Q - What do you do?
A - I'm a stay-at-home mother
Q - Ok. So, what do you do apart from just taking care of your child? How do you keep yourself occupied?
A - Well...I...(my response from there on is shaped by how I'm feeling at that point - tired of own my status, belittled by the person's achievements, humored at the silliness of person's question since he/she him/herself doesn't seem to have done much in life, or just plain mad at the person's myopia.)
When I was ranting about this to my brother once, he said -"If you were doing some research work, creating or inventing things; I would have understood your frustration. You were working in MNCs only adding to their moolah. A small part of someone else's big plan. So enjoy this opportunity of being able to shape a child into a beautiful and confident human being". I was mad at my brother for saying this. For not understanding my plight; but eventually I came around to see what he meant.
Honestly, its tough getting used to the idea of not having your own money. It took me more than a year to start using Pratim's debit card. I would simply refuse to use it, even when he showed me the practicality of it. I remember calling him up a couple of times to check if I could buy that dress I so loved. Confused, he would say -"Why are you asking me? I'm not really there to see it!" After all, whether I should spend money on something or not was never his prerogative before!
Some say that parenting is the toughest job in the world. I do not agree with that. Watch "Dirty Jobs" on Discovery and you'd know why!! But being a full time parent does come with its own challenges which are extremely tough to deal with. To begin with, I tend to take sole responsibility for my child's actions. While I know that there are other factors influencing his behavior and reactions (father, friends, school, teachers, environment, etc.) and that every child comes with some "factory built" traits as well; still as a full time parent, I find it difficult to detach myself from Kabir's behavior - whether its good, bad or ugly.
Just to quote a couple of examples - whenever Kabir is unhappy/cranky, I tend to question myself first before even thinking whether something might have gone wrong at school. If he ever talks disrespectfully to someone, I feel maybe I haven't taught him this aspect well enough instead of wondering if he might have picked it up from some other child and just needs to be told not to do it again. All this because I believe I spend most of my time with him and efforts on him. It definitely takes a toll on me and there isn't much breath left to do anything else apart from just taking care of my child.
Giving birth to a new life, keeping it healthy and giving it a shape, a meaning is a tall task. It takes the right mix of love and tough love, passionate involvement and displayed detachment, detailed teaching and leaving scope for self learning, positive reinforcement and negative action to rear them for life ahead - and all this keeping in mind that your child is unique and your mix of all of the above has to be tailored for him, for that situation.
C'mon, someone has to get this globally accredited as a full time job, and a tough one at that!
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