Tag - 5 things motherhood taught me

Sangitha tagged me in her post about the 5 things that mommyhood taught me. It’s a tad difficult to pinpoint the (only?!) 5 things that mommyhood has taught me. Well this is what they are currently - I am sure and I hope the list will increase and lengthen as the years go by. There’s always tons of scope for improvement and a feeling of satisfaction when said improvement happens!!!

Here goes.

One - I’ve always been a sensitive, non-judgemental person and even before the babies happened, I was aware of the need to slide more towards the insensitive end of the scale! I have been walked over by many people many times, and my inherent politeness and political correctness left me at the unpleasant receiving end of many conversations and situations. I think what mommyhood did was make me more protective and more confident. As a working mom in 2005-2007, I neither had the time nor the desire to put up with all sorts of rubbish, be it from family, colleagues, or friends. During this period, a major transition in personality happened. How much of it is due to the fact that I was entering my 30s (and knew my mind better and was basically more sorted out) and how much due to mommyhood, we shall never know; but I think it was the latter that had the bigger role to play. So yes, mommyhood made me thicker-skinned, more outspoken, more quarrelsome, more argumentative! Thankfully I managed to hold on to the non-judgemental bit J  

Two - I started understanding the importance of relying on one’s instincts rather than proceed rationally and cautiously all the time. My instincts haven’t always been spot –on (when Ads was a baby, my mother used to wryly observe that in my home, the father’s instincts were stronger than the mother’s! When Ads cried or even turned over in his sleep, S would be up in a flash while I would be obliviously snoring away J). But trusting instincts more than I was used to, was a long haul. I’m not there yet.

Three - Multi-tasking. Need I elaborate? I thought I had it all figured out. An example from day 1 of living in the US. Ads was 18 months old and until that point, I’d never been around him 24-7. S was already at work. He called me at 11 am to see how I was doing and I wailed in absolute agony “I have so much work! We haven’t even had breakfast yet and it’s almost lunchtime!” Yup – we’ve come a long way since then J

Four - After I became a mom, I wanted to be good. Not merely nice, but a truly good person, who would be a wonderful example to her child(ren). I felt selfless unconditional love and so I wanted to be other things that lead to goodness – helpful, kind, brave, caring, generous. For the first time in my life, I really believed that it was entirely possible to be all of those things. Motherhood made me more harried, sure; it also made me a better listener, a more concerned employer, a more sincere worker, a more caring friend. It’s done more to improve my nature (yes, even the standing-up-for-myself and doing-my-own-thing counts as improvement!) than all the self-help books I read.

Five - Mommyhood is deeply humbling. It made me realize how much I didn’t know. You don’t get far enough with books and workshops. It’s like any other job. You learn while on it. And you don’t stop learning because this is a real person with real issues and problems that you have created and moulded. Having said that, as my son gets past his early childhood years, I also realize that I am NOT his only or primary influence and there are many many more factors and people developing his personality. My experiences with Ads haven’t really helped me that much with raising Y, hammering once again into my head that there is so little that I know!

I tag Aparna, Uma, Life_refactored (daddyhood teaches too!), Forever Mother and BangaloreMom. Looking forward to reading what they have to say!