The World’s Most Demanding Job

The other day, I accidentally dropped a glass tumbler on the floor and consequently, it shattered. I used a vacuum cleaner, a mop and a hand broom over the surface to be certain not a single shard of broken glass remains but just like every germ-soap commercial, no matter how well I cleaned, it was only 99.99% effective. One shiny little piece stayed by the corner somewhere. A while later, my baby dozed off for a nap, as I exited the bedroom, lo and behold! There! It struck my foot with a sharp pierce. Could you take a wild guess what was my instant reaction to it? What I said after it is the gist of motherhood.

I said, “Oh Thank God.” as instantly as it struck my foot.

I happily tended to it, my dental extraction training came in handy at that moment and I thanked God again. To most people, this may seem odd behavior or even crazy but to the mothers reading this, it is normal.

I was thankful that it struck my foot because it meant that it didn’t go under my baby’s soft little cannoli foot.

1. Anti-Survival Instincts- As time and history suggest, humans have made it this far on earth and thrived at the top of the food chain due to their intellect and survival instincts. Keeping the survival instincts in mind, man inherently chooses to either attack or at least flee from anything that threatens his very being, and yet, maternal instincts almost completely defy this rule of nature. They will thank God for pain or throw themselves in danger’s way if it would means that it could protect their child.

2. Conception- When women conceive, they naturally go into a downward spiral of low immunity, hormonal imbalances, mood swings, poor mobility as their term progresses, body ache, loss of important minerals and vitamins from the body to nurture the baby. Every essential resource that the mother’s body has, offers to the baby. Amenably, to the point, that her wells run dry, killing themselves just to make another life. What is fascinating about this behaviour of the mother’s body is that it is a direct contradiction to the rule of survival of the human race with a zero self-preservation drive.

3. Childbirth- As the woman finally gives birth after months of agony and days of Braxton Hicks contractions along with a long span of real contractions, as soon as the baby is delivered the first question she asks is,

“Is the baby fine?”

Can you fathom this statement?

Any person in their right mind who has endured months of agonizing ache and trouble along with a long episode of the most severe pain (labor) ever known to man (i.e, 57 Del, the normal pain threshold of man is 45del) still has the audacity to care about the baby that caused it instead of oneself?

4. Post-Partum- The second day after giving birth is commonly described as the day you wake up feeling like you’ve been hit by a bus. You have trouble standing upright, you bleed a river, you have no command on your back since you haven’t bent over in months due to your growing belly, your feet and knees hurt like a truck just went over it, and owing to your overall weakness your head hurts way often than it should, with frequent episodes of vertigo and near-fainting blackouts. Under any given circumstance, a person healing from so much trauma prefers to rest and eat only.

No! But there she is, she knows her baby just came onto the other side of the skin but still needs to feed off of her body for 6 more months and rushes to tend to the baby every hour of the day. No rest. She throws the idea of rest out of the window.

The baby decides this is a great time to give her some trouble and refuses to sleep, cries all night, cluster-feeds for hours until she gets dizzy from hunger pangs, then poops several thousand times on her and this masochistic woman wishfully grants her baby the right to eat away her health, sanity, vanity, and youthful charm.

5. Toddler Mama- Then this little human after very long days and even longer nights becomes a toddler. This toddler then decides this is a great time to interrupt everything she does and tactfully ruin it.

“Is she cooking? oh, wait let's hysterically cry for no good reason and make her come running and tend to me because of the attention seeker that I am.”

While she tends to this baby, this baby will take just long enough until he is sure the food on the stove has completely burnt. Soon enough he is completely alright, up and running. Mama heads back to the kitchen to start a meal prep all over again like it’s no big deal.

6. The Price She Pays- Now whatever little savings she had up until this point is perhaps all gone owing to hospital bills, baby products (none of them come cheap), toys, more hospital appointments, insurances but more importantly she pays the price of her sanity and I’ll explain how.

Humans need at least 8 hours of a good nights sleep to function properly, stay healthy and happy.

To those who say why are mothers always exhausted, I have a question for you:

Let’s say you develop a wide array of problems including hormonal, dietary, physical and mental weaknesses,(pregnancy), on top of that your body goes through a wildly stressful event and survives it, all bruised and hurting everywhere (labor + childbirth), then you are deprived of rest because meals don’t land on your table from heaven and clean folded laundry doesn’t magically appear in your cupboard out of thin air besides, cleaning, mopping, tending to sick or teething babies, feeding, clothing, washing after them and putting them to bed on a daily basis and then still having to put up with a crying baby all night with her brain’s battery running zero.

