A social economist, aghast at the quantum of work the woman is doing, might label her an exploited person, overworked and unpaid, but the rest of the world calls her mother. Whether she is the rotund, casually dressed, bustling Amma of yesteryears or the slim, hep and stylish super Mom of today, a mother deserves to be celebrated.
Mothers have come a long way. At the risk of inviting rolling of eyes, pursing of lips and sighs of resignation from present generation readers, let me recall the ‘good old days’, the ‘glorious past.’ In those, er, good old days, families were always large. Well, mostly, for there were also some picture-perfect two children families that were walking advertisements for the government’s family planning programme, and the occasional single child family that the more generative parents looked at with a touch of pity. DINKY (Double Income No Kids Yuppie) families, though, were unheard of.
But, by and large, most families included many children. Pronouncements like, ‘We are six, three girls and three boys,’ would inspire awed looks at the procreators for managing the miracle of perfect gender balance or, ‘I come from a family of five siblings, four boys and a girl,’ would prompt the comment that the girl must be a tomboy. When asked about my family, my response, ‘My parents have eight children, seven girls and a boy’, would invariably elicit a sympathetic tut-tut for the poor solitary boy hemmed in by a horde of giggling girls.
Where was the time for a mother, mostly called by the generic term Amma, to give individual attention to her children? Maternity was no big deal and she took the addition of every child in the family in her stride. But she ensured they were well fed and their needs taken care of. Her love, rarely demonstrated, was visible in her every act. She slaved in the kitchen that had precious few labour and time-saving gadgets, took care of the laundry and kept the house in order at the same time.
Juggling the roles of cook, nurse, housekeeper and teacher came naturally to her. This multitasking super woman, endearingly unconscious of her capabilities, went about her chores with good cheer, asking an occasional ‘How was school?’ ‘Did you do your homework?’ ‘What book are you reading?’ ‘Why don’t you go out and play?’
Fathers left for work and returned in the evening to sign any paper their children held out to them. Schoolteachers never realised how grateful children were that fathers and not mothers, had to sign test papers, impositions and report cards. I remember how my father would take a vague look at anything we thrust under his nose at the psychologically appropriate time and scratch his signature on it with a smile, confident his children were geniuses who could do nothing wrong. But it wasn’t so easy to pull the wool over my mother’s eyes.
A mother is sharp, with an instinct for nosing out trouble. As the joke goes, a worried mother does better research than the FBI. Disciplining children fell to her lot and she didn’t spare the rod when required. There was no formal tutoring given about good behaviour, but the children imbibed it as a matter of course. Guests were treated with warmth and hospitality, children weren’t made conscious, either in school or at home, of differences of religion, caste or social background. We studied together, ate together, played together.
In large families, children learnt to share. I remember how, when I was a child, any sweet or savoury was carefully cut into eleven pieces – the eleventh share going to Akka, our faithful family retainer whom we loved dearly. It was a little tricky dividing anything into an uneven number but that problem was solved when my eldest sister got married and left home, reducing us to a neat ten.
I did long for special attention which my mother could ill afford to give me, though I was the youngest. The one time I managed to get her to myself was when I was nine and had measles. Luckily no one else contracted it and, isolated in a room, I would wait for my mother to come with specially prepared food. I savoured the attention. I don’t even know if she had already had measles or it was just mother’s love, but though in close contact with me, she never got it.
Today, the dishevelled Amma of the past has metamorphosed into the modern svelte Mom. Though she is often a working mother with only one child or a maximum of two, she is obsessively devoted to looking after them as she deems fit, smothering them with her notion of mother’s love.
She is conscious of her appearance and often mistaken for her daughter’s sister, much to the annoyance of the daughter. Her gadgets help her in the kitchen and with housework, her apps assist her in ordering anything and paying her bills, her car takes her everywhere. This modern mother takes her role seriously. She is often a helicopter parent or a Tiger Mom who goes to ridiculous lengths to micromanage her child’s needs and, aided by the apps on her smartphone, closely monitors their studies and their every move. She influences the child’s thoughts and behaviour, making them aware of religious, social and cultural differences, and often they turn out to be intolerant, badly behaved, selfish and self-obsessed.
This ambitious mom is on call, driving her child from tuition classes to centres that train them to excel in sports or extracurricular activities. She uses social media to showcase their achievements and clever conversations, never realising she is pressurising them into hankering after greater virtual attention and appreciation.
The more recent label ‘snowplow mom’ has been given to a mother who, in her single-minded pursuit of the future success of her child, shoves obstacles out of her child’s path. Of course there continue to be, thankfully, the casually vigilant and caring moms who let their children be, who give them their own space to grow.
But whether a mother is the sensible sort or the over-involved kind, one thing is clear — she believes she is acting in the best interests of her child. She might go wrong in how she goes about it, but she continues to be overworked and unpaid; she deserves to be appreciated. Happy Mother’s Day!
(The writer is prize-winning author of children’s fiction and teacher. Her latest book, Of Course, It’s Butterfingers, was released in December last. She created the popular comic character Butterfingers for the children’s magazine, Tinkle.)
