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.