Although I love my parents more than my life but from 19th Nov’14, this love has reached the next level. It’s the day when Shona (my daughter) was born. This tiny-being has taught me ‘huge lessons’ of life; lessons which no one could have made me understand, not even my parents. In these past few months, I have evolved as a new person and of course as a better daughter.
This transformation from a ‘daughter’ to the ‘mom-of-a-daughter’ wasn’t very smooth. I could not adapt to it easily, it is a life changing event for me (i guess it is for every girl). I would say this transformation starts the day you ‘tie the knot’ with someone. After marriage, you become responsible for everything.. from cooking to dish-washing, from laundry to ironing washed clothes and the list goes on. I know you have helpers to do these tasks but to manage them is a bigger task. I hope you know what I mean. Before marriage, you are free from all these daily chores. You have Maa to take care of all these for you and the family. But it changes post marriage! Your husband expects you to do all this. When both partners are working they together do the tasks but when only one is working you yourself don’t ask the working one to help you with the housework.
I left my job to take care of my daughter, I and my husband have mutually agreed on this. So now I am the only one to take care of her and the home. To be precise I am a stay-at-home-mom now. Now I do whatever my mother used to do for us. She used to take care of everything related to me that I sometimes had taken for granted like the home-cooked food, her love, and care, her small concerns for me (come home early, have your food on time, wake up early, do some exercise, comb your hair, clean your face before you go to bed, etc. etc.). Now that I am married and mom to one girl, there is no one at home who does these things for me. It is only me who has to look after everything.
Even after getting married I didn’t realize this fully but now that my little cutie patootie has born I have (to) become more responsible for everything. The list of things mentioned above is taken care of by me. Earlier I used to hate doing these things, I was such a pampered child of my mommy that even my younger sister used to get jealous of this pampering. I was so engrossed in myself that I never took notice of household work. I think I was selfish. Today the scene is such that I have to manage everything at home because I am a stay-at-home-mom now.
When you become more responsible, you (have to) become more disciplined to perform the duties you are accountable for. Let me clear one thing here before Shona I used to be a disciplined girl at school, college, and office but not at home. My mom used to expect a few things from me, to quote some things like putting things in place, leaving bed early on weekends, cleaning the juicer after use, etc. I never cared about these petty things but now I make sure things are in place because now I don’t have enough time to spare in finding things. Discipline comes naturally to a new mommy as you need to take care of new born’s feeding time, pooing time and the other ‘n’ number of things.
Motherhood has been the greatest teacher of my life. It indeed has made me more humble. I have become more kind and gentle. There are things which used to irritate me badly and now the time has changed, I do the same things with a smile on my face. Humility and motherhood go hand in hand. When you become a mother you do learn to appreciate things in a different way. I have started accepting the things as they are. This new role has taught me to be more tolerant and to be more patient. I remember my dad saying this to me that females need to be more patient and tolerant of things. Now I have understood the reason behind his words. He knew what a lady has to sacrifice and compromise to raise her family.
Now my parents see me as a different person altogether. Birth of Shona has changed my perspective of life. I feel more strength and confidence in myself. I believe now ‘I am the better version of Me’.
In the end, I would say only one thing- “I may have lost myself in Motherhood but I found someone even BETTER!” 🙂
This article was originally published by me, here.
