Women and Spending Power

When I was on a child-raising break to be with Tanvi as her daycare center was not good, I picked up a few freelance training assignments during that period, tasted blood, and have only been freelancing  Why am I getting into all these humdrum details? Because whenever I have been without work (read: without a steady income), some months with no money at all (freelancing is an unpredictable work choice), I have been very (to the power of 10) depressed.  

I have been depressed because I couldn’t shop for myself, couldn’t shop for my family, couldn’t shop for the house, and least of all, could not even do grocery shopping. Shopping offers a temporary high, is exciting for a fleeting moment. I have heard that tirade against shopping a zillion times. But the freedom - to flash my debit card (earlier) or electronic wallets (now), on a sudden impulse to buy something that lasts, for the house – is supremely tempting. The irresistible itch to pick up stuff from a flash sale or abuse insane discounts during public holidays or festivals or the crazy cash-back deals they flaunt online, I am guilty of it.  Just knowing you have money on you in case you need to buy something on an impulse – that’s a coveted feeling.

But this beautiful joy, which comes with financial power, is lost when you don’t earn. And then I go into severe depression. And since I am an incurable worrier, at times, I have been so depressed that I go online and do those (free) Tarot card readings! What a horrible phase that was - feeling unwanted, desperate for attention, feeling the lack of respect. I would upload the same resume twice in one week hoping for a head hunter’s call. Not because I would join the first company that called, but to reassure myself that my skill-sets still had a market value and that if I chose, I could be the earning member of the family again.

I love running my household. I love planning, buying, securing, and cushioning for the family. I even love buying milk and coriander leaves as much as I love buying a laptop or phone and paying off debts and budgeting for road trips. It fulfills me. I am ‘masculine’ in that sense; more a provider than a nurturer. Being an enabler makes me happy. Providing for the needs of our home makes me feel proud of myself. Never having to say ‘no’ or ‘don’t have money for that when my daughter asks for something, is my ultimate success parameter.

The kitchen stifles me. I don’t really enjoy being in that part of the house. I feel trapped. I feel like the cockroach that scuttles away at the sight of a human. But the cockroach has nowhere to go, as every corner is sprayed with insect repellent. It knows the spray means sure death in a few minutes. Husband’s money, what husband bought, what husband gifted, what husband planned, where the husband took - it has never given me joy. Strangely, I have eyed women with jealousy when their husbands have showered them with expensive gifts or vacations. I have thought to myself, “Wow! What a life. How lucky is she.” And then go right back to feeling sick that I am not that kind of “husband.” I would be bored being a wife whose sole purpose in life was to ‘keep house’ (ghar sambhalo) for which she would be rewarded with monthly shopping sprees in various malls in the city.

The buoyancy you feel when you know you are still wanted in the job market – that’s a high. The exhilaration of cash in your wallet, the pride when you hand over your card to the waiter at the restaurant, the look in the cashier’s eyes as you punch in your password on the swipe machine, the smile on your face when you look at things around you and realize you bought them – I miss that. It’s been ten months since my last training assignment. My baby is 8 months old now and I have not been able to get back to work. I am depressed. 

[This post was written 7 months back. I could publish it only today. My daughter is 15 months old now. And I am back on the work track.]

Letter to My First Born

 Dear Tanvi

This is the second time I am writing to you. I had written to you, once earlier, about how I had met your father. 

I had also expressed, in a post not addressed to you, what I had felt, for the longest time, with respect to having a second child. The only reason I could think of, back then, to go for a second child was to be able to give you a sibling, for companionship. 

But all three of us, Sathya, you and I, were not in favor of a second one, particularly YOU. You always said, very categorically, that you didn’t want any sister or brother. You commanded both of us to love you and only you. You insisted that you alone were enough for us. You were firm in your opinion that you had enough friends to play with and I needn’t worry about companionship issues. You knew you didn't want to be bothered with helping clean a new "dirty" baby. This was how you felt as recently as the beginning of this year.

Your reactions had vindicated us somehow. See, she doesn’t want, then why should we? She is enough for us. So, for ten long years, I was on IUCD because none of us wanted a new member in the family, 

And now, when you are 11 years old, we learnt that you are going to be a big sister! Next year!