On most days these Mamas are running on 4 or 5 hours of highly interrupted sleep time. Then, the morning comes and again she has mouths to feed, messes to clean, work to do, guests to attend and the loop goes on.

You can go one day with sleep deprivation or 2 days maximum but what if you haven’t had a good night’s sleep for weeks and months while your own body was recovering from the wildly stressful episode of labor to the point that it starts shedding all its hair, what do you do?

Do you think such a person has any shred of her functional sanity left? But no, society says she should be thankful for the crying baby because many people don’t have them. Motherhood is full of grace and bliss only. As if!

Yet, amongst all this talk of Mamas being superhumans, everyone conveniently forgets that a superhuman is still a human. Exhaustion, sleep deprivation and lack of alone time still weigh heavy on them (toddlers love to accompany their Mama’s even to bathroom breaks and hysterically knock and cry at the door if she decides to be at peace in the restroom).

7. Exhausting Responsibilities- One might think the society at this point after witnessing what she goes through must cut her some slack but nope. You are not allowed to vent or complain about the exhaustion because remember, children are a blessing?

If you are a daughter-in-law of a household from the subcontinent and if you ever decide to sleep that extra hour in the morning because your baby let you, you are met with a stink eye, rude, sly or passive comments from some family members because you were supposed to be up and running to provide and serve the whole family with meals and teas because who cares if your baby kept you awake all night while we all rested blissfully for 8 hours. Not our problem! I’ve personally been lucky to have a MIL who was gracious enough about this but most of my friends, peers and cousins weren’t.

8. Her Love- Even though the society tries to dictate every move the mother makes and burdens her with expectations and all of their desires imposed on her fragile shoulders, on top of what she already endures each day, she still manages to love her child with every fiber of her being, tries her best to provide the best food, best playtime activities, the best toys she can afford, the best education she can give, she lovingly devotes all her time to her children, feeds them with her morals and values while looking after them to the best of her abilities and never once complain to the child of what she endured for its sake.

The biggest testimony of this maternal behavior is how we don’t remember doing any of this to our mothers (also, because we were too young) but more importantly because of her not trying to remind us every step of the way about the favors and sacrifices she has made to get us where we are in life.

She traded her health, wealth, age, body, time, sanity and vanity in return to have you. The least you could do to reward her was to acknowledge her efforts and give her the assurance that all her time and effort weren’t futile by becoming a child she is proud of. Mothers raise you and look after you just to see you become a happy, independent, functional and a good Samaritan in the society. Nothing gives them more happiness than watching you achieve just that.

Once a man approached the Prophet and asked “I have served my mother in her old age, looked after her, provided for her and has taken her for pilgrimage too. Have I repaid the debt of my mother?”

The Prophet responded, “You have not even repaid the debt of that one night your mother slept on the wet side of the bed under a leaking roof to keep you on the dry side of the bed.”

In conclusion, one can never repay the debt of their mother.

It’s a full-time job with no pay, no leave, no breaks and no paid vacations. It starts the moment you wake up and doesn’t even end at bedtime. The baby’s job on the other hand is to remind you every 2 hours into the night that you’ve signed up this contract for life.

Note:

1. If you are among the fortunate ones who still have the luxury of having your mama around, this is the time to call her and thank her for everything she has ever done for you. Gratitude is the least expensive and yet the priciest present a child can give to his Mama.

Even if you are a 50 year old man, for your mama, you’ll always be her sweet little baby. Forever.

2. If you are among the group of people who have had a separate biological mother and had another mother in the form of an aunt or grandma or stepmother or any other woman who stepped into your mother’s shoes in your childhood, adopted/raised you, then you are indebted to both of these women, one nurtured you and the other nourished you.

3. If you were a child who did not have a mother while growing up but a single dad who played the role of both parents in your life’s play, then this post is also dedicated to him and men like him who deserve not only gratitude and care from their children but the whole world and beyond.

4. If you were a child of abusive parents, I hope you know that everything God takes from you, He compensates for it with something equally good or better. Like my friend used to say, “God gave me unaffectionate parents and compensated for it with an incredibly supportive and caring group of friends throughout my life.” She now lives in her happily-ever-after with an affectionate and doting husband and her traumatic past is now a forgotten chapter of her life. So, I guess God compensated in one more way.

5. If you have lost either of your parents to fate then make time to send a small prayer their way each day. It’ll help you feel connected to them, to God and will help you feel less empty.

6. If you’ve neither had a set of parents nor a supportive family member stepped in to take care of you, then I am more than willing to be your friend. To embrace you, to be your shoulder to cry, help, seek advice or just plainly vent to. Go ahead and I’m all ears, ready to listen. I’ll be your support.