I became a mother 26 years ago. The moment my doctor showed me the barest glimpse of my son before taking him away to another hospital’s NICU because he wasn’t breathing the way he should, was the moment I realised that my entire sanity hinged upon this one small being staying alive. A harrowing 25 days later, we finally got him in our arms but we were repeatedly warned to be careful with him because of the lung complications he’d had when he was born.
Before we got him home, I remember going to the NICU to feed him and I had no idea how to even hold him properly. The nurse there looked at me with barely concealed annoyance: “This is how you hold a baby, ma. Don’t you even know that?” The unsaid words were, what sort of mother are you? Well, I was just a 20-year-old then, who had been handed a baby of her own. I was that sort of mother.
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In the initial months and years, I depended heavily on my mother for help. My son was colicky; he could develop wheezing at any point of time; he would cry from seven in the evening till three in the morning. I remember feeling overwhelmed when my brother went for a movie while I stayed at home. The only thought that struck me was that this is my life now. I will never be able to do anything I want because everything is dictated by the schedules of a baby.
But, of course, that wasn’t true. Things changed as he grew older and I realised that I could not contain my existence, and identify myself as a mother and nothing else. My contemporaries were getting jobs, getting ahead in their careers while I was thinking of playschool options for him when he was three. I was also intent on doing other things with my life.
A miscarriage and an IUD (Intrauterine Device) later, I wanted to heal, not just my body but also my mind. I got a job. Navigating a job with a small child was unheard of, especially because it had never been done in my family. Women didn’t get jobs. They didn’t leave the house, or work from the house (as I’d negotiated for). But the distance was an eye-opener. I felt like me, once again, and not just an Ammi.
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A few years later, I had my second son. Because of the mishaps between him and the first, my pregnancy had been considered risky (and even unnecessary by the ultrasound doctor). Nevertheless, I had him and it felt like I’d been given a second chance at motherhood. To fix the mistakes I’d made with the first. But life isn’t really like that, is it?
Both boys, as they were growing up, were very different. My method of parenting was to try and remember what my mother would do, but not be that strict about enforcing it. I was a laid back mother most of the time, because I didn’t think it was fair to push the boys into doing things they weren’t sure about. This often backfired when they began to take things too easy.
The thing about being an Indian parent is that even if you’re laid back, the world around you isn’t. Before WhatsApp groups were invented, it was the parent-teacher meetings where I would see other parents really going at the teacher for their child’s performance. I would look inwards and wince, wondering if I should be a little more strict.
Funnily enough, the boys used to call me Monster Mom (they don’t remember it now) but they thought the version of me that was strict was awful. But I had to put my foot down now and then, although I’m sure my sons remember all of this very differently.
I often wonder what sort of mother I would have been if I’d had a daughter. I’d like to think I’d still be a laid back parent and not have pushed her into things she didn’t want, but we’ll never know, will we?
In the past three-and-a-half years, a lot has changed in our lives. My husband (who was always the fun parent to my strict parent — my boys really don’t know how easy they had it if they thought I was the strict one), and my mother-in-law both passed away due to Covid related complications in 2021 at the peak of the second wave.
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In a month, our life had become unrecognisable. We had gone from being a comfortable nuclear family of five to a sad little family of three. And wait, I was the most responsible one here? But we hobbled along, picking ourselves up and making sense of the new normal in our lives. This wasn’t the kind of challenge I was prepared for, but we made the best of it.
And now, while I feel nostalgic and sad that the times when my kids were small and would cuddle with me are gone forever, I am relieved that I have two adults with me. I’m glad that despite the yelling (sometimes), we can also share memes with each other on Instagram, and they get it.
When people are surprised to hear that I have two grown adults for kids, the first thing they want to ask is how it’s possible, because I look quite young. I have to tell them the whole spiel about getting married at 19 and having my son at 20. The other thing they want to know is how I did it. And here’s the thing. I have no clue. I bumbled along, made many, many mistakes (my mother reminds me of this constantly) and here we are.
Wajid is a Bengaluru-based writer
