One of the first few things that anyone tells me is that I don't look 'old' enough to be a mother.
I usually do not respond but the remark always reminds me of family photographs and the old albums I loved burying my nose in as a child. I always think of those young frail looking women- women in the family, my mother, her friends, sisters- with babies in tow that cautiously appear on the blurred edges, distant background or the fuzzy middles of those black and white, and occasionally color, photographs. As a child, inhaling the dust of those disintegrating photographs, I would imagine their stories, the everyday-ness of their lives, on what lay behind those half smiles, transfixed solemn stares or toothy laughter. I would look at their babies, making connections, figuring out resemblances between the child and man/woman, but also noting the look of exhaustion, bone thin weariness that the women wore like lipstick.
No matter how prepared, every woman is unprepared for motherhood. I could not imagine the state of perpetual wakefulness and broken sleep that has come to characterize my 'sleeping' hours ever since Sophie, my daughter.
Sophie, my daughter. It seems so strange to even say it. Sometimes I wonder at how God thought me fit to be a mother when I can barely make sense of my own life. Sometimes I wonder if all women thought the same thought but continued with growing children up, come what may. Perhaps others too, like me, have struggled with the definition of motherhood. We don't seem to experience the emotions we are supposed to. Worry, the urge to care, the desire to protect are natural to every parent. But this glorious paean to the Tiger-Warrior-Nurturer that resounds in every word spoken written read heard about the 'mother' is not me.
Should I be worried about it?
I have certainly struggled with my transition to motherhood. I have resented my changed status, become angry at what I am 'expected' to do, felt adamant when I did not perform 'motherly' things. These were feelings that did not occur only 'post-partum' as doctors fancifully put it. These are feelings that rise to the surface like the 'occasional' Hurricane Katrina. I have certainly not been a role model mother. For the sake of my mental sanity, I left my baby behind at home with a woman I do not entirely trust, to go to work that is not entirely satisfactory.For the sake of my desire to get back to where I started from, I left my baby behind. I have felt terribly guilty, torn between wanting to stay at home with her and going mad when I did so.
I understood why those women in the photographs wore those barely clenched smiles.
Today, as on other days, when I left for work, climbing into my car, and my baby wailed after me saying 'Amma , Amma', my heart tightened and a half suppressed thought lingered in my throat.
Perhaps it is not motherhood that is glorious. It is a child's utter utter dependence on you, the mother, that makes motherhood. The knowledge that I am irreplaceable, so needed is a tremendous ego boost but it is also, I think, what compels women like me to figure out 'motherhood' as constructed by others down the ages.
