When women become mothers, it’s assumed that they will become selfless individuals whose only concern will be the well-being of their child or children. No matter what the situation, as a mother, we need to put the child first. We might be exhausted after a bad night’s sleep or bone tired after a long day with the kids but we are still expected to be calm, patient and not lose it.
Do women suddenly acquire superpowers after becoming mothers?
None that I know of. At least not yet. In fact, I can only see the powers of reason and sanity slowly seeping away from my grasp. Yet, I fight back and try and behave as if I’m a superwoman. I try and keep it together everyday because that’s what’s expected of me. I try to keep my frustration, my anger and my exhaustion under wraps because unleashing it makes things only worse. With the kids, with the spouse, with others. Especially others because everyone of us is always, always judging everyone else.
Is there a win-win solution?
Yes and no. Sometimes you find a solution which works but when you decide to reuse it on another day, it completely flops. These days my daughter doesn’t want to leave school. She’ll walk slowly and make many stops on the way from the school gate to the car. All the other children are happily walking with their parents to their respective cars but my little girl wants to do things differently (so much for wanting your child to be ‘different’ from others!). Everyday I have to come up with new and novel ways to make her walk. Some days we pretend that all the trees outside the school have magic buttons which we have to find and press. A big leaf I gave to her yesterday became a tickling device. She ran after me so as to tickle me with the leaf and I played along, leading her successfully to the car. When we reached the car all laughter and happiness, her brother saw the leaf and wanted one also. Unfortunately, we just had that one leaf.
Can one negotiate with toddlers?
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| Even play requires negotiations at times. |
Again, yes and no. I’ve learned two things so far. Firstly, raising my voice yields no results. They scream back, start crying or throw a tantrum. What else can you expect from a 2.6 year old? Yes, my daughter knows that she needs to walk home with me from school to the car but maybe she wants to play first. Maybe she wants me to show her a little extra attention because I’ve been away for three hours. If I start yelling or getting upset with her, she’ll respond in the only way she knows. Crying. That’s the only way she has of expressing her distress, frustration, helplessness, confusion and of course, anger. Secondly, talking to her, I’ve realised, helps me to get control of the situation. Talking in a friendly tone with them makes them trust me. And that’s what I need them to do. Trust me. Implicitly. Always and forever.
I’m a mother, not a superhero.
As mothers, we do have powers. We have the power to provide the child with an environment in which he/she can not just be happy but also be curious, creative and just be himself/herself. Most importantly, we need to realise that though we have quite a number of powers, we are humans too and need some time off. A cup of coffee in peace, maybe a few uninterrupted minutes of reading or just a power nap keeps our powers intact and makes us happy mothers. And it’s happy mothers who are behind happy babies/toddlers. Not just dry pampers!
Note: The image in this post is by the author.
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