Too old for this!

Too Old To Change My Stripes #AmWriting 

Sorry for the late entry… I came across this blog prompt this afternoon and decided to ignore it. But then it sat in my head and refused to let go. Of course, I’m flawed. Yes. And I am not ashamed to admit it. Let’s face it, no one is perfect. We all have those unique character traits that make us so easy to despise, whether as a mother, a daughter, a lover, a wife or colleague or whatever.

But unlike the blog prompt, I am not one of those who thinks my flaws make me awesome: they just make me that much more crabby and difficult to live with. My spouse and girls will surely vouch for this as they have been the longest sufferers!

Before you turn away, let me tell you why. And since I love making lists (you can call that a flaw too) here’s a list of things you can hate me for.

1.     I lie. Oh yes, I do. There are times when I do not have the answer but do not want to say, “I don’t know”. So I wing it. Picture this: I was a new bride and the husband and I were shopping for light fittings and boring stuff like that at an old crowded part of the city where my father’s office used to be many years ago. Obviously, there were no parking spaces and loads of traffic so we told the driver to go around the corner and come back. My husband, thinking I was familiar with the area, looked at me and asked, “how long will it take him to return?” Promptly I replied: “8 minutes”. Half an hour later, when there was still no sign of the car, he looked at me questioningly. I shrugged, “I lied!” 23 years later, my husband still complains about it! And that is just one tiny example. Like any good liar, I’m good at making up stories too, like the time I convinced my tiny girls that the Taj Palace was really a palace and they were going to dine with the king himself and got the best behavior out of them. Or the time I told them if they ate sunflower seeds they would have sunflowers growing in their tummies and got them to run up to me, open their mouths wide and ask if I could see the flowers. Yup, how cute it was and how I saw flowers … every time! Or the zillion times I told them that if they did not study I would buy them sickles so they could go cut grass … or the “what comes out goes back in” rule while eating! Every mother is guilty of these little tales, I guess. We make up these stories that make monsters and evil witches out of us… for a long time my daughters seriously believed I had eyes at the back of my head! Raising children is no walk in the park and if a little bending of the truth will help, so be it!

2.     I look like something the cat dragged in: Among a sea of well-dressed, well-groomed mothers, I was invariably the one that turned up in a crushed kurta or jeans and a well-worn tee. It’s not that I didn’t have clothes, it’s just that I’ve never really cared about what I looked like as long as I have been comfortable. I remember that one time in the afternoon when I went to a child’s fifth birthday party (when the kids are small you have to do that a lot) in my usual grunge top which I had also visited the bazaar in and looked around and found myself worse dressed than the maids around me! That day I went home and told my husband for the first time that I thought I needed some new clothes! How he laughed when I described my predicament! At parent-teacher meetings my daughters used to be embarrassed that I invariably turned up in court clothes while the other mothers were immaculately dressed. I was always grateful that I had an uniform at my place of work, if I had to wake each morning and co-ordinate my slippers with my sari with my bindi with my lipstick, I would go completely mad!

3.     I’m mad: Trust me on this. Once day my teenage daughter looked at me thoughtfully after one of our fights and told me I was going mad. I looked her in the eye, “you must get one thing straight,” I said, “I am not GOING anywhere. I AM mad!” That child has been a little wary of me from that day onwards! I not only talk to myself, I actually have arguments with myself and hate it when I’m disturbed by tiny voices that ask, “Ma, are you ok?” I am the one who will happily go swimming in the middle of the night or sit on top of a hill all night to watch the full moon track its way across the sky. I’m the one who wakes my daughters at the crack of dawn to watch a sunrise because it’s gorgeous. I’m the one who, in a Darjeeling winter, opens the window of our warm, cosy bedroom room to take pictures of the Kanchenjungha as the sun rises! It used to drive my husband nuts, now he just turns the other way and pulls the blanket closer!

4.     I’m a bully: As a child I was quite the tomboy. I could wrestle my older cousins to the floor and climbed a tree a mite faster than the other kids. I would dig for earthworms and use them as bait to fish, I would scale walls, venture into graveyards after dark on a challenge, play for hours with mud and clay, sneak around the garden long after the adults thought we were in bed fast asleep and generally lead all my cousins and friends who listened to me into trouble. And I was quite the bully, there was hell to pay if anyone dared disobey me! That bullying has left me in good stead because if there is one thing I have learnt it’s that after marriage one has to be a bit of a bully to get things done. Specially with kids. They require so much poking and prodding and general reminders to move along that often I am left feeling like a shepherd having to move all my little sheep along. And yes, that includes the biggest baby of them all, the spouse! Of yes, you have to be able to wield that stick!

