Being a Mother and Not Going By the Conventional Wisdom!

It all started with a picture I posted with a glass of beer in front of me in Facebook. A childhood friend (male) felt inspired to call me up and give me some "good advice" on how I can delete the picture in order to be a good mother to my son. He added, "You anyway hold a full-time job and travel. Is that not bad enough for your son that you feel like posting these kind of pictures?! Always remember, now you are a mother first!" with extra emphasis on NOW! 

I think my son, Gogol (Agneebh) was about 11 years old then. We had a good laugh talking about that incident and the advice on hiding the fact that I drank occasionally, as he cleaned the fridge and I cleaned and deveined prawns while sharing space in the kitchen today. As we discussed more such examples and giggled some more, the late-teen boy felt I must write a blog-post around my tryst with such advices. So here you go! 

I became a mother as a 25 year old and was comfortable wearing my skirts and t-shirts. The first piece of "advice" I got was around changing my attire. I was told I must do that or my son would never consider me a mother! What is a mother without a pallu/anchal which can be used by children to wipe their hands, or cover themselves, I was told. I asked if western mothers or for that matter Goan or Sri Lankan mothers are considered mothers at all! The advisor was aghast! After all we were Bengali! And Bengali literature was full with the image of the mother with sari and anchal. Was I not even bothered about what kind of trouble my son would face when when he would not find that "literature mother" literally? Hmmm. No. That thought did not bother me beyond creating some doubts in my head. As it turns out children do not care about what mothers wear. 

When Gogol was 2 years and 8 months old, I spoke to him about good touch and bad touch. He was about to go to school in 2 months. I really wanted to do this before he went to school. Gogol understood it fine and I added more information every year. I was told it was too early. I was told by many, in later years too how they could not think of talking to even their 6 year olds about good touch- bad touch.  I was relating the experience and my son laughed, "It is the parents' inability to speak, Ma. They have not figured out how to say it due to their own stigma and hence make excuses. And that is true about menstruation and sex too." That reminded me of a funny incident around Gogol opening his Science book of 8th Standard. He found a whole chapter on bodily changes and went on with a lot of drama in his voice, "Oh my god! My friends are going to have a bad time! Really bad time! I want to see how Ma'am teaches this in the class, Ma. I think she will skip it!" I said, "Well! how do you know your friends know nothing about these? Maybe their mothers have spoken to them too!" He continued in the same amusing voice, "Oh no Ma! Not at all! Have no such illusion. I know what they think about menstruation, so please!!" I had to agree to laugh with him a bit more when he came back and told me a few months later how the chapter was only dealt with in a very cursory manner in school and how all students were very uncomfortable. We talked about homosexuality when he was 7 years old. I see my room-mate and friend, Ronita having that discussion with her kids since the time the second one was 3 years old. And she has a simple sentence for it. "Love is love!" You can not discriminate against love. And her children understand it perfectly well. It is some adults who love to ask questions that do not appear in children's heads. 

Gogol and I then started talking about the toys he played with. He still does not agree with me that I restricted his access to action figures and WWE shows on TV. He thought it was my gross overreaction to anything related to "violence". There was not such need. However, he got very nostalgic when I talked about how he wanted a tea-set on his 7th birthday and I found him a good one. He went on, "Oh how I loved it, Ma! The yellow cups, right? They were beautiful! Why don't you buy me another tea-set this birthday?" I said, "Oh sure! I can buy you a real bone-china tea-set now!" We discussed the details of the set to buy gleefully. I also told him there was stiff resistance by some of the people he loved on me buying these kind of toys for him. When he was about 2 years old, I got dolls for him. He loved playing with them. My cousin warned me, "Do not fret later when he grows up to be a homosexual man!" He, of course used the word "Gay". I told him as far as I know homosexuality does not work like that, and I will definitely not "fret" over sexuality of my son. Gogol was also told this in due course. That is, he is free to be what he wants and free to talk about what he feels he is, including if he feels he is gay. 

I was told not to talk about "birds and bees" with him. Or he will lose his "innocence". Those were the exact words used. I could not pay heed to that as all the child development books said otherwise. Although when I started speaking I was not sure how I would proceed if he asked anything that I did not know how to respond to but I still went ahead and it went fine. And when these people met my son almost a year after we had the talk and proceeded quite far in details by then, they found him amazingly innocent for his age over the 7 days they spent with him on a trip. I laughed a lot in my head! 

There is a funny anecdote on this. He watched the TV show "Friends" when he was in 9th Standard but the failure of contraceptive methods (referred to in the series) came up as a heated discussion between us when he was in standard 11th. As we were seriously discussing efficacy of these in a mall while walking vigorously towards a shop. We realised it was something odd when we saw a young man in his late 20s looking back to check this odd duo talking about contraception. 

And then of course I did not pay heed to almost everyone advising me on continuing with my non-existent marriage of Gogol's sake as he was only 12.5 years old then. To be honest, I could not, no more, but I had to hear all the usual crap about how a child needs both parents come what may! along with, "He would grow up too fast!" "He is at the doorstep of teenage and you will damage him emotionally!" "Children never take parent's break up well!" "You are selfish!" and the biggest weapon "You are not a good parent!". Circa today! He is for everyone to see at 19. Generally a very happy chap. Some of my friends find him one of the best raised boys around, I find him far from being the humane human I would like him to grow up to be. He has a long way to traverse still. And like I jokingly say to my friends, "He is finally living his teenage. We are not in good terms these days!" And we all laugh. The one thing I hope he learnt from me is that abusive relationships are not good for any one and every one has right to take a renewed chance at happiness. Well! That is my hope for him. But the one thing I can tell you with surety though about us these days. He hugs me much less than he used to, and I don't like it! 

Today at midnight he brought two pegs of whiskey to celebrate Mother's Day! We had good fun recapitulating all his favourite childhood stories for the 100th time! Or was it 106th time? Who knows!! But then, who cares?