A Decade of Motherhood: Lessons I learnt (I)
A lesson that has kept rearing its
head time and again in my journey of motherhood, of which I am going to
complete 10 years in a couple of months, is something that I refused to learn
till the very recent times. It is a lesson that my mother wanted me to adopt as
soon as my daughter started to talk, walk, and defy. In short, being an
independent child.
Today, it is this lesson that I wish
I had the sense to adopt the first time my mother said it out loud to me. But
then who would I be if not a common-sense-defying rebel! Or on the other hand
maybe this is what makes motherhood such an adventure ride- the ability to gain
sense and discover things which only experience can shower upon you.
The lesson that I am talking about
has been worded by so many smart and intelligent people over the ages, that I
can fill up pages with their quotes, but I am going to give you two of my
favourites that spell it out the best for me.
"Don't worry that the children
never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you."
Robert
Fulghum, American author
"Children are educated by what
the grown up is and not by his talk."
Carl
Jung, Swiss psychiatrist
Children are great at observing and
assimilating. We, the parents, especially the first timers, are such naive things
that we neither know this nor understand its implications.
Eventually with time and, if luck is
on your side, some kind soul points you in its direction and you begin to see
the immense truth in statements like these.
When my daughter was about three, I
was so over the joys of motherhood (read losing my first born, becoming a
first-time parent and staying alone in a city with a busy husband and no
friends- virtual or real) that I began to treat her as a grown up individual.
When she turned four and started school in a new city, I expected her to go to
school in a rickshaw all by herself after waving me a cheerful good bye at the
gate. As she grew a little more, I began to expect her to take full
charge of her homework and then school tests, maintaining her notebooks and
finishing her syllabus. I was willing to help her with the preparation bit but
I wanted the realisation that her work is her responsibility to dawn on her.
This, goes without saying, failed miserably.
It led to a great deal of frustrating
and emotionally sapping times. My mother by then had repeated a mantra, that
today I swear by, at least a hundred times to me. Every time, in front of her,
when I asked my daughter to brush her teeth or pack her bag for the next day,
my mother would tell me to get up, take my child's hand and do the thing (task)
with her.
I fumed at her and told her that the
child needs to know it is her job to finish packing her bag for the next day or
to know how important it is to brush her teeth. Initially, my mother would try
to reason with me, telling me she is but a child and that is what children do.
She soon gave up and just shrugged her shoulders. Maybe my utter
boneheaded-ness had gotten to her or maybe she had deposited our cause to
higher powers.
Gradually, all I was doing was
yelling at my one-and-only child. Because I refused to get off my backside and
lead her to finishing chores, I was getting frustrated with time running out on
us. Be it morning, noon or night, nothing was getting done. My child was unhappy.
Her school performances began to falter and I found myself in a constant bad
mood. One because nothing was getting done and secondly because then I would go
on a huge guilt trip for being a bad mother who only always shouted at her child.
It was as if both of us were stuck
in a bubble together but wanted to go in different directions. I was looking
for excuses to be away from my child and this could not continue.
So one day, tired of all the
shouting, defeated by all the heartache and spurred by maternal instincts, I
did not ask her to do something that needed doing. Instead I took her hand and
went with her to do it. I do not remember what it was that needed to be done
but I do remember that both of us were surprised by the amount of time it took
to finish the job at hand; and that there was laughter bouncing off of the
walls of the house soon after that.
It made me realise that motherhood,
just like childhood, is a journey. Also, that you lose your way often in this
journey of discoveries. I also realised that no two days are the same. Nothing
happens by chance. It takes concrete effort to teach children anything that you
want them to adapt for life and the shortest way to accomplish that is to lead
by example.
If you want the child to get up
early, you will have to get up ahead of them. Similarly, if you want them to
turn in early, you will have to give up the lures of fantastic articles, videos
and jokes online and go to bed in time.
Cribbing about giving up your
previous life doesn't help. Nobody tells you this when you plan or have a baby,
but being a parent and, at that, being a mother is tough. So buckle up and do
the needful, I say, you signed up for this. Willingly or not, it is not a
consideration (concession?) that parenthood offers!!
Children do not need to be told what
to do. They need to be shown. From seeing us, their parents, their elders, they
learn faster, and better. This method also involves less heartache for all the
parties involved and that is a precious something which I have learnt in 10
years of being a mother.
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