The thing with motherhood is that you need to be positive all the time. Your toddler will not understand your moods or even something as simple as a headache. I told my daughter the other day that I was not feeling so great, and she got scared..her mother, in her eyes, is immune to everything, so it’s not something she wants to hear. So when I feel low, I can’t show it to my daughter, or to anyone. I’ll just wait for her to grow up..maybe then she’ll understand.
Monthly Archives: December 2007
I must be crazy..
Let me say this first, that this will sound a little insane, given all the venting I’ve been doing about mommy rage and the rest of it (but I’ll defend that later). That said, let me say it: – I am considering a second baby. Yup, that’s right. I want another one, not so much for myself, but for my daughter.
But wait, I am not totally crazy – may be a little – but not all gone yet. The thing is that I believe, and I could be waaay wrong, that having a second one is going to actually make it better, if I can do the whole nappy-change-sleep-deprived-will-lose-it thing again. It’ll be tough for two years and given that at the end of those two years I am still not in an asylum, I think, seriously, that it’ll be good.
My two year old will, say I have one nine months from now, be about five when the younger one will be two, so from then on, they’ll be company for each other.
I’ve actually studied this, not to mention been told this like a zillion times by my mother, that mothers with two kids find that they demand much less of their time that those with one, who needs to be entertained constantly. Of course there are days when all you do is sort out their little fights..but all in all, it’s better to have two.
That’s the theory and I am not sure if it’ll translate into anything, but if it does, I am hoping that I am thinking it right. If not, I’ll be blogging from an asylum in about two years. Yup, I think I’ll still blog.
For now, it’s back to potty training. Sigh.
Filed under mommyrage
a gloomy winter day..
It’s winter – I know I keep saying it – but it is dark and gray and smoggy all the time, so what should I do, ignore it? ok that’s an idea..ha, wonder why it didn’t occur to me before? It’s simple, right? just ignore it. Right.
So, when you are alone and dealing with all the issues on the home front by yourself, are you entitled to a little angst?? The answer, if you ask anyone, is, yes, maybe, but don’t tell me about it…gee thanks, that helped.
See mommyrage is something most people laugh at, or at the most, at least in India, they tell you that that’s the way it’s been and it’s sooooo much better now, blah blah and more blah! Ok, so it is better for me than it was for my mother, and that’s good, but it still is tough sometimes, and all I need is for someone to understand that, just that. Really.
That and some chipping in…too much to ask? Apparently.
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what if..
When I quit full time work, I was very sure I wanted to spend time with my daughter. I still want to do that because for now I am happy doing what I do – pretty much being with my baby all day – but, the big but, is that I wonder if in a few years from now, when she’s grown and wants her “space”, I’ll have regrets..because I’ll have been out of the career thing too long to get back in. Will I have this vacuum that I’ll find hard to fill?
I always thought I’d never face this quandary, because there was so much else I’d wanted to do when I was working full time that I thought that when I have the time, I’ll do all this great stuff that may not set the world on fire, but it’d give me enough to do. Now, I’m not so sure, and worse, time seems to fly, and before I know it another day has gone, and my enthusiasm and ideas have receded further into the clutter that seems to make up most of my gray cells lately.
But, I tell myself that it’ll get better, that I’d become more organized as my daughter grows older, and before I am forty, something would have (miraculously) happened on the professional front.
The trouble with this story is, that this is the exact path that many women follow before they hit forty and then boom, they lose it. What if, what if I am doing the exact same thing, setting myself up for the big snap..what if..
Your quandary is yours and yours alone, no one else cares..
Winter is tough at the best of times, so with lack of sleep and wailing babies, it seems close to intolerable..but wait I am a mother, how can I lose patience?? I hear that kind of asinine talk all the time. In my mommyrage mood, this is enough to make me lash out hard.
Why is the world not more understanding of mommies and their issues? (no pun intended!) Be it the workplace or at home, a woman is pretty much on her own to figure it all out. If you have a good boss you’ll get some understanding but expect no more, come on we all have kids and they get brought up somehow so stop whining if you are at work – that’s the general attitude. No surprise then that most super-successful women are either single or have children who hardly know them.
You can’t do both, if you want to do both things well..no matter what anyone says..not possible. Ya lots of women work and bring up kids but the question is – how much do they miss out at work because they are not willing to put in that extra time? A lot. And if you take the hot-career path, then the kids will not get the kind of attention they need. No two ways about it.
It’s not fair. My situation does not allow me to leave my daughter at home, yet when I told my boss, who was perfectly happy with my work, that I wanted to work from home, he told me I’d be setting a bad precedent! HR (go on, fire that distasteful gun) would not be happy, and one would rather displease God than HR!
So here I am, (mommy)blogging to keep my sanity, and wondering if I am good for anything else.
It gets better, but not really
Ok so you get through these sleepless times by thinking that it gets better, and it does, but only so much..talk to some moms of older kids – and by older I mean kids between 6-10 years, because any older than that you’re looking at being forty something yourself and by then the getting-better thing is not going to be enough to cheer you up!
So getting back to my point, it really does not get that much better. Sure, you’re not dealing with an infant but a six year old needs a lot of attention and time too, maybe even more than an infant, because now they have a mind of their own and have to be dealt with carefully. Then there’s the homework, out of school activities, and like a million other things. And you deal with this all by your pretty self…where is a husband when you need him??
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