International Women's Day!

International Women