Parenting seems like just another word in the dictionary. If you look for its meaning, it gives you another bunch of common words.
What is parenting? A mother or father to a child taking care of him/her, but is it that easy and simple?
To some extent yes, if you accept the fact. Yes, I could do this easily because she is my child. I have given birth to her, I know her 9 months more than anybody else in this world. We became friends the day she found herself within me.
She played with me through kicks, whenever she used to be in a happy and fun mood. If I ate something she didn’t like, she used to throw that back in the form of vomits (Ehhh! The worst part of pregnancy)!
And during the grand finale of pregnancy, when she was frustrated inside and wanted to come out to see this world when she wanted more space to breathe, she would make me feel uncomfortable and annoy me through her tantrums while giving me backaches.
We have faced these days too and believe me or not, but those were the amazing days of our lives. The pampering we received from my husband and in-laws is beyond description! Then why when our child is in our hands - playing around us while making the home dirty and not listening to us - makes us frustrated and worried?
Ask Yourself - Why?
The moment you remember the days when you were alone when no one was around to have innocent demands like - mom please can I get some Maggi or momos? That is the moment you will ease into PARENTING.
You could look at situations differently too, for example:
Scene 1 - Your child is crying, yelling, shouting for no reason and you have lots and lots of work to finish. This could be the next scene at your home: You will shout at double the volume, right?
But it is quite a wrong action because it will only end up scaring your child, a lot, leaving both you and your child sad and frustrated.
Solution - Leave the child alone and lock yourself in a room for few minutes. Shocked? Yes, I mean what I said, do it once. The moment you can only hear the crying of your baby and are not able to see your child, it will make you more worried and you will come back and hug your child. And that is it, a hug is what the child needs at that moment, only and only your attention.
A happy ending, right? :)
Scene 2 - Your child is now growing up and he/she is all the while more curious to touch new things, feel them, learn by him/herself. But that scares y , because the child might get hurt. So what do you do?
You start chanting this one dialogue for the whole day - STOP, don't touch this, don't touch that! Suddenly a mother adopts the role of a traffic manager and starts asking the child to go left or right.
Solution - You should first and foremost start collecting all the dangerous items at home like electrical ones and place them where your child cannot even see them. And now, if your child wants to feel and touch the rest of the things around the house, don't stop him/her because this will make him lose his/her confidence.
A happy ending to the second scene as well :)
Enjoy this phase, not everyone is blessed with this. Happy parenting!
This is a community post by one our members, Pinky Bajaj, in the Aspiring Writers community. You can join a discussion on parenting in our Wowcon - Celebrating Moms community.