 |
Growing up I had always wanted to
have a daughter of my own. Ever since I was a little girl, playing with dolls and
homemade doll houses (that my sisters mostly built for me, using pillows and bed
sheets) fascinated me. Not that I had too many dolls, but the presence of a few
pretty dolls made me dream of having a daughter one day and being able to buy
as many for her as I myself could not own then. Knowing I can’t have yet another doll, did
upset me, but sooner or later it used to sink in. My parents were always
upfront about what I can have and what can't be bought. The trust was always
right there. In front of me. There was no false promising, no
“I’ll-buy-you-the-same-toy-next-time-we-goto-market” scenarios. And I
understood. We as children understood it then.
Hence, during my pregnancy, if
there is one thing that I strongly felt I would never do to my child, it was
‘lying’. I had read books, blogs, and various articles on motherhood, on
parenting, on what not to do in parenting. And this “not-lying-business” is
something each one so profusely talked about. 'Never lie to your children!'
And
as any soon to be first time mommy would feel, I gave in to their sugary words.
I was convinced that this is how I am going to raise my child, in a “lie-free
environment”. And when I delivered my
baby girl, heard her first cry, heard the doctor telling me how angelic she looked,
my heart stopped. I had reached that point from where there was no turning
back. The truth had unfolded, and I promised myself then and there, that I will
be a ‘never-lie-to-your-children’ mother.
But
what the books don’t say is that being a mother is not really a matter of what
you’ve read or have not read. Being a mother is about having a heart that can
balloon with joy and love and gratitude but just as quickly deflate with
frustration and exhaustion and defeat at any given time. Being a mother means
feeling the happiest, and most content you have ever felt and then sometimes
just minutes later wanting to shut the bathroom door and cry (something that I
have done a lot during the first year of my baby, owning to insurmountable
sleep disorders and a shutdown social life).
But look at it the other way, and you will know what the books never tell you is that the best way to be a mother is not
to know it all, it’s to make a million mistakes, tell a million lies and then
fix them. Being a mother is actually about how deep you can go into your
heart, both to find the 'lies' and 'forgiveness' for having told them. It’s losing
all the pride you had in your former self, how you hate/hated lying or do not
support it, or do not want to say it, but the moment you see those beautiful
black-brown pearly eyes looking at you with a bag full of unanswerable
questions, those non-achievable demands, those unexpected situations of on-the-floor-tantrums, those I-want-my-chocolate cries, those I-am-not-going-to-eat episodes, all you do is 'LIE'. Since you mostly don’t
have the answers to those questions, you take to lying to save your day and night. You
leave behind all sermons, all preachings, all tips for raising a well behaved
child, because all you want is to have one in that moment- a child who would behave as
per your wish if he is lied to. It pains my heart and fills it with guilt as
much as leaves me in awe of how pretty amazing it is to have a precious little
face sitting on your lap who believes you anyway.
The lying business (of ‘how a
demon will come if you don’t sleep on time, ‘how a lion will come and eat you
up if you don’t finish your food’, how the doctor will give an injection if you
don’t stop screaming’ always leave me feeling sad. I must admit that I feel
unworthy to be a mother of such an innocent child, so ungrateful, so
un-everything that I should be. Then I think about all the mothers out there
doing what I am doing, or not doing what I am doing, or doing differently what
I am doing, or may be wondering what am I doing? I think of all the mothers,
struggling to pass the lie detector test every single minute of the day – guilt
free. I am also thinking if such mothers exist. Where are they? Who are they? I
am thinking do my friend moms lie so much as much as I do?
The chaos, the sleep deprivation,
the social life stagnation, the no ‘me-time’ repetition, the ‘i-need-my-space’
moments, pile up very high, making me look so small. The tussle between all
these and my lying and my willingness to resist lying leaves me exhausted.
In just under two years of being a mom, there has been no
shortage of I-don’t-know-what-I’m-supposed-to-do moments. I can only imagine
there will be several thousand more, in years to come. The lies are just a part
of the game plan. May be it is supposed to be this way. I recently read on a
blog post by a fellow-lier-mother (No pun intended), “Our very best intentions and preparedness meets the reality that our kids
are just tiny versions of our messy selves, and therein lies motherhood.” We
can think about all the lessons of honesty and truthfulness our entire life,
but if we are really living normally like we do, it is probably much, much
messier than that rosy picture of a-lie-free-life-with-your-children. Sometimes
we just have to surrender and let go and do not bother too much about
the-so-called-parenting. And then take a breath and laugh a little, because the
beautiful girl screaming herself to a fit of tantrum for not wanting to drink her
milk will sooner or later calm down, and all she will want is to rest her head
on your chest. She will not judge you that you lied to her a few minutes back.
She will not be angry on any demon wanting to take her away or lion wanting to
eat her up or any doctor trying to give her an injection.
It’s
so beautiful, this whole being a parent and raising a child thing. Beautifully fun, beautifully hard,
beautifully testing and trying, beautifully lying, beautifully thought
provoking and beautifully satisfying, But it is the best kind beautiful.
