May 08, 2008

Yes, I am turning into my mother and the worst part is I can’t do anything about it. Or maybe that’s the best part… writes Sohema Rehan

Unlike most women ascending up the childbearing age ladder, I had never been a maternal person. Don’t get me wrong — I never held anything against children, but it’s just that the sight of babies gurgling never made me weak in the knees; their goo-goos ever made me go ga-ga.

But this was all true before I had Hiba, my firstborn. My personality underwent a U-turn at the mere sight of her, which was, as a 2 by 1.5 centimeter blackish dot swimming around in what seemed like grayish, jelly water on a computer screen. I can go on and on about that moment: the light of the ultrasound monitor, the cold probe of the instrument the doctor was using, the whirring of the fan and the distance of the ceiling from where I lay flat on the bed, staring up. Everything is so firmly etched in my head that I can still smell that environment when I think back. And in the midst of all this stood my mom, holding my hand. Her hold said ‘I will be there for you’, and she has been — all these years. Like all mothers, she’s been a rock of support for me, and there is nothing or nobody, who can take her place.

But don’t let all this fool you into thinking all is hunky dory between me, my mother and my daughter. Hiba is only “half and a five”, as she puts it herself, and already we have been daggers drawn over sleep schedules, meal timings and food choices, clothes — yes, clothes! I want to scream in exasperation, grit my teeth, hold her real hard and shake her to the core… but wait.

Oh my God! Horrors of all horrors! I am turning into my mother! Somebody save me! How can I turn into my mother? How come I have absorbed all that I hated about her and more? All this can’t be coming from anywhere but her. Yes, I am turning into my mother and the worst part is, I can’t do anything about it. Or maybe that is the best part, and like always, I don’t want to give her due credit.

It is not easy to draw a common thread between three generations — me, my mother and my daughter. So different, yet so alike. I guess that is the best way to describe it. For as long as I can remember, my mother was my inspiration, my first love. I wanted to be just like her: as beautiful, as talented, as stylish, as hard working — I can go on with the superlatives. Or not like her — I can even go on with the … ahem … expletives here but ... forget it, it’s not worth it! Conclusively, she was the ultimate yardstick, and remains so to this day.

As a ‘responsible’ mother there are so many things I should reprimand my children for but I would rather be irresponsible than a hypocrite, so sue me for that! I have thrown spit bubbles at people just because I felt rebellious, have licked cream off biscuits and thrown them away, eaten ketchup with my index finger and a million other eccentricities common to all kids who make their moms squirm in embarrassment, anger and guilty amusement. And now it’s their turn!

Oh, how I wish I could turn back time and tell my mother how sorry I am for the times I screamed and yelled for the clothes of my choice, or turned my nose up in disgust over food on the table. And what makes it worse is that my children get away with all this and more with my mom. My mother is the GRAND mother now, grander than a mother, so doesn’t that translate into being stricter, more firm and, in short, more mean to my children than she was with me? Apparently not, for they can get away with blue murder with things I got smacked with roller pins for! Now, all these years down the lane, even screaming at her dear grandchildren is tantamount to genocide.

With time, children become adults, and adults children and so my children have become me and I am becoming my mom. It is an amusing thought frankly, and not so scary after all. I hope I can be as good a parent to my children as my mom was to me — friend, confidant, leader, disciplinarian, caregiver, and caretaker.