 You have always had friends of all age groups – Surya and Siddharth the brothers are just 4 and 6 years old, Sonith is 5 years old. I have seen you playing with even smaller kids in the park. But the two weeks of summer vacations spent in your grandfather’s apartment complex – meeting and playing with Vedanth has stirred something in you. You have spent hours playing with little Vedanth, who runs to you and roars with laughter. You actually told me, when you heard from me the 'shocking news' that I was carrying, "Amma, keep the baby. I don’t care if it is a boy or a girl or a transgender" (wait, where did you learn that word!!!). From a child who was very adamant about not wanting a sibling to now this seemingly grown up, mature girl who is very clear about keeping the baby - THAT is the change that prompted us to realize that this baby is a welcome addition. What has changed is now YOU WANT a sibling.

And I am feeling more convinced, as each day passes, that this awkward gap of almost twelve years between your sibling and you is actually a blessing. (Someone remarked, hearing about my ‘accidental’ pregnancy, “Jisko Aana Hota Hai Woh Aake Hi Rahega” - One who has to come, will come, no matter what). If I had had the second child earlier and by all probability I would have had if I hadn’t been on IUCD for so long, I would have had to take care of two young children. And that would have driven me nuts. Now that you are on your own, independent and strong, I can concentrate on the new baby. Your strong desire to have the baby has pushed me to cherish this unexpected pregnancy.

The reason to go for a second child this late in life (at 40) is because I can see you taking care of another life. And I want to see it. I want to lie down and look at my two children, cuddling and playing with each other. I can see myself as a mother hen as I write this. I can also relive all the moments with you and take you through your own development, with this baby. Taking care of an expectant mother and a new born – you are about to shoulder a huge responsibility, my dear. I hope and pray, quite selfishly so, you are going to be the mother I missed during my first pregnancy/delivery. You are going to be my source of strength and motivation that I lacked earlier. Last time, I remember constantly consoling myself with the lines of the famous Hindi song that went “Jiska Koi Nai Uska Toh Khuda Hai Yaaro” (God is with the person who has no one else). I was alone and God was with me then. This time, he has said he is busy handling more critical cases and has left me in your care. You are God’s own assistant to me.

Love you, 

Amma

Second Child

What is the right reason to have a second child? Sometimes, I find Tanvi is so lonely, I feel like going for a second child. I have seen her smothering other kids & babies with so much love that, I feel she must be missing a companion. She longs for company, maybe that’s why she does that. Whether the child is older or younger than her, age doesn’t seem to matter to her. As long as she has someone to play with, she’s happy to be with the kid for hours & days together. I play with her too but it’s not the same. Two children playing together & a child-an adult playing is very different.

I went for the first child for two reasons. One, simply because I became pregnant without trying. Two, I wanted to experience motherhood first hand; right from the conception to the entire term of the pregnancy to the labor & the delivery. This is one & the only experience that is reserved just for women. In my next life, if I am born a man, I will miss out on it. Also, this is one of those beautiful things you can’t buy off the rack. No matter how much money you’ve, or how many degrees you’ve earned, or how hard you’ve tried, no matter what, you can’t be a mother (biological) unless God wishes you to be & at the time He wishes it to happen. It is entirely in HIS hands. So if I have got pregnant without trying for it, I felt I should go on the whole journey.

Similarly, there are reasons why I don’t want to have a second (biological) child. And that is simply because I have gone through it all once. I have seen it all, been there, and done that; that too all alone; single-handedly. I know how horrifyingly lonely it gets sometimes & how terribly painful some days are. I don’t want to go through it all over again. Why would I, in my sane mind, want to suffer the hell of labor pain & the stress of raising a baby & the nine months of captivity & the countless hours, nights & days of just wanting to kill myself because I was so damn tired – emotionally, physically? Why would I want to go for it again? Once is enough; more than enough, in fact.

But when I see Tanvi, sometimes playing by herself, ingenuously role-playing, talking to a water tap on the terrace, or the chair or sofa in the hall or the railing of the stairway, pretending these things are people, & having a conversation with them, I feel so bad. I feel momentarily miserable that she doesn’t have a sibling to play with. Or even a kid in the building or the neighborhood. At those times, I so want to give her a sister or brother she can spend hours talking to.

