Dream Parenting
I am sure all of us had dream parents in our minds. We would have also compared our friends parents with our parents and tell them, how much you wished your parents were like them, for giving more freedom or giving so much pocket money or etc etc.
Now that we have become parents, we want to be the best mom or dad in this world. I too have dreamt and want to give and teach the best to my daughter. Unfortunately, whatever I want to give goes through another filtering set of parents. Guessed it? Yup, I am talking about the grandparents.
They are there to help, but at times harm the way we take care of the kids. I am sure most of you would have faced it at some point or the other. It starts with the child-birth. The name you want to give your child, to the one grandparents decide upon seeing the stars. It doesn’t end here, but continues as the kid grows. When you want to feed ‘Dal‘ to kid, they say it produces gas, ask us to give ‘curd’. When you think of giving ‘curd’ they say, child might catch cold, so don’t give curd. Any amount of talking doesn’t help.
How many of you have handled this? What do you think is the best way? What to do when grandparents take up the role of parents? I am sure we can’t tell them, “you took care of your kids, let me take care of mine” directly.
This is what I do. Whenever they say something superstitious, I would explain them the logic and science. I want Bunty to know and understand things and rituals rather than blindly follow them. Bunty’s grand parents thought giving “Vasambu” ( in Tamil, don’t know the English equivalent) would only bring in right speech or smoothen the tongue, and will bring clarity in child’s speech. I had to take them to the pediatrician and explain the wrong consequences of giving it to the baby. They were against feeding the baby the Colostrums, again the nurses in my maternity ward came to rescue. At least, I know health wise I can trust on the doctors and they would advice in-laws about the latest medicines and things to be followed which are more effective.
But how to tackle the statements like, ‘ I have brought up three kids of my own, and 2 other grandchildren”. Hmmm, nothing just don’t reply, ignore. Recently, I have started facing this confusion of amma and nanamma (Father’s mother in Telugu) in my life. I have all of a sudden become mummy instead of amma. My kid gets confused between amma and nanamma. I am still working on it.
At times I feel bad, as my kid is with them all day, and sleep with them in night too without coming to me. They (in-laws) have acted as her parents in my absence. But again, ours kids are always ours. They come to us when they are happy, giving a tight hug, or come crying for assurance. We are always there for them as ever. Let me assure all parents facing this problem, nobody can ever take our place, the invisible bond of love is always there.
That’s the specialty of motherhood.
Children and mothers never truly part –
Bound in the beating of each other’s heart.
– Charlotte Gray
Anusha Balaprasad is an Architect by profession working for a Govt. organization. Living away from her husband because of job locations, she loves writing, painting, reading and cooking (occasionally). She likes roaming around and window shopping, but now unable to move even an inch outside, because of her daughter, Bunty. She tries to capture her antic on her blog.