Mother’s Day: The funniest truth about motherhood? Your kids will absolutely humiliate you

lll

My son goes to school with kids who seem like normal children but are clearly saints in school uniform because all the other mothers talk breathlessly about their children’s glowing hearts. Every year before the school year starts, parents are invited to school to meet with the class teacher and write a card to their child which will be pinned up on the class board. The other mums live for these orientations, they have a captive audience for the stories and then they write cards of over 10,000 words to welcome their child to the new grade. Being a considerably more impatient, less doting and way less conscientious mother, I skip orientation entirely. On his first day of the new grade, my son finds the board cluttered with loving messages meant for everyone in the class except himself. He is back home and upset, and I have major guilt pangs, perhaps I should have endured listening to the collected stories of Everyone’s Sainted Children. But just when I feel I am the worst mother on earth, I remember to bring out the big guns of motherhood – extra TV privileges. The next day, my extremely happy son writes himself a note saying, ‘Dear Son, have fun in your new class, I love you, Mom’ and sticks it on the board.

To everyone who mothers, Happy Mother’s Day

lll

My friend is nursing her newborn. Her three-year-old comes up to her and asks if she can nurse too. “Oh honey, I nursed you when you were little”, she says, “but I can’t do it anymore. You have teeth now and so it’s not possible. I’m sorry.” The little girl shrugs and wanders off. My friend tortures herself over whether she handled that interaction correctly. Will her daughter be forever traumatised that she was denied the breast when she specifically asked for it? Will this impact the relationship she has with her sibling? She is overwrought. Over dinner that night, her little girl suddenly turns to her grandfather. You should ask mama if you can nurse, Dadu, she says loudly. Mama WILL allow you, since you, like the baby, have no teeth.

lll

I’m sitting in the doctors waiting room with my daughter. He’s a very Important Prestigious Doctor and I have been coming to him for her allergies. But she doesn’t seem to be getting much better. I see an old college friend who has just come into the waiting room with her kids in tow. “How is she”, she asks me. “I feel so guilty being the allergy queen I am, for having passed these on to her.” I confess. “She has no respite. Should I try alternate treatments? Everyone says this doctor is the best but perhaps I should try another doctor? I’m exhausted, but I’m thinking let me give him him one last chance.” We wring hands and commiserate. At long last, it’s our turn to see the doctor. How are you doing? The doctor asks my daughter jauntily. “I’m okay,” she says tipping her head to one side, “but I think YOU’RE not. My mama was just telling her friend that she’s giving you one last chance. Otherwise,…“And here, like Donald Trump when he was host of his own reality show, The Apprentice, she clicks her little fingers and says triumphantly, “… you’re fired!”

lll

There are many moments that make up motherhood. Some have schmaltzy greeting cards to commemorate them. My own experience of motherhood has been lived almost exclusively on the “no cards to cover this eventuality” path. Motherhood may be many things, but this I know for certain — “puh” for pissed off, “buh” for Bloody Mary and “luh” for living to fight another day should definitely be in the instruction manual for it. Infuriating, exhausting, tortured, hilarious, significant, embarrassing, deeply meaningful, life altering — motherhood gives you no awards but gives you battle scars and memories to last a lifetime.

To everyone who mothers, Happy Mother’s Day. Anytime you are wringing your hands wondering if your actions will scar your kids for life — no matter what you do, yes, they will.
Meanwhile, always remember. Your kids may or may not be lost without you. But their socks? They most definitely will.

Vatsala Mamgain loves food, cooking, running, dogs, trees, books and telling long winded stories