I just want to give her a friend, a lifelong friend. Not the kind who come & go on weekends. Among the neighborhood children, the big ones bully her. The little babies only coo along; they are always under a 24 hours surveillance of their parents. If Tanvi so much as bends over to plant a light kiss on the baby’s cheeks, the parents shriek “NOOO”. They also usually forget that Tanvi is only 4 years old, a baby too & want her to be this ‘big sister role-model’ & conveniently expect her to be all sacrificing with her toys & crayons & cars & even if the other baby smacks her, to not smack back as a reflex action.

Some women say they went for a 2nd child because their mother-in-law or husband asked them to. Some say relatives said 2 kids is a must for a family. Some even said the second child ensures that, should something happen to one of them, you’d still have one more to hold on to especially if you cross the child-bearing age!! Like, if one dies, you’ve the other to carry on the family name!

I am not sure if I want anyone to carry on my name, let alone my family’s!

Needless Fear

I had this conversation with my daughter recently. She told me since her class teacher hadn’t come, they were taken to some other class. She sat with her classmates in the front row but Rakshit called her to sit with him. She first refused, but later sat with him.

She is just 4. The boy, around 5 years old, is in UKG. Every time she talks about him, she has this smile. Some days back, he’d told her, “I like you”. Once, he’d even winked at her! I felt uneasy. I didn’t like what I had heard. It worried me. When I said, I’ll tell Sathya about this, she panicked & covered my mouth tightly, begging me not to tell him, eyes filling fast with little droplets. She had confided in me. Fearing she wouldn’t let me in on her life, if I “complained” to her father, I let it go. When Sathya had heard about the winking incident, he’d flown into a rage & had warned her not to talk to the ‘bad boy’.

In spite of all this, she had sat with him!

But why should that make me uneasy? What is it that, I as a mother, am afraid of? Can’t she sit with her schoolmate who happens to be a boy? What is there to fear in this seemingly harmless incident?

The fear is, growing up, what if a boy, any boy, touches her inappropriately? What if he touches her hand, her face? What if, later in life, she gets hurt, first physically & then mentally because of one bad experience with a boy? Deep down, in the darkest recesses of their mind, are parents scared that their girl may become pregnant & end up scarred for life? All that parents want is to marry their princess, so she can experience the joy of love within the secure environment of a marriage. The “good” boy, thoroughly scanned & certified by them, should be the only man in her life. Am I like one of these parents too?

Is this seemingly needless worry a passing phase? Or does this feeling stay with them till she is packed off to her husband? Do all parents go through this phase? Does the rich mother in America feel the same way? And the poor father in China feels it too? I don’t know, but my instinct says, “yes”. This must be one of those universal truths, transcending class, country & age. All parents must feel this way; more so the fathers. The difference is, they express their distress & go into a fit of rage in an instant.

In Heyy Babyy, there’s a dialogue where they say, “hum jaisa kameena koi iska boyfriend ho toh?” Is that what Sathya fears for his daughter? Is that why most men guard their daughters’ lives with extreme caution, almost remote controlling it sometimes? They fear she might land up with an ass-hole of a man like their own self?! Are they protecting her or trying to atone for their own sins?

We can’t let our love-born to go through an emotional hell. We can’t let a boy wreak havoc in her otherwise happy existence. We can’t let him take away her sunny smile. No, can’t let him to do it. We won’t let him do it. What can I do so my child is safe? How do I tell her to wait till she is married?

The last generation fell in love in their 20’s. Our generation felt the first rush of infatuation in our teens. This generation seems to be tuned in pretty early. I am about to have sleepless nights from now on.

Mother

Many say a woman is incomplete until she becomes a mother. So someone who can’t conceive is termed ‘barren’. It’s such an archaic, cruel thought. It’s deeply hurtful too; particularly when you equate motherhood to being a biological mother. What does it take to be a mother? A child born out of your own womb? That’s it??????????? HELL NO.

It takes compassion, kindness, forgiving nature & a clean heart to be a mother in the true sense of the word. Look at Mother Earth. Does she discriminate between male or female, black or white, rich or poor, clean or unclean? Most good mothers are like that. My mother was one of them. She only knew to give; to one & all. Her love was not bound by lineage. It was just love; no conditions applied.

On the contrary, I know of mothers who are over-sensitive towards their own offspring but care two hoots for other children, even friends of her own child. They understand & respond to the cries of hunger, pain, despair, & loneliness of their own child but are completely insensitive to similar feelings of another child. How is it that possible?

