By M.Rajini
Parenting as a subject has stirred up interest in our readers (Ref Mother Day article dated Mar.17), so much so that we have a couple of parents who wished to narrate their experience in a candid manner. That would be great because the essence of their learning should not be lost under the garb of ‘societal pretence’. We promised anonymity. Let’s call a ‘spade a spade’. Here it is…
A Mother’s saga is presented to readers as a celebration of Mother’s Day
My daughter was a precious gift from God, born after 5 years of anxious wait. So very precious. God had planned this to make me a better and mature mother. I was confident that my offspring would be a model kid. I was a working woman and had to report for work the very next day my maternity leave ended. I left my 3-month-old infant in the able hands of my mother-in-law and headed to my slave driving office – 8 am to 10 pm. No time even to call and enquire how she was doing. I was never there for her till her teens. And, our conversations were limited to her homework and upcoming exams, because I thought I was optimally using the available time to discuss studies!! Stupid of me to think I was spending quality time with my child. I thought that was all that there was to her life (Seriously? How ignorant I was). I never asked about her day at school, her teachers and her friends. Parent-teacher meetings used to be a bitter
experience for me as it was about her poor academic performance. But that never bothered me much, as I myself was not great academically. She was a very well-mannered and soft-spoken kid, which was very important to me. I prided myself on it. What else could possibly go wrong?
Oh! What a misconception. I never realised that she could be keeping things from me for fear of judgment, punishment, and yelling. I quit my job when she entered her teens. This decision was based on my “assumption” that I had to be there for her during those sensitive years. I was never there when she was sprouting, it was naive of me to expect magic. How wrong I was to think that she would come running to me when she was scared or in confusion. I had already let her drift away. She was in her own world. I realised that I was as much a stranger to her as someone next door. I have missed creating a bond during her early years and suddenly expect her to accept me. But I was her mother, isn’t it natural for her to run to me for help? Nope. It doesn’t happen that way. Just like any other relationship, there has to be TRUST. Sadly, that was missing on both sides. She never trusted me, and I was paranoid about her all the time. I was hearing so many shocking stories about teenage kids and social media abuse and how the role of parents is very important in protecting the kids, so I was always, On Guard.
It was all too overwhelming. That was the time when social media was taking the world by storm. Kids were taking on to it like fish to water and parents were struggling to get a grasp of it. The kids were enamoured by its wide net. The fact that they could make friends in an instant without even having to meet in person was so mind-blowing. It had created a huge divide between us.
In her eighth grade (13 years) she was given a smartphone as a gift (very much against my wish). She convinced me about the necessity of the internet for her assignments. I was witnessing the gradual increase in her network of friends. She was randomly mentioning names of boys who weren’t even in her school. She said it was her friend’s friend and he was cool. She would attend a birthday party, and I would naively assume it to be her classmate, but it would be of her friend’s friend’s friend who was in college. When I come to know of it, all hell will break loose and she will just say that I am overreacting. Then she started doing things on the sly, due to my (unreasonable!!) reactions and kept me in the dark about her whereabouts. Going to parties required spending and I started noticing money missing around the house. The credit card was used without my knowledge complete with OTP and all. So much for my ignorance of technology and my belief that a child of mine cannot stoop so low. I started panicking as all this was new to me. I never signed up for these twists in parenting.
I thought parenting was a smooth happy journey but to my horror, I am finding it to be a roller coaster ride. I was losing it as I was not able to comprehend this wild behaviour of my offspring; it was beyond my realm. Where did I go wrong? I felt like a failure and took out all my frustration on her. We were constantly crossing swords, and whenever things got out of hand, I even got physical (much against my wish).
I could not discuss this with anyone; how could I let anyone know what a total failure I was, as a mother? I had quit my job to be there for my daughter and I felt like a stranger to her.
She was distancing herself from me day by day. The last straw was when she was in her 10th. The maximum pressure point for students. She was not able to handle her studies and her friends’ circle. She now started comparing herself
to her high-achieving friends and started to feel like a failure. Sadly, she did not have anyone to talk to. For her, I was an alien from another generation.
She slipped away gradually into depression. Unknowingly, I was my usual strict self and still worried only about her grades, as she was in her 10th std. There was a rapid decline in her grades and her health too. That was when I got alarmed and took her to the doctor, who advised me to take her to a counsellor, as stress can trigger many health-related issues. That was when Pandora’s box opened. I learned the bitter truth about the lack of connection with my daughter.
I sat and deliberated on where I was in the wrong. My kid is not someone who wouldn’t listen to reason. I firmly believed in that and swung into action. It is ironic that we do not follow even 1% of the advice we shower onto others. “Never compare kids” is one such oft-repeated cliched advice. But do we really follow this? How many times have we been worried when a neighbour’s child scored better? Likewise, parenting styles also should not be compared. Isn’t it true that we almost always try to copy the style of the 1st rank student’s parents? I tried to figure out what style I should adopt. I opened up to my close nonjudgmental friends and tried to get some input. It required so much patience, time and effort. It also took several counselling sessions for both of us, as I also decided to go to the experts.
I wanted no stone unturned. Ultimately, my perseverance bore fruit. Now my daughter and I are thick as thieves. She is even sharing stuff about her crushes and her unbelievable college gossip. I thank God for giving me the sanity to stand by my daughter when she needed me the most.
Name withheld on request.
