Daddy's Do Little

Thank you, Archie’s and Hallmark and the rest of the bandwagon for bringing Mother’s Day to India! Of all the silly days you keep reminding us of—as silly as ‘Hug Holiday’, ‘Frog Jumping Day’ and ‘Nurse Day’, this one deserves to be marked and celebrated—I am all for this one, only this one. Obviously, second Sunday of May isn’t Godsend, for most of us do feel indebted to our mothers for all that they do, every single day, round the clock, incessantly, to make our lives beautiful. Unfortunately, not many of us stop by and tell her the same—for sons I am told, it’s particularly difficult to hold Mum close, hug her and whisper a Thank You. They want to—desperately, but their machinery, their hardwiring doesn’t allow them to. Pity! So Mother’s Day comes in handy—gives them the license to reveal their mushy side, without having to worry about being called a ‘sissy’.

 

That by the way brings me to something that I have been most perturbed about recently—always good to talk! Now while I am hurriedly scribbling this post, my husband is feeding the baby her breakfast (she’s a bit fussy with cereals), next he will bathe her and dress her up (I choose what she wears, he always gets the combinations wrong!). Oops! For all the conservative women and mothers and mother in-laws reading this post, that’s too much information! I am told not to blurt out how my baby’s father loves to play with her, has no qualms in changing her diapers, putting up with her tantrums, feeding her meals, putting her to sleep, etc. etc. ‘Indian Men’ don’t do that! I am secretly told what a wonderful man I have bumped into—Well, the truth is, he is wonderful—the bigger truth is, he is wonderful NOT because he’s a dotting father and thinks it important to share the responsibilities of nurturing our little one. He’s a nice man regardless of all this.

My question is simple—why is brining up a child the prerogative of the mother alone? Why is parenthood only about motherhood? Why is it odd for the father to play an equal parent?

C’mon! gone are the days when Dads didn’t even know which standard their child was studying in, whether he had a bad day at school, or he won a race, or the little things that made him/her happy! The brand of Dads who’d make you piss in your pants at the sight of those red lines in your report card—have long run out on their expiry date. Dads today, at least the ones from the young urban India, cook clean and do the little knick-knacks around the house to make life easier for their overworked wives. They don’t mind coming in handy when the baby’s thrown up, and the mother requires an extra pair of hands. Or, when the baby’s super cranky in the middle of the night, and the mother is desperately looking for help. They don’t walk a kilometer ahead of the mother, while she holds the baby in one arm and the grocery bags in the other. Some really nice ones even tell her to take a break from the backbreaking duties, and go out and watch a movie or have a round of coffee with her friends—while they babysit.

That’s how I was brought up. And that’s how my little one is being brought up too. And that’s how all kids deserve to be brought up. Fathers are not ringside spectators. They are not what they think themselves to be—“breadwinners” alone. There are many-many mothers out there who earn their living, bring up their kids and manage their homes. So the humbug of “men have to go out and earn” is just that, humbug.

I am not suggesting the wives should be busy painting their nails, while the husband, after a hard day’s work, comes back to clean and cook and take care of the baby. I am only talking of shared responsibilities—the inherent realization that the baby is not just the priority of the mother, but the father too.

Pity, that an Indian, living in a plush London suburb, educated, and mother of two—who I met during one of my visits, took my husband’s involvement in our daughter’s life for some earth shattering event. Nothing like she’d ever seen before! Stories of how he’d always be ready to provide care for his baby, and share his wife’s—a first time mother’s workload reached our homes before our flight back J Was she really concerned for my husband and mad at his tyrant wife, or was she just plain, well, jealous because her “successful” and “super busy” husband plainly refused to play the game fair.

I am glad the doctor asked my husband to step in, see and go through the experience of his baby being delivered in the labor room. That, I think, is so important to initiate the men folk into the process of parenting—no man would have the heart to turn his back on his baby once he sees her/him coming to life right before him. And he wouldn’t even have the heart to turn his back on his wife, after seeing her go through the pain she did in brining their bundle of joy to life.

