is full of memories, you have shopped for all it is worth and your suitcase is full of souvenirs and stuff that you have bought for yourself, friends, relatives and others and you are frantically trying to stay within the weight limit. There is a feeling of happy exhaustion. To looking forward to going home. Remember that feeling? That’s parenting too. You go through the bad grades and sports days and report cards and investiture ceremonies and school plays and choir concerts knowing that one day the children will fly the nest. It’s a happy exhaustion. You have given it your all and done what you were meant to do. You may not know it but you have been waiting for this day from the beginning: for when your children will let go of your hands and fly on their own wings and test their own strengths. The world waits for them, you wait in the wings, ready to catch them if they fall, in case they need you again. Its not exhaustion, really although it may feel that way sometimes. Its happiness. Mingled with sorrow. A bitter-sweet joy.
11. HOMECOMING: Finally, you have made it through the security checks and duty-free shops and you come back home. Your fancy vacation is over and you have unpacked all your stuff and life is returning to normal. You have discovered that there is no place like home and one’s own bed is the most comfortable place where one can rest one’s head. You love the soft contours of your pillow, the blanket is familiar and slips on you comfortably. But don’t get too comfortable. Children grow up and leave home but keep coming back. Look at my two. As I keep saying they went away to college only to complain that they miss home and finding any excuse to come back. With the pandemic and the national lockdown I can’t even complain. I feel for those mothers whose children are stuck in places far from home, no matter how grown up they may be. For our children will always be our children and nothing can still the worried heart of a parent, whether the child is 5 or 50! It’s a lifetime job, no holidays, no respite. They say it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. Parenting is something like that. The journey twists and turns and takes you through a roller-coaster of emotions and experiences that you never thought you would have but don’t forget to stop ever so often and enjoy it. For children will grow up and children will leave home but they will keep returning and your lives will be richer for it.
Long live the journey!
