Learning to be a parent

A personal reflection from Chitra Kolluru

It was a mildly warm dusty October afternoon in Bangalore when on my way back from an early wind up at work, I went to collect the reports of my tests and scans done the previous day as a follow up to some vague abdominal pain, which till that moment I did not pay much attention to. I was never a very healthy girl, colds and coughs ailed me often and weakness and low stamina were my forever companions. I could run a sprint if I wanted to, but healthy living was never my forte. My vital- ambition, will to make a difference, and the thrill of taking on a challenge is what defined me through my teen years and into my twenties. Twenty-four, recently married and very happy was how I saw myself.

The doctor sat across the table and calmly announced that I had a huge cyst on my left ovary which had to be operated immediately. What made things worse, only after operating would we know if it was malignant. While I was never healthy, I was never really sick either, barring an age-old chicken pox that ruined my lone trip to Mumbai thus far to see off my elder brother to the United States, I was always hale and hearty, never a care in the world. The doctor’s words were like a death knell and I broke down in dramatic sobs before my new husband and over the phone to my distant mom, who packed her bags and moved in with me for a month. She might have felt that she was done taking care of me and said it aloud for irony to latch onto and prove wrong. So, there she was playing the caring parent for the thousandth time.

After a taxing routine of hospital visits, meds, nausea, tests, precautions, nutrition, unwanted advice, what hurt the most was when it was announced that parenthood could be elusive, so trying soon (read immediately) was the right decision. Over the last one year my life felt like new job, new place, new marriage, new husband, new and unprecedented health issue and now new parenthood that I must hope and push for, even though that’s the last thing I wanted. They say the mind is the fastest in the world, but sometimes when life has taken charge and there is no time to think with your mind, you can feel like moving at breakneck speed where things are just happening to you and you are merely an observer. The mind is just lapping up on experiences as if it will use it to think and plan in bulk at a later point. Before I knew it, I was on some mild fertility drugs and had turned the exciting intercourse thrill into a planned regime amidst prayers and hope. How does one pray and hope for something that one is not even certain one wants, just because it has been laid down as the thing to pursue?

I realized that was normal for me, around 13, following a public humiliation and punishment at school and a promise to my mom, I had given up reckless freedom for good, and jumped into the admirable bandwagon of societal expectations- academics, cultural prizes, sports, leadership positions, engineering college, MBA, job, timely marriage and now timely parenthood, that’s what I have been doing, or trying and failing in parts; I seldom felt like the winner through all of this, its funny.

She came exactly 18 months after that fateful report but not without innumerable anxious moments- spotting during pregnancy, prayers, low weight, prayers, unexpected water break, prayers and more prayers. I had never prayed so frantically all my life. I resolved to be the best mom to A but was to her a mom nothing more than what my mom was to me – supportive and strict, encouraging and disciplined, protective and demanding. Fifteen years into parenting her, now in her teens, I realized I was a replica of my mom, the person I resolved not to be – being the problem solver everytime but taking the pound of flesh (read peace of mind in return for it). Ever since A arrived, she has been teaching me how to be a parent- calmness, patience, demeanor when in stress, right words, expectations, being politically right (I was exactly the opposite with close friends and family), not to speak of genuine kindness through example, forgiveness – all of which she took time to teach me so seldom got to experience them from me herself. In return, I taught her grit, how to take on challenges with elan, face the tough situations – not perfectly but show up and work ethic, something that Nature is probably weaning away in her generation. It was in her fourteenth year, when A walked up to me with hope in her eyes and trust in her heart to bare her secrets to me that I made a resolve to take a turn and not walk the beaten path of my mom’s parenting but choose my own that would suit the lives of my daughter and then my son D who was by then eight and who came into the world with fewer swords hanging on my head but more hidden away in life’s unexpected alleyways, pointed suddenly at me that I had to fight and overcome along the way. He was so heart- numbingly different from his older sibling, that one would see and throw all claims of genes and DNA out the window. The saying that there are different people hidden within each of us comes to mind, probably each child takes upon one hidden persona, hence starkly different from each other.

If A taught me parenting through byte sized lessons and examples, D threw challenges at me every now and then to test how my learning was going. After a point with A stepping out for college, the lessons thinned away, only the tests and challenges remained – learning on the line of fire. But all that life and A taught me were stashed away in hurried learning curve in the depths somewhere that later surfaced when needed with D’s own physical, learning and behavioural challenges. As I was navigating one such mini crisis incident in D’s life, A broke down and demanded of me if I would have been so calm and understanding if she would have landed in the same trouble years back. I was too stunned to answer; -  life first demands answers to past wrong-doings before it can applaud your recent right doings. “How come the same rules don’t apply”, she sobbed. My wise answer seemed unimpressive to the little child who was unfamiliar that parents are evolving too, they have been elevated to parenthood long before they were trained to play the roles. Sometimes children are the guinea pigs, we learn the trade through, sometimes they are the recipients of our well learnt lessons.

But A and D are not the only ones that taught me how to be a mom – even a tolerable one. There were many inspirations along the way, they may not all be perfect human beings in all the roles they play, but the way they navigate a phase of life or an incident, or the values they live by become inspiring rungs of the ladder of your own life as you watch and learn. The way my mom picked up the pieces of her life and made a beautiful and respectable example of it, after my father, her husband and lifelong soul mate suddenly left her was not just impressive but surprisingly inspirational. Physically, emotionally and financially, she was not just self-sufficient but learnt changing rules of the game and built a synergistic if not completely independent life with her children. We help her in her life, but we continue to receive in gifts, care and support more than we give. She was never the supportive grandmother when my children were little and we (my spouse and I) fought our battles alone; but that’s because she was stabilizing her own life and healing from having raised her own two children and then caring for her ailing husband. We may seem absent when we are engrossed in self-care and gaining inner stability but it’s always advisable to take care of our own oxygen masks first before helping others. She more than made up through prayer what she missed through presence. This my mom taught me through example. Today when I am asked to step aside at times with A being 20 and D arriving at 14, feeling like 18, I support them through silent presence and prayer, something that a mom can always provide.

Through the course of life I met a friend, who I can say was loud, brash, bold, very religious, extremely stylish, posh and as someone exposed to simplicity, I would normally shun or be uncomfortable around. But I managed to see her vulnerable side when she went through a nasty divorce and somehow, inspite of her shaky morals and doubtful stands in life, I stood by her like a rock. And in the course met the real her, the one who was unabashed but still feared consequences silently, was open about her options outside her marriage but held her children close together, stayed on and fought; loved to enjoy life but stood strong before responsibilities and problems. She was the strong woman I spoke to my daughter about and laid the facts bare and honest so A could decide her opinions for herself. I learnt what it meant to stand by oneself and one’s children when life raised the gun, from her.

None of these people were perfect human beings, not even morally, ethically let alone spiritually but they displayed the force of life in uncanny ways that are lessons for a mother, as life makes you mom to children of all ages at one time or another.

But the most precious lessons are saved for the last. The lesson to value relationships over ambitions, to put sincere attempts above outcomes especially when it comes to kids, to note the improvements not the comparisons,  to learn what triggers act up for me and my children and exercise maturity for both sides when handling difficult situations, finally as the Mother has said, the best way to teach a child is to be the example that they can emulate; these I am still trying and hopefully getting better at. There are many failed days, when my expectations rise above their efforts, when my frustrations are too evident to hide and their mistakes want to hide behind lies, but luckily there is the Mother to both my kids and me who watches over us and teaches us how to be. To her we go, when life gets too much and sit down to learn one more lesson.