Dear 30 something mothers..

While I am grappling between the pleasures of mother hood and balancing time for myself I am increasingly feeling a certain growing unrest amongst my fellow 30 something mothers. The internet is replete with articles which state how one is 'supposed' to loose ONESELF.. sacrifice your pleasures and dedicate all the time that you have at hand to watch your kid grow - at least for a certain time period, according to a Huffington post writer! Then there are those video adverts that keep rotating on Facebook and other social media channels which elaborate how important is it to appreciate a woman's contribution while she is a stay at home mom, I mean seriously, give me a break!! And the worst thing to happen is get like the highest number of likes or shares for that stupid post! Most stay at home mom's I know, seem to have given up looking after themselves. I am not against a stay at home mom... I am just against propagating it. You made that choice for yourself.. why gather sympathy now? If you don’t feel good about your situation work on it please.

I feel surprised and disgusted at the same time to know how easy it is to give up and seek solace in misery and let the whole world feel empathetic for your situation...under the veil of posing happy pics with your kid..

While I was pregnant with Annie, I had this constant feeling of unrest within myself as to how my life is going to change after my child comes to my life... Moreover how it will change the equation between me and my husband. While i wanted to enjoy the pleasures of motherhood I certainly was not ready to sacrifice anything else for it. At least mentally I wasn’t... I was in constant need of a solution to come around the situation and was constantly in a state of battle with myself. At work place too, I dealt with challenges like silent dismissal of sorts which irked me even more.

In my bid to do something about this feeling I browsed for hundreds of hours, read quite a few books and even took up a few online courses. It was amongst one of those online courses that I interacted with one kind gentlemen whose wife was passing through the same phase that I was... amongst the other things that he told me was the fact that I now had 'more power' to myself only if I chose to identify it and harness it. While the words 'more power' really stuck with me I was still a little clueless as to what I was going to do with it.

Motherhood came and with it came with all the pleasures and sorrows of parenthood. Annie was the most wonderful I had seen, and I promised myself I’ll give her all the happiness in the world. 2 months later I realized I will not be able to. :p

That i had my demons to fight and I still had a balance to keep with my two month old. So what was I going to do?

I decided to take all the help that was available. A host of people are ready to help only if you allow them to. So parents were involved, house help was sought after, timings were adjusted...

A customary time-out with dear husband was planned time and again! We love the movies, Netflix and the chill.. We figured a way of doing it... No, I will not let go of the things that I hold dear. Frequency was reduced but activity still continued..

I missed my friends… I took Annie along... I wanted to go exercise I took the whole family along, I wanted to dine out I dressed my daughter pretty... the kid ate chicken kalamari at 8 months... the only thing I gave up was my loneli-ism to not let that 'SELF' of me go away...

I attended weddings, traveled to Goa and joined work -- all before Annie turned 6 months... there was no way I was going to let myself go... and in the end achieve an over demanding daughter who sits on my head to get her way.. Annie has been a difficult kid and she still does get her way… But the whole idea ladies, is, to combine two to three circles in the spheres of your life to get the desired results...

The kid will turn out to be wonderful because she has you as her mother...  So choose to be happy so that you can raise a happy child. As Dumbledore once said, “It’s our choices that show what we truly are far more than our abilities.”

Cheers

Sne!