Yesterday was Mother’s day when all Mothers world over were exalted for who they are and for all they do. Good stuff! But I do wish for things to be different when it comes to the way our society perceives Motherhood to be. For starters, we could treat all Mothers as normal human beings and not glorify the sacrifices that they make (or forced to make?) on virtue of being Mothers. We could also be easy on Mothers who are visibly flawed and/ or whose families are visibly flawed, instead of blaming the Mothers for all the flaws. As a matter of fact, everyone in this world is flawed, we all know that, so let’s stop glorifying the act of perfection and hold Mothers ,especially, to some super high standards. And most importantly, let’s stop defining how a Mother should or shouldn’t be when it comes to raising her family or in living her life.
Mother’s day is a scam today because it doesn’t matter that we have one day earmarked to celebrate the Mothers when the rest of the time we criticize them more than appreciate or acknowledge them.
Despite being much smarter than her peers, she did not take up promotions until her children went to college and even then she was made to feel bad for her decision. In 2009, when I hit the worst point of my life with the suicide of my ex boyfriend, and became the talk of the town, Mom wasn’t spared either. She was blamed for what had happened because, apparently, she wasn’t around enough to care for me. Mom, in fact, was the major bread winner at that point and she needed to go to work for us to be financially secure. Nobody blamed Dad then, but EVERYONE blamed Mom and loudly remarked how she did not raise me well for she was busy going off to work and hence I screwed up! This was when she was in charge of the entire foreign exchange portfolio in Tiruppur as an Officer and doing her part in contributing substantially to the society.
When she became a Manager in the year 2014, instead of being made to feel good about her promotion, she was scoffed at by many of her relatives and friends for focusing too much on her career instead of taking care of her daughters’ weddings. She was repeatedly asked to resign to get her daughters married off. Nobody asked my Dad to stop working to get us married, it was always Mom who was asked to quit to take care of her family. I am glad she turned deaf ears to all those unsolicited remarks and opinions.
We lost our dear Paati (Mom’s Mom) who was very dear to Mom, around the time Mom doubled the gold loan business as a branch head in Palangarai. At that time, she had managed all her responsibilities at work to perfection while simultaneously taking care of her sick mother, who lived with her then. Yet, during my Grandmother’s funeral, she was taunted for not being around her family enough and for not doing enough. Her relatives said mean things within her earshot. Thankfully, she has thick skin and was undeterred by all of it.
She is going to retire in less than a month, and I am sure she is taunted and is made to feel bad for not having grandchildren to spend her retired life with, rather than be celebrated for all that she has done for the society, the society that has mostly been mean to her. I am sure she is not the only Mother who has been treated harshly in this world. ALL mothers are. The good thing is, today, Mothers could speak up, be heard, AND be understood. So I am speaking up on behalf of my Mother (and possibly many Mothers like mine) – let’s stop this bullshit of holding Mothers to some super high, non-attainable standards which only sets them up for failure. It’s not only unfair but also brutal. Until we stop doing this, celebrating Mothers day one day of the year while ill-treating them rest of the time is only going to make us hypocrites. Let’s strive not to be one and that would be a bigger favor for Mothers than celebrating them on one random day ,once in a blue moon.
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Renu's Zone - but not as complicated 