If you want to understand how to become better allies to people with disabilities, then join us at Embracing All Abilities: Including People with Disabilities at Work.
The supermom who juggles everything with elan - kids, home, husband, job, and a roaring social life. Don't we sometimes envy her? But do we really want to live her life?
The supermom who juggles everything with elan – kids, home, husband, job, and a roaring social life. Don’t we sometimes envy her? But do we really want to live her life?
We’ve all seen her. The woman who does it all in spite of the hardships. She is excelling at her work, has a beautiful spic n span home, her kids are well-behaved, she exercises every day, she gets her eyebrows done much before they run wild, and even her dog is perfectly potty trained. I would be a liar and a hypocrite if I said I don’t fancy that picture. Who wouldn’t want to have it all right?
In my life she happens to be a member of the extended family. So, I see her life updates quite often. She is my definition of a supermom. Two kids, a dog, a husband, a big house and a full-time demanding job. Yet, she looks amazing. She hasn’t gained any weight at all it seems and has actual time to take pictures of her kids and dog playing in the grass. I like and comment with a compliment often and hate my guts to be a liar.
I, on the other hand, have a very helpful MIL, a part-time servant, a part-time job, a not-so-naughty daughter and a husband. I never lost much weight post the delivery. What I did lose was my will to do just about anything. Salon visits became even rarer, and exercise was a thought that came and went swiftly every fortnight.
So, one night after I had finally managed to put my sweet little girl to bed I got thinking. I had been trying to be ‘her’ ever since I became a mom. It’s been four years and I am nowhere near that perfection. I was looking into the mirror, and the reflection was just horrible. It was so sad a moment that I didn’t want to accept my reality. I just wished it was all a nightmare, so that I could wake up six years in the past and try to do it all over again with that perfection that I had simmered in my head all these years.
But you know what? The world of perfection is a mean one. I think the idea of perfection is flawed primarily because there is no room for flaw. Isn’t that just sad? The idea of perfection in my head has been of that woman who has everything together. She looks good, has a career, has a nice home, is there for her kids and husband. But where does that woman stand when she needs to be herself? Does she even realize she has a self? Or has she immersed herself in tasks so much that only a befitting attack of depression could possibly jerk her out of that reality? I don’t know. Anything can be possible.
I stood unsmilingly doing my daily chores the next morning when my little one brought upon me the wisdom I needed the most. She looked up with those innocent eyes and said, “You know mumma, when I grow up, I want to be just like you”. I couldn’t believe it. I urgently felt the need to tell her to dream better.
“But, why like me baby? See, I’ve been making so many mistakes.”
“So? You only told me that we become better by learning from our mistakes.” Her eyes questioned genuinely.
Unexpectedly, I felt a huge wave of emotion. I had in fact done something right. I had taught my girl to be herself, and not to be afraid of making mistakes. She stood in front of me, waiting for my answer. And I stood there, looking into her eyes, finding the truth of life. I had no need to be a supermom. I had already achieved my dream of becoming a good mom. So, I smiled and said, “yes darling, thanks for remembering that, and thanks for reminding me too.”
Image source: shutterstock
read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Just because they are married a husband isn’t entitled to be violent to his wife. Just because a man is "in love" with a woman, it doesn't give him a right to be violent.
Trigger Warning: This speaks of graphic details of violence against women and may be triggering for survivors.
Anger is a basic human emotion, just like happiness or being sad. One chooses his/her way of expressing that emotion. It is safe until that action stays within oneself.
What happens when that feeling is forced upon another? The former becomes the perpetrator, and the latter turns out to be the victim.
Rrashima Swaarup Verma's new bestselling book The Royal Scandal is a celebration of the spirit of womanhood set in the 18th Century.
Rrashima Swaarup Verma’s new bestselling book The Royal Scandal is a celebration of the spirit of womanhood.
A true love story. A tale of politics, treachery and war. A piece from India’s rich history. A vivid description of 18th century life in the Deccan. Yes, The Royal Scandal is all that and more. But it is also an aide-mémoire of the tremendous fortitude, the unbeatable spirit that women are, and have always been, capable of.
18th century, Hyderabad, India. A time and place when societal laws and rules came down heavy on the female gender, when zenanas separated and shielded the women from the world outside, when it was understood and accepted that the men in their lives would govern and dictate every big and small decision.
Please enter your email address