What Your Mother Is NOT [How To Be A 21st Century Man Part-1]

Posted: February 8, 2016

As a 21st century man, how do you treat the women in your life? A reminder to tell you what your mother is NOT.

This is Part 1 in this series. We have published Part 2 (What your sister is NOT) and Part 3 (What your wife is NOT) elsewhere.

1. Your mother is NOT your servant. You cannot be lounging on the sofa watching the match and ordering her to get you water/coffee/chips.

2. Your mother is NOT your waitress. Do not expect her to serve you food standing beside you, as you gobble down and burp! It is extremely insulting. Neither expect her to pick up your plates. Pick them up yourself. If you have finished eating, sit at the table till she finishes her food.

3. Your mother is NOT your caretaker. She is not supposed to remind you to cut your hair or trim your nails.

4. Your mother is NOT your governess. Pick up your own socks, polish you own shoes, do your own laundry, iron your own clothes, stitch your own buttons, clear up your own desk. Basically, overcome your domestic handicap.

5. Your mother is NOT your alarm clock/ wake-up call in-charge. If you have an early morning engagement/practice session/flight, she is not supposed to make you tea, forgoing her own well-deserved rest hours.

6. Your mother is NOT your secretary/manager : don’t ask “Maa, where is my office file?”.

7. Your mother is NOT your mind-reader : don’t come back home sulking after a bad day at work and expect her to pamper you.

8. Your mother is NOT your housekeeper. It is her magnanimity that she cleans up your room and tidies it when you are out. Firmly ask her not to do it, and do it yourself regularly.

9. Your mother is NOT your washerwoman. Don’t ask her “Maa, where is my gangi? Where are my socks?”

10. Your mother is NOT your cook. Don’t expect the meal to be ready to be served as soon as you are home. You may have to cook yourself, when/if she is busy elsewhere in her own life.

11.Your mother is NOT your appointment diary. Don’t tell her, “Maa, please remind me to pay the bill tomorrow”. Grow up!

12. Your mother is NOT your father’s assistant. Even if you see you father talking to her in an ‘ordering’ tone of voice, you do not do that. Comfort her when she feels insulted at the snide behaviour by arrogant males of the previous generation, who are conditioned to believe women to be ‘inferior’. Firmly ask those males to talk to her with respect and dignity.

13. Your mother is NOT from ‘another family’, and you do not belong only to your father’s side of the family. Respect biology. You are her descendant also.

14. Your mother is NOT your punching bag. Never be rude to her since you had a bad day at office/got frustrated due to someone’s behavior/lost your cellphone.

15. Your mother is NOT just an uterus : you came 50% from her ovum also. You were only 50% in your father’s sperm. She is not an oven which cooks your dad’s bun. If you consider her as a baby-producing machine, be ready to be labelled as a sperm-producing machine yourself.

16. Your mother is NOT supposed to have your dad’s surname. She does not have any blood relationship with him. The opposite is also true.

17. Your mother is NOT doing ‘her Manu-Smriti-dictated duty’ in your father’s house, nor is she supposed to by the Indian Constitution, nor can you punish her by any Section of the IPC for not doing so. It is her extreme magnanimity that she left her daughter’s duties and came here to pamper your father’s and your paternal grandfather’s egos. As a 21st century man, it is your utmost duty to reverse this trend to neutrality. Don’t wait to have a daughter to understand that. Don’t even wait to have a wife to understand that.

18. Your mother is NOT going to be replaced with your wife. Don’t pressurize these two women to swap roles repeatedly for your convenience.

Published earlier here.

Image source: elderly Indian woman by Shutterstock.

Nabanita Datta

Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. http://iitkgp.ac.in/fac-profiles/showprofile.php?

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2 Comments

Sonia - February 8, 2016 at 9:36 am

Ha! Ha! Good post!! It succinctly highlights so many home truths which we most people these days would love to pretentiously pass off as just clichés or stereotypes, but unfortunately the reality is that we still cannot do that! Even to this day!!

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suman Kher - February 10, 2016 at 3:27 pm

Great article! But what to do with moms who refuse to accept that their kids (sons) are grown up n will not stop reminding them that nails n hair need trimming? Will insist on over – feeding a 45 yr old son who also accepts cz that’s what she lives for in her old age?

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