Career versus Full-time-mommy

Guilt is a constant companion to me since i became a mother. There is so much responsibility associated with being a mother.
I feel guilty if let my child watch ½ an hour of T.V. coz I need a bath. Feel guilty if she doesn’t eat her food and ends up eating chocos and bread-sticks with butter for lunch coz she’s unwell. Feel guilty about talking to a friend while my child plays with a much older child. They need constant supervision. It’s a constant tug-of-war. Somehow, I always feel there is something that I could have done better.
When there are other people in the house, this tug-of-war becomes much worse, but somehow, I end up feeling better. When my husband’s parents were here, I was always running around, trying to cater to everyone, including a very demanding child. My in-laws were both unwell so they would need something or the other all the time. I would be busy all the time, but somehow, since they were staying with us I felt a completeness/ smugness come over me. As if being this busy, justified my not being a working mom.
I’ve noticed this change come over me whenever I’m with my in-laws. If I go and stay with them in this old-fashioned, small-town mentality city, I feel more relaxed.
Don’t feel the need to justify my being a housewife there. While, in towns like Delhi/ Mumbai, a lot of women choose to work as soon as they can, even after having kid, leaving small children to stay with either grandparents, or maids or at a crèche. This is probably all good as long as the parents are sure that the child is in safe hands.
But to me, it seems like today’s world doesn’t realize the importance of at least, a mothers company, (if the father can’t make it), in the formative years of a child’s life. The child is learning to “LOOK” at the world when she’s born. She’s learning to walk, touch, taste, smell, feel and listen to the world around her. If she hears an illiterate maid speaking instead of an educated, cultured, well-read parent, then she might as well have been born to the maid.
If you’ve brought a child into the world, doesn’t she deserve to hear her parents speak, watch them behave in a certain way and act in a certain manner, rather than look, feel, talk, walk and listen from a maid’s perspective.
A child DESERVES a parent’s company, perspective and supervision when she’s learning about the world and how to act and react to all that surrounds her. The 1st 4 years of a human child are meant for cognitive development, which happens at a really fast pace. Developmentally, the child goes through the most amount of change in these 1st few years of his/ her existence. If we’ve taken the time to get pregnant and give birth, the least we can do as responsible parents is to ensure that she starts off her life on the right foot.

I'm not saying that all women choose to work as soon as their child learns to sit up, but for some of them, I feel that it could have been avoided just if they had a more supportive spouse or they could prioritise what they really want in life. Some truly precious and important time with their child or a high flying career. I'm sure a lot of them agonise over these dicisions and worry about the effects of leaving the child with alternative care rather than with either parent or a grandparent.

In recent times I've noticed that along with a mordern approach, people have forgotten about basic things like post delivery care for the mother (which incidentally used to extent to 4 months in my mother's time), and the presence of a parent (usually a mother) in the 1st few years of the child's life. Now the mothers want to get into smart office wear 5 days after delivery and start attending corporate meetings too. Yes, women are as educated and capable in the office as their husands and yes, their careers are important too, but if we're pitting one sex against the other here, where does it leave the child??