  

A Brand New Life

If I were to pop a question to all fellow mothers reading this post—“what’s changed post the baby?” They’d perhaps turnaround and ask, “What’s NOT changed post the baby?” –-and with a smile that reveals a lot more than conceals. From the most trivial to the most crucial things in life, nothing looks the same, isn’t it? Even something as trifling as a shopping spree now means buying something for the baby—a toy or a pretty dress, instead of those shoes you’ve been eyeing for long—let alone bigger issues. It’s amusing how we suddenly wake up to the magical powers of nursery rhymes that soothe the baby when nothing else works. Clocks, well, most of us stop looking at them—baby decides what time of the day it is, and what we should be doing. Every time, you run into parents with a child throwing a tantrum, you end up giving them an I-know-what-it-means’ look instead of a ‘Shut-him/her-up”. Taking a shower, in fact even a pee break, becomes a luxury, doesn’t it! Days turn nights, and nights back into days while we keep yearning for sleep, sleep and more sleep. A friend’s, who’s also a new mother, Facebook update said her New Year resolution was to get more sleep—the comments there only told her to wake up and smell the coffee instead! And in that unending list of ‘things-to-do’, painting those nails or going to a spa don’t even feature.

All of these lifestyle changes work at a very subtle level—you don’t wake up one day to press the ‘paternity key’. In fact, to most of us these don’t even feel like sacrifices. And that’s both the beauty and irony of it all. The fact that we learn to love and respect our parents far more than we ever did, happens naturally, when we take the wheel and take the ride. Pain, tears and heartbreaks now feel much worse, again instinctively. You look at your baby in the mirror and not yourself, or click her picture not your own—happens so secretly, so beautifully, that you only end up marveling at it in some quite moment or while writing/reading such blogs.   

Still—and having said all of that—some of those changes pinch! One of the worst hit is the marriage itself. If someone told me that their marriage didn’t undergo a change, they’re probably not being entirely honest. I remember throwing a fit every morning, for at least a couple of weeks after our baby Aarna was born. She is a breastfed baby who demanded her meal quite a few times through the night. Since the body was still recuperating after a painful labor, and the sleepless nights weren’t helping either, my mornings would see me tired, dull and frustrated. Inevitably, inadvertently, my husband would find himself at the receiving end of it all.

Most friends, new mothers I spoke to later, confessed snapping at their partners a lot more during this phase. What added to the drama was a feeling that the husband could chicken out, go to work, while we were pushed into a sabbatical. Blame it on the hormones, or call them ‘Baby blues’, the fact is, it’s normal, as long as the feeling doesn’t stay on. Hormones eventually balance out—and we snap out of our bad temper too.

But that’s not the end of the story, in fact just the beginning. Most parents-to-be are advised to meticulously prepare for the baby—clothes, diapers, bedding everything is taken care of. What nobody tells you is to discuss how things—and life, would change post the baby. Perhaps, we expect or assume the baby to fit our lifestyle, only to realize later that that’s not happening ever. Dinner and movie dates, vacation plans, or just a round of conversation over a cup of coffee—baby says an emphatic No to the time with the Mister.

For working mothers, life becomes even tougher. For now, the day doesn’t start and end between work hours, but many-many hours before and after. They truly are reservoirs of energy—supermoms for sure. Not having slept the night before singing lullabies to a cranky baby in the lap, and dressing up prim and proper for a meeting at 9am with presentations and papers ready the morning next—ah! Now that’s some miracle machinery at work!

But having said all that, if you’re a mother, and have already been through this, you’d also know the joy of having created a life with your partner. That, is the upside that keeps us going, isn’t it? We may run into bumps on the way—but the joy of conception, creation, and nurturing makes us endure all. Motherhood has certainly made me far more patient and peaceful. It has bought a sense of calm, within and on the outside. The fact that there is a life out there who trusts me with all her heart and soul, who knows that each time she wakes up, she will have her mother beside her, that when she gets hurt and cries, her mother would be there to soother her, when she’s hungry, her mother will happily feed her, put her to sleep, play with her, put up with her tantrums and be her best buddy—makes me feel good, very good. 

As for my marriage, well, just a look at my husband singing a lullaby to our baby in the middle of the night, or giving her a bath or changing her diaper—makes me fall in love with him all over again. I believe, if you sail through this phase, together, you can sail through most.