Her Time of Life…

Ever thought what it is really like to be a mother? What does it entail? What lies behind this title? How many, are the strings attached? Sometimes I think there is a pun intended in all the flashy ads and movies, where they show the rosy picture of being a mother. Or maybe they just conveniently forget to show the other side of the story.

My intent for writing this is not to demean or belittle the underrated and unpaid job of being a mother. On the contrary, the reason behind all this is to make myself and maybe others like me, aware of the reality of what a mother goes through.

I will not go into a tirade of what a mother goes through carrying the baby for nine months, as I am no authority on that; and lets just say for the sake of argument that she signed up for that. Let’s even say that feeding, caring, worrying, protecting and loving unconditionally (which we all like to babble about) is built into her DNA and you never asked for it. And let’s also assume that she herself brought all that uncalled for tension – you – upon her. But when did she sign-up for not being acknowledged for all that she does? When did it become acceptable to ridicule her?

For years we see her spending her days and nights for us. Very rarely do we see or acknowledge the effort that goes into her daily life. For us it is just natural. Very often we get frustrated or embarrassed at her explicit show of love, never realizing that there are very few people (if any) who do that for us (and we are ready to give our time, energy and love to all those except her). Never do we realize that how important that love is for us, or how it feeds the emotional thirst in our materialistic lives. If not for this love, we might actually forget the delightful side of reality. I could go on for ages regarding all that she has done for us and all that she still does for us, but I will not, because we all know this, right?

But do we? Of course we do. “Man! I even wish her on every Mother’s Day” or “give her presents every other month” (Wow! That is doing something). However, I just do not consider it important enough to listen to her. Well I know that there could be no one more sincere to me in the whole world, but still I just ignore her. Oh, how easily we make judgments and throw away loved ones. If she had done the same to us in our time of need would we be where we are today. If she had not sacrificed everything (literally everything) for us would we have scaled the heights where we find ourselves? The answer is a big NO!

She talks too much, or gives too much advice because she still cares; because her love for you and her desire to see you succeed cannot be matched by anyone else. All these years, you did not grow out of earth all by yourself! It was her… she looked out for you, fed you, protected you and loved you; for what? So that one day you could grow up and tell her, “Ma! You don’t know” or “you don’t understand”. Since when did she deserve that?

She bears the humiliation of being rejected, ignored and not understood, hoping that in you her time will come; her time - when she will be listened to, understood and happy. And this is what she gets in return – us - her children - ungrateful, exasperated and annoyed. I am sure what it feels like… like being robbed of your whole life’s savings! I wonder, when will her time come? Will it ever come?

We might justify it to ourselves that we are not bad kids compared to others, (I sincerely hope you are not) because our mothers deserve a lot better from us. An occasional acknowledgement of services provided, some “thank you(s)” on the way, sometimes an explicit show of emotions, an empathetic ear, and a usual show of respect by accepting and following her advices might give us a shot at giving her, her time of life. Trust me, it is worth a shot. She deserves it more than anyone in your life.