5.     I tell it like it is: I don’t hedge, I don’t hum, I don’t haw. If you asked for my opinion you will get it, whether you like it or not. Sometimes you will get it even if you did not ask for it. It gets me into trouble, it gets people angry with me, I’m the queen of faux pas, the one with her foot constantly in her mouth. To me, there is no topic that is taboo. As my girls have grown, I have told my girls everything they have wanted to know, including how many boyfriends I might have had before I met their dad! They get an honest opinion, whether they like it or not. This openness has held us in good stead with each other. While they were growing up my famous hits included “because I said so”, “I told you so”, “I was born mean”, the especially traumatic, “I have failed as a mother” and the perrenial "you won't like it if I have to get up" (which I still use with the dogs) so go figure. Having said that, there are times when I do not speak and that I believe is my biggest flaw: the times when I am silent. For that happens when people use me as a doormat. Yes, I guess it happens to the best of us. The husband tells me I have to stand up for myself at times like these. But the moment passes and I am still struggling for the words. If I do say something the words come out all wrong. I have always been this way and I tell myself that those people do not matter, but I guess for all my bravado, I’m just a ninny at heart.

These are the flaws that come to mind just now. There must be more… and no my flaws do not make me awesome but they make me exactly who I am. If that is what flawsome means, I guess I am flawsome too!

 

What do you think? 

Evil witch, this one is trouble!!!

Evil witch, anyone? 

I called my sister-in-law an evil witch the other day. (Point to be noted: my sister-in-law is a mother to a 8 year old child. A boy who is naughty, funny and an absolute devil at times. Just like children that age are meant to be.)

Understandably, she was upset.

Tragically, I do not see why. 

You see, I have been that evil witch the last 18 years and I was only passing the mantle down. My older sister-in-law was the evil witch before me and she was good with that.

Like I say, motherhood is no popularity contest. If your kids think you're ace, you've certainly got something wrong. Someone wise once said that your children start out loving you. Then they judge you, sometimes, they forgive you. I have been pretty merciless with my girls, I'm hoping they will forgive me. And even if they don't, if they pass on what I have taught them, it will be enough. The younger one turned 18 yesterday...so I consider my job half done. I hope they will not be reading this but I am proud to say that they are pretty street smart and grounded. I have raised them to be able to stand up for themselves and be independent. One is now in college, battling out a hostel life and the other has gone to get a learners license ... I'm happy. But the road has not been easy. And, oh yes, I have been an evil witch for as long as I can remember. I was evil when I did not allow the nights out. I became positively mean when I refused to give money for that party in the pub that allows underage kids, I was surely evil when I said they have to fend for themselves whether on camp or in college and I grew horns when I told them they have to sink or swim. 

I wear my horns with pride.

Raising kids is not easy. I've said it a thousand times and I will say it a thousand times more ... there's so much you have to share: responsibility, love, kindness, independence, even a fierce sort of freedom ... and you have to be mean to get there. Mothers are not the most popular of people, why even try? 

I remember when my daughters came home and told me so and so's mother was so nice, she let her daughter stay up to watch TV. I told them to ask if she would adopt them. Another time it was the phone, someone else had a iPhone, while hers was only a MotoG. I asked her to get used to the idea that she was poor. Another child was allowed to use public transport at night, I insisted on dropping her home myself. My daughters thought I was outdated but I was only playing safe. We have had endless fights and arguments, even now we scrap about the bed not being made, the room being dirty, night outs and stuff. I insist on knowing who they are out with and where and tell them clearly when I do not like their friends, they have to deal with it.

It makes me a bully. It makes me evil. Some times, I'm a witch. 

I love it. 

Mothering fail? 

When the younger daughter was in Class VIII, she wanted to drop out of school. She was quite serious about it when she said it too. So, I looked at her earnest face, sat her down and told her that the next seven years of her life were mine. Four years of school and three years (at least) for a graduate degree. Thankfully, she agreed. She did not look too happy about it, but she agreed.

This year, the seven years are up. And my girl has not forgotten. She graduates in a month or so and when asked what she plans next, she shrugs, says she is taking at least a year off from studies pointedly reminds me that she has given me my seven years. And I’m not complaining. And what seven years it has been! This daughter is a master at last minute arrangements, which I totally get. Everything happens just as you are ready to give up on her, whether it is her college admissions or internship or even her social life. Do I fret? Of course I do but deep down inside I know she will figure it out. 

As for the older daughter, she too graduates in a month or so. Its ironical, they are (as many of you know) just a year apart. So, when she was small and she wouldn’t study at school, I used to frighten her saying she could flunk and then study in her younger sister’s class. Well, she did a four-year degree and her sister a three-year one. So now they are at par!!! When asked what she wants to do next, she is wavering between trying for JNU and some other stuff. But she is also adamant that she wants to sit for the civil service exams. From home. 

