Was I Right?

Most things in hindsight seem a bit foolish. Like one’s obsessive behaviour or fears. All these seem irrational much later. There are of course no absolute rights or wrongs. Each mother goes by her instinct.

It has been, to me, much fun to flow with my instincts and do what I feel for Ponnu. To let her react to me, and take it on from there. So, meal times were never tiresome times. `You don’t want to eat anymore, Ponnu?’, to which the answer is to blow baby food out by whirring the tongue to the palate, or to turn the face away when the spoon reaches her mouth, and that to me signalled the end of the meal. Perhaps, it would have been nice to coax her to eat a spoonful more. Perhaps. I honestly don’t know even now. When friends have told me of their concern for their children’s eating habits and how they got them to finish a meal, I’ve wondered whether I was right or wrong.

Irrational fears gripped me. Like when I went to the pediatrician and told him, “I think the child’s legs are uneven”. It took hours to get the doc’s appointment and even when one got it, one had to wait in the reception, amongst bawling babies and worried mothers before one’s turn came. When Ponnu’s name was called out, I walked in and said what I thought was the problem with her. The doc looked at me, and asked if I was a first time mother. I nodded. He took the six month old baby from my arms, and asked me how I had come to the conclusion her legs were uneven. I said, “See doc, if you hold her feet together, one appears a bit short than the other.” That was when Ponnu lay on her back and her feet was in the air. The doc looked on patiently, then held the baby upright and she put her feet down on the table and they were not askew as I thought. The doc looked at me and I went, hmmm. I came away feeling guilty for having taken his time, when there were babies in the clinic that needed the doctor’s attention even more.

School time was my `crying’ time. I had spoken with and prepared Ponnu about where she was going and what she would be doing there. The four year old Ponnu was calm and looked around with much curiosity. I was the one unprepared here. How does any parent leave a child in a school, filled with strangers and move away? When I went to leave Ponnu in her Junior KG class, I scanned the room and found it had two doors through which, it seemed to me, the child could walk off when the teacher’s attention was on the black board. So I went to the teacher on the first day of school, and spoke as calmly as I could (never mind my heart’s massive thumping), “Please see to it that the child does not walk out of the door,” to which she looked at me and shook her head and said there were ayahs around. The next worry was the school bus. “I am a working mother. I can’t fetch my child back from school. Her bus badge is pinned on her uniform, but I hope she will be put on the right school bus home.” Saying this, I found I could not stop my eyes from welling up. The teacher just looked at me and then squeezed my shoulder.

A child is so dependent on the adult accompanying it or in whose care it is left. I know the prayers I have said to keep mine in the safest hands. And before one knows, Ponnu holds my hand and shows me her friends. From my constant, `this is my daughter’, to Ponnu’s showing me `my friend’ while still clutching my hand, was the start of another exciting journey.