Dear daughter (who often plays my mum),
I thought I must write to you… each day, every day, a ‘something special’ only for you. As usual your mummy has no agenda when she shoots off on these trips of hers. She wears her shoes, checks if enough time is in her pockets, for all the detours she is going to take on these trips… but it’s never enough.
And as we speak of time, I feel the pinch. On my way to work, in the car, I sit and wonder of all the fun things we could have done together, and all the conversations we’d have while doing those fun things… I feel a sense of paramount guilt. For not being around when your first tooth came off and other such instances which have, for some odd reason, emotional values attached to them. Of course, that pesky milk tooth that bothered you for almost a week is tucked away in my wallet for posterity.
Being a parent is a tough job. A fun, emotionally uplifting job, but tough nevertheless. Now imagine, being a parent AND trying to maintain another job that actually pays you for the ‘work’ you do in those 8-9 hours that you spend in office? Yes, it’s doubly difficult. How do I manage? How do I not pass-out in the middle of that important meeting with top officials, and the phone blinks ‘Call from Home’? What keeps my kind going? Do I have a clone? Not that I do an exceptional job of mothering. Still.
Here are 12 confessions of your mum, a working mum, who wishes she was better than her current version, but would rather not go for an upgrade:
