The Mommy Manual!

‘The Mommy Manual!’

• The Mom-Contract makes you sign off any rights to privacy. From sitting on the pot, with a pair of eyes gleaming curiously watching & wondering , ‘so what’s the crazy lady called ‘Mama’, doing now’, to your laptop, passwords, email, facebook, bags, telephone conversations ... becoming public property! Try protesting & you get a bewildered, “but what can you have to hide?!!” By the way, the vice versa doth not apply!!!
• X-ray vision – Mandatory for the Mom Job: that black lace top flung into the corner of the cupboard, the converse shoes lying unpacked & unforgotten, in the bag that went for a sleepover, the brand new watch, left on the bathroom counter, the phone on silent mode, snugly safe in a tiny clutch purse, which, hallelujah, found its way under the bed ... of course your offspring looked everywhere, of course it ‘aint there AND of course, it’s somehow your fault , because you must have rearranged the cupboard, or put it somewhere else! Use your super powers as Mom to unearth lost treasures & all you get is, “You must have put it there!”

• Daddy needs his beauty sleep, but Mama Owl has to remain wide awake, 24x7! Maa duties include getting strange messages, at 2am (no allowances for time difference!) asking, “Hey, I am doing my laundry & does the colour of my new pink pyjamas run?”

• Mommy hood is a one way street; Thou shalt always make the first move, call, message, text ... once in a rare blue moon, the mom in you gets rebellious & decides to keep silent for a change, hoping that maybe then, you’ll will hear from the ‘one-who-never-calls’! No luck & you eat humble pie & call & go into a massive guilt trip, when daughter dearest complains - “Haven’t heard from you in ages (translate to one evening!). Guess you were busy!!!” Your mom heart will melt & explode with regret at having put your offspring through such trauma!
• Fear the few times you get that message saying, “Call me!” Moms must come fitted with shock/bad-news-absorbers! So unfortunate tidings of a lost phone, laptop being stolen (yes, this mother of a university going kid has seen/heard it all!), extravagant splurge ... Mom always hears it first! My one & only daughter, insists that ‘Papa is easy going & cool, but Mom is high-maintenance!” But still, upon HM Mom (High Maintenance Mom, duh!!!) is bestowed the rare honour, of being served fresh, piping hot bad news! The breezy explanation is that she knows you will first freak, flip, yell, rave & scream like a fisher woman & then, revert with a solution – that’s a backhanded compliment & convoluted praise, btw, even if you don’t recognise it at first!!!

• Doing laundry & ironing – once you have gone through a suitcase full of dirty clothes, needing to be washed & ready by the next day, to pack for the family vacation, you can do anything! Planning to use my washing & ironing skills, to start a laundry service called, ‘Amma Dry Cleaners’ - because no one washes & irons like Mom does!’

The Mom Job: no salary, zero benefits, no retirement..... phir bhi, the best thing that happened to me. It made this cynical, hard-hearted soul , experience strange emotions like fierce love, which makes you feel your heart is going to explode all the time, weep uncontrollably when Beti S delivered her Valedictorian Speech, much to her horror & utter humiliation, cover the walls of Casa Kaushik, with pictures of her as a baby, much to her disgust, with special objection to the photograph of her stark naked & when she comes home from university, which is saat samundar paar, creepily stalk her & find bliss in just gazing at her sleeping peacefully, under your roof!

Motherhood – the only place where you can experience heaven & hell at the same time!