Bringing up a baby is hard work, but that shouldn't stop you from laughing about it. Here are 10 things I learnt as a new mother
More than googoogaga:
A lot of things change after motherhood, but most of all your
perception of babies. No, babies are no rose-cheeked, gurgling angels that make
your heart go all warm and fuzzy. Babies are hungry monsters who threaten to
bring down the roof with their wailing if you don’t keep them well-fed,
fell-slept, fell-changed, well-burped… ah well, you get the picture.
Welcome to
zombieland! Since there will be no time to apply any mascara,
you might as well embrace those deep dark circles, which will probably remain
on your face till your baby learns to sleep through the night. If you are
lucky, you can start living and working like a normal person in about 6 months’
time. But if you’re like me, you’ll be bumping into people and furniture throughout
the day, even after two years.
The great
booby trap: Every paediatrician worth his MD proclaims the benefits of
breastfeeding, but it can be a tricky, messy business. So you soldier through hard,
swollen, leaky, painful boobs and pray that each time some obscure uncle from
the distant tendrils of your family tree comes visiting the new addition, you
are not in a state of undress.
Have crutch, will
use: Perhaps not all women are lucky enough to have a pair of
fit-enough-to-care-for-your-baby in-laws or parents, but those that do will
probably give their right arms in return. I know I will. A support system is
invaluable when bringing up a child, and if you must use it at the cost of your
vanity, you should. Trust me; some help is better than no help.
No time to rend, no
time to sew: A new baby can do wonders for your relationship with your
partner. No, really. You can’t ask a grumpy husband for help, so you stop
fighting with him over trivial matters. Because hey, eating the humble pie is
better than having to do all baby duties alone, innit?
Like a virgin: Okay,
but a new baby can do not-such-wondrous things for your relationship too. For
example, if you, like me, have your baby sleep between you and your partner in
the tiny bed of the tinier one bedroom matchbox of a house in Mumbai, you
better get used to living like a virgin. ’Nuff said!
Public property: From
the time you get pregnant, you become public property. Any Tom, Dick, Harry and
their girlfriends, wives, mothers and sisters will deem it fit to lecture you
on good parenting. Smile and ignore, I say. Like every mother, you will want
and do only the best for your child. You will make mistakes, but that does not
make you a bad mother. There is no such thing as a bad mother, and let no one
tell you otherwise.
I’m an emotional
rollercoaster, baby! I’m telling you those postpartum blues are bluer than
any blue you ever saw. I don’t know about other women, but I’ve swung fast and
easy between murderous and maternal, suicidal and soft, lambasting and loving
in those first months. I’m surprised I wasn’t thrown into an asylum. Well, it
would seem you can hide behind your hormones.
Live life XL size: It
took a lot of will, but I finally
accepted that I had neither the genes nor the personal trainer of Miranda Kerr and
that those tiny-waisted jeans would never fit. I clung on to my pair of
skinnies for a while, hoping that one day I’d wake up and the mommy tummy would
be gone, but my body would have none of it. The skinny jeans were finally
martyred to the cause of house-mopping.
Unto the kingdom of
auntyhood: No amount of fashion and make up is going to spare you this one.
Once you have a kid on your hip, you are aunty to the world. If being called yummy
mummy is any consolation, sometimes you may have that. But to the aam Indian
junta, aunty you are and will be.
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This article appeared in the tabloid The Afternoon on November 10, 2011, in the Women's World section and can be read on page 19 of the e-paper on this link: http://www.afternoondc.in/epaper/default.aspx
4 comments:
Great piece, Urmi. I call it 'writing my way out of the well.'
If I can put it in a clever line that makes me laugh, I can cope. Love, Natasha
Thanks Natasha. It took me a while, but I am learning to laugh at myself now. I've realised that is the only way to maintain sanity. :)
i remember reading somewhere that it is a child that gives birth to a mother!
And truer words have never been spoken!
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