Proud Homemaker

Being a mom, for me, it means to always have contradictory emotions running through me. I tend to be a bit of a worrier and for me, being “chilled out” is an unfamiliar feeling. Proud mother, that I am, on my on, I am not that confident. Too many things make me angry, outraged, happy, enthused and ecstatic. I have still to figure out the one or two things that could be my calling. And me being me, I can’t seem to be able to do anything I’m not passionate about.
I’ve always had a “deficiency” of “organized thought”. The thoughts just run wild and free, helter-skelter, one on top of the other. There are too many of them and often enough it is difficult to focus on just one.
Not having organized thought makes me a very fickle thinker and makes it very difficult for me to concentrate on one task if there are many things to do, which is almost always the case with a mother & homemaker. Add to this the constant need to read. Just read anything. It could be the newspaper, a paperback, or a book on psychology. It could be about current fashion trends, the global economy, schizophrenia, OCD, Satyajeet Ray, atheism, RHCP, Talveen Singh, breastfeeding, Old-age homes, stilettos, Lake Kilimanjaro, the recipe for Arabiatta sauce, etc., etc., etc.
Add to this the daily onslaught of reading material we get bombarded with. The newspapers can be weighed in kilos on a daily basis. New book releases and magazines on health, mental & physical well being, parenting, the economy & everything else under the sun. What is one to do?? I’m a glutton for ALL of this and more.
And THEN add to this the fact that I’m too much into my child. I just want to be with her ALL THE TIME. Hold her, smell her, fill her brain with thoughts & ideas, play with her etc., etc.
There is so much to do in this world. So much to read, so many new recipes to try, so many films, now that they are so much more creative, realistic & intelligent & therefore more watchable. There is so much new music out there, new plays and new art exhibits, so much creativity. There is so much to talk to your child about ……………
And yep – there is so much cleaning to do….
So I guess I’ll go back to my duties as a “homemaker” & to continue to try & feel proud about my current job:- a proud mother and a homemaker.

The need to be more proactive

Just read bout an American who went to Nepal and set up an orphanage and a foundation for children abducted by traffickers. I’m worried how even a 1 minute experience can shape, change or scar my child. What happens to these children is anyone’s guess. Humans are the worst, most cruel and ruthless animals of all. What makes them capable of loving and caring for 1 child and killing another? These children are separated from their parents and siblings, starved, made to beg, or do manual labor in sub-human conditions OR forced into the sex trade.
Is anyone thinking of them when government policies and budgets are made?
Thousands of children disappear from their homes every year, their parents too poor or illiterate or naive to be able to do anything.
I feel that literacy and economic reforms along with very strong law-enforcement is the key to working against these sick people. This should go hand-in-glove with extremely stringent action taken against human trafficking, pedophilia, begging & child labor. These are the “markets” that traffickers cater to.
People should be sensitized to these issues & the government should take action against begging in a big way. We are “EMPLOYERS” of these children if we give in to their begging. That’s the perspective that needs to be taken. If it is lucrative enough to beg, the trafficking will continue.

My daughter, who is all of 3, is extremely curious these days. She's always asking me questions, taking things apart, and being aggressive about doing almost everything that I do. She's simply driving me up-the-wall with her "I'll answer the bell" , "I'll open the door" , "no one will touch my toys", "I want to go to so-and-so's house" Etc., etc. If I manage to convince her to go in for a bath, it takes even more convincing to get her out. If i can tempt her to go out and play with me, it'll be even more difficult to get her to come back home. Its like this for EVERYTHING we do. Finding it really difficult to cope with this tiny, defiant, aggressive and almost cheeky little imp, who used to be so sweet, obedient, almost docile just a few months ago........ She seems to have developed this ability to question everything that i say to her. It could be: "beta come here?" - "why?" OR "beta eat this"- "why?" OR "beta dont pour water on the couch" - "why?" ........ AAAAAAAARRRRRGH.......... What does one doooooo......... She wants her clothes to match with her shoes and clips and hanky! its like an early teenage with the inability to understand the world around thrown into the whole aggressive , cheeky, angry-young-lady mix. God!! help me when she hits her teens.

Newbie

Yup!!! I'm a newbie in the world of blogs...... Been out of touch with cyerspace and all its goings ons for the past 4 years.. no excuses .... but was tooo busy getting married, moving house a zillion times and having a baby. :-)
Yup!!! a Baby Who is now a bit grown up but a child being a child, she just LOOOVES to get in my hair all the time. And being the age that she is, she's just found out that you can ask MOMMY ANYTHING IN THE WORLD, ALL THE TIME...... So i suddenly feel like she thinks that I'm an encyclopedia!!!
OOPS!!! my child wants me NOW....
seee yaaaa......