Written By: Upneet Pansare | Updated : November 15, 2017 3:19 PM IST
When I was little, I thought I was unlucky to have a working mother. The earliest memory I have of my mom is this- me, bawling and standing at the front door with my hands spread out, blocking the door, and my mom trying to make her way out to work. Don t go to office! I would yell as she would plead with me to let her go, probably with some amount of working mom guilt. How can my mom abandon me for a whole day and go to office? would be my grouse every single weekday morning till I finally understood the ways of life. Today, as I look back at my childhood and later life, I realise how lucky I was to have a working mother because of these valuable lessons.
1. My mother would get up at 5 am every day, cook breakfast and lunch for the family, pack tiffin boxes, wake me up, get me ready for school, feed me, get ready for work, take a bus and train to office, work for 7-8 hours, come back and cook dinner at home, get me ready for bed and help me with homework. Of course, she had some assistance from my dad too. But she did the bulk of the work. All this was possible, she would tell me years later, only with proper time management. There was this discipline everyone at home including I, had to adhere to. Everything HAD to be done with clockwork precision. Read: Things you shouldn't say to a working mom.
2. Everyone loves their mother. But the kind of respect, love and longing that you develop for your mother when she has been away from you for 9-10 hours in a day, is something else. When I looked at my other friends with stay-at-home moms, I would sometimes feel like they would take their moms for granted you know, expecting her to be with you all the time, cook for you, feed you, play with you at your will. On the other hand, I would have only a few precious hours with mom that I thoroughly cherished and made the most of. Those hours in the evenings and bed time were very special to me.
3. I had to fight my own battles, literally. As a kid, fights and quarrels with friends were my sole responsibility. I didn t have my mom to back me up or fight on my behalf, because she would be away and never have the time and inclination to call truce/fight with other moms, after a tiring working day (sadly, many of my friends moms would interfere in our fights!). This was one of the many things that taught me how to be independent.
4. Balancing work and family was a concept I was exposed to since my childhood. I had seen my mother have a clear grasp on both work and family issues. In my eyes, there was nothing she couldn t do. Watching her in the kitchen whip up delicacies = super awesome. Watching her discuss important deals with CEOs and managers = even more awesome. The fact that my mother could do everything led me to believe I could too. There wasn t, isn t and will probably never be a better role model in my life.
5. I learnt to do a few basic chores quite early on reheating food, making tea, ironing clothes, dealing with minor crisises at home (fixing leaky taps, running urgent errands), and innovating and experimenting with quick, shortcut afternoon snacks. Of course, it was only after taking hundreds of instructions from her!
6. Watching her independent, not just financially but also otherwise, was empowering. She had a life of her own outside of home, her own set of work friends and parties and events. I knew early on that sometimes my mom would need to be away from me, with other people and at other places away from home and that I would have to be absolutely okay with it. Here's how to deal with separation anxiety when you are a working mother.
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