I am protective of Tanvi, for instance, it pains me when she falls & hurts her knee. I am quick to respond to her every, sweet request. Like when she is hungry & says, “My stomach is flat. See!” Or when she says, “I can’t sleep. Tell me another story”. I’d do the same if her friend or any other child was present. I’d respond to that child the way I respond to Tan; if not with as much love, at least with as much kindness. My logic is: they are little children, they are all the same.

Why do we reserve our love only for our child & treat other children like they were the plague? Some mothers give these infamous “you dirty child, don’t come near my baby” look. Or in a group, they obsess over their child & exhibit complete indifference to another one standing right next to her, maybe wailing in sheer physical pain. It beats me. It is like mothers have these ON & OFF buttons embedded within them. The motherly love is switched ON only & only for her child. The moment there is another child in the vicinity the OFF button is activated.

Pity them! To be loved by a child is God’s way of blessing you. The more the love you receive from them, the more you are blessed. Closer home, I pity my mother-in-law, for she has missed out on the good fortune of being loved by her own blood, her first grand-child. Incidentally, her name is Bhagyalaxmi meaning good fortune!!

Cliché’s

I mean – hello –what’s with people? Can’t you ever wake up to the possibility that a daughter can be her mother’s pet? Does it always have to be “oh she is a papa’s girl”? I know many real-life cases of mama’s girl & papa’s boy. Yet, why are people hell bent on the infuriating cliché – daddy’s girl? It’s easy to retort, “But why do you even care about what people say? They don’t know you”. Yeah right, exactly. They don’t know me. THAT is why.

They don’t know the countless days & nights &, all the minutes in between, spent caring for a child - right from the 1st moment of her inception in your womb to Today. All those waking hours, the many sleepless nights, the infant’s dirty diapers, the toddler’s tantrums driving you nuts, the baby’s constant demand for attention, the no time whatsoever for oneself, the endless feeding & cleaning, the toilet training, the patient hours spent teaching the toddler to turn, see, walk, sleep, talk, listen, obey!

How many of these things have really been ‘shared’ by the man? He should be doing these for his “daddy’s girl” on his own but doing them without being told would be asking for too much from a man. An occasional hour or two of, “I’ll take care of the baby, you go take bath (coz you stink like a skunk with a disease!)” or “I’ll feed the baby, you go eat (or you’ll drop dead any minute now!)” doesn’t count as raising a child. It’s lip-service. And to think that this lip-service warrants the exultations from the neighbors who go weak in the knees & exclaim, “Oh she looks just like her daddy” or “She’s so smart like her father”. Aaarrrrgggghhhh.

If you mess up ...

My mother brought me up quite differently. She never lectured. Neither did she ever bombard me with a long list of NO’s.

No, don’t do that!
No, don’t go there!
No, don’t touch that!
No, don’t eat that!
No, don’t try that!
No, don’t talk to him!
No … this! No … that! The endless NO’s of a parent.

But she did make one thing very clear. And that was: If you mess up, it’s your responsibility.

I’ve never neglected my studies or lied to gain something. I’ve never taken a casual approach to my job nor have i ever squandered my hard-earned money. I’ve never drunk, smoked or done drugs (in spite of the opportunity & temptation)– EVER - till date.

I have lived life my way. I’ve done some so-called strange things; taken some bad decisions; been to some bad places; befriended some bad people. And yet, I remain me. Uncorrupted. Completely aware & in control of my life.

That’s the thing with freedom. When you are free to do things, you become responsible! You choose wisely.

When you’re growing up, your concerned, well-meaning parents & your not-so-concerned, plain-nosy relatives, have only one fear. That you’ll be corrupted, by others! So they guide you with their version of right & wrong. They protect you against every imaginable danger. They shield you against every possible physical or emotional pain. In short, they try to live your life for you.

I am glad my mother let me be; let me live my life on my own. With all the mistakes I made. With all the lessons I learnt. Some bitter, some sweet. All my own.

And to think that she never went to school!!

I guess, that’s why, deep down in my heart, I have scant regard for ‘formal’ education. I have two post-graduate degrees – M.A and M.B.A. But, I know, they are just 5 letters in sum total. Beyond a point, it hardly mattered. They didn’t make me. LIFE did.

I don’t know if Tan will grow up to be a double post-graduate like me. Do I care? All I want is for Tan to be able to L – I -- V -- E. And remember, if you mess up, it’s YOUR responsibility.