I remember when I was a kid, I used to watch my friends in their pigtails play Mommy. They would pretend to cook and serve meals and act like perfect little hostesses, drinking their tea out of their little plastic cups, with their pinkie fingers stuck out. I would watch from a safe distance, but never gave into their blandishments to join in the ‘fun’. I somehow could never quite picture myself in the role of cooking, cleaning, and wiping behinds, but then it seemed a distant way off, so I just put it out of my mind and went back to climbing trees, scraping knees.
The years went by in a whirl and before I knew it, I was married and a mother at 22. They train you to be a doctor and lawyer and teacher, but no one gives you classes on parenting. And it is not as if one can ask to start all over again if one makes mistakes. ‘Hey Mom, I put the baby into the bath water and it was too hot, what should I do now? He’s looking kinda red and is squalling away.’ Can I hit on the rewind button and test the temperature of the water, this time with my elbow? No.Parenting can be tough.
You know what I really hate most are those quizzes that one comes across on websites and in those glossy magazines. I always do badly in them, unless of course, it is a quiz on shoes or shares or gardening. But, the ones on parenting and cooking…I really suck at them. Take for example this quiz, which I came across the other day on a website. I should have known better than to go near it, for the very title spelled out- BEWARE. But, then I do like walking a bit on the wild side and so I clicked on the link which said- Are you an outstanding mother? Now I did not much like the sound of that. What about being a wonderful mother, or a great mother, or just plain ole Mom? Gold, silver and bronze medals to be won here too?
The first question was an easy one- Did you elect for a C-section? I clicked on No and thought hey, this was going to be a snap. What kind of diapers did you use for your baby? Cloth ones. And that was only because disposable diapers hadn’t yet come to India 24 years ago, but then the quizzers didn’t have to know that. I was on a winning streak. Sometimes you wait longer than usual to see why your baby is crying. Naah..not at all. I never had to see why she was crying, because there were two adoring grandparents all the time around, who would pick her up at the slightest sound of a whimper. I was on a roll here.
Then the questions got a bit tougher. If you unexpectedly came across 50 bucks you had secreted away and had forgotten about, would you buy yourself a nice dress or your child a pair of shoes? Hmm, now this couldn’t be answered in a jiffy like the others. With a slight sneer about the kind of ‘nice dress’ that I could buy myself for just 50 bucks, I answered, Dress and moved on to the next one. It was a cakewalk – Do your children and husband have to get their own breakfast in the mornings? Of course, why should there be any doubt? Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. My family could not be expected to go to work, and school on empty stomachs could they? And so it went on, each question being answered as honestly as I could.
The 25 questions now answered, I clicked on the tabulate results button and the page flickered, mortified, I suppose to show me my score. Your score of .025 shows that you do not have the Mother Instinct. Oh dear, I had heard of Basic Instinct, but Mother Instinct? I had thought that was something all mothers, except maybe sea horses, had naturally and that was why it was called an instinct. How could I have missed out on it, when the Good Lord was handing it out?
I put the quiz out of my mind and went on to finish some pending work, but that night I tossed about on my bed. What was I to do? Where was it that I had missed out on the scoring? Buying a dress for myself instead shoes for my daughter…? I had quieted my conscience with the thought that my daughter’s shoes would easily get her through another year and anyway children’s feet grow so quickly. Well, she had an honest mother if nothing else. Expecting my daughter and husband to get their own breakfast…in our home, it is a father-daughter ritual, which they enjoy. So what if I didn’t colour coordinate my clothes with my baby daughter’s or enter her into every competition…the way some doting mothers did. So what if for her birthdays there wasn’t every kind of confectionery on the table, and the cutest of take-away gifts.I did not think the frills were important. My meals may not have won culinary contests, but they were wholesome and healthy. Her friends were always welcome over; even the boys and they called me the cool Mom, since I saw past the earring in John’s ear and Anita’s heavy make-up.
I didn’t believe in trying to live vicariously, my life, through my daughter’s, forcing her to do things she didn’t want to do, but always let her know that she had the talent and potential to do whatever she wanted to do in life. She went from wanting to be a clown to a rock star, to the Prime Minister to an author of a best selling novel. I think I was equally enthusiastic each time about her choices.
With the cold light of the dawn, I was feeling a little better. Having no mother instinct was fine with me. It might explain why I could never coo and gurgle for hours over babies, or chuck them under their chins and engage in long hours of baby talk about stools and feeds and pretty patterned nursery curtains. If it required all that to make an Outstanding Mother, then I did not deserve to be one and I didn’t want to be one either. I had made my choices a long time ago.
I think the fact that my daughter remembers to ring me almost every day when her father is out of town, because she knows I might be lonely, buys me the little gee-gaws that she knows I like, has even asked me to come live with her, even though she knows it will cramp her style …might mean that I brought her up right after all. And maybe I am not OM, but as long as I am just mama to her, that is all I ask.
Diff'rnt Strokes 