As far as I am concerned, that is the part that scares me. From home. That means for the next few odd years she will be slumming it at home and I will be fretting about whether she is working hard enough or even trying to. I know I will look in on her and prod her to get up and tear my hair out at the state of her room. So last night the spouse and I had a long hard chat with her. Of course, we will let her follow her dream and of course she will be at home while she does it. We will just have to wait and see whether she has the grit or determination to see this through. 

The girls were both home over the weekend. The younger one left early yesterday, with barely a whispered “happy Mother’s Day.” The older one had to be prodded to arrange a “surprise” dinner for me! We don’t really believe in Mother’s Day and stuff save to the extent that it’s a good excuse to order in some nice food. What use is Mother’s Day, anyway? What are we celebrating? Motherhood is a unique and strange journey that speaks to each individual and their circumstances. Call me strange, but I never had a role model to follow when mothering my children. We just bumbled along till we got it right. The baby part was easy: potty training and breast feeding are simple in comparison to what’s in store. Toddlers were a handful but we toddled through it, one baby step at a time. The dreaded pre-teens and teens were spent with the three of us being hormonal and having loud fights and making up thereafter. Looking back, if you ask me the worst years are the seven to elevens. That’s when kids grow into their own, when they push every boundary and see how far they can go. Kids are wicked, calculating, devious and extremely perceptive instruments of evil. They know if you disagree with the spouse, they know which is the hand that gives and they jolly well know how to play one parent against another. They learn how to demand and get things from the people around them and that includes the uncles, aunts and grandparents. This is when the boundaries are set. This is the time to be firm and set examples. 

The other day we ‘met’ some modern parents. They blocked a gate, ignoring the cars waiting to go in and sat in the car and smiled while their toddler had a tantrum on the road about something and hugged him and coaxed him into the car. Trust me, I would have just whacked him or (worse) left him behind for a minute or two! Nowadays you cannot do that, you will “traumatize” the “little darling”! Another mother has this principle that she will not discipline her kids. They are growing into their own personalities and they should be allowed to do so. So, if she does reprimand or shout at them, she is punished by her children! I mean, how mad is that? Thank heavens all this was not there when my girls were growing up, I’d still be standing in the “naughty corner”! Of course, these modern houses have no concept of naughty corners! Of course, I think COVID and the lockdown is partly to blame. I read a report in the papers that children don’t wish to take notes anymore in school, the parents demand it be sent online. Another parent said she can’t go to work because her daughter is giving an exam and she has to sit there with her. I mean, who is being tested here? Children have become dependent on their parents in ways we cannot imagine and vice versa, so many mothers I know were actually upset that their children had to go to school when they opened up. “But don’t they need to be with other children their age?” I asked pointedly. Pat came the reply, “they have Google meet for that!” Nonsense, when will they play in the mud and get wet in the rain and run around playing catch with their friends? But most children, I was told, don’t even do that anymore. And if I used to have a complex about school-gate moms, now there’s a whole new world of WhatsApp Moms I can’t even contemplate. I give up! To each her own... As I say there is no right way of parenting, only your way.

Anyway, coming back to motherhood, my way. Thinking back, I was pretty lousy as a parent, as I said we bumbled along and somehow got it right. I think. More credit to the girls than me. I was the parent who was late to pick up her kids, I was the clueless mother in the parent-teacher meetings trying desperately to hide under the desk, I was the mom too tired to cook anything but Maggi for her kids in the evening, I was the mom who gave up on trying to remember that the girls had a test, I was the impatient mom who did not have time to sit with the girls when they were supposedly studying. There’s a lot I did wrong. 

So, thing is, if I got a second shot at it all, would I do it differently? No way. 

Now as I said, they are graduating. Everyone’s favourite question is, “what’s next? What about post-graduate courses?” Most of our friend’s kids are going places for their Master’s degrees and some of them look at me sadly when I say my girls aren’t doing any of that just yet. One even told me I was making a mistake, I should push them harder. I just smiled and said nothing. He won’t even understand if I try to explain that it is their life, not mine. 

There’s only one thing I demand of my children. And I have been steadfast over the years. Be happy (of course, it comes with a rider not to deliberately hurt others or be rude or horrible and all that) but at the end of the day, its simple: be happy. Do what makes you happy. Do what YOU want to. Not because you cannot do anything else or because it is someone else’s dream for you. One can live with failure but not the weight of other people’s dreams. So go follow that star, it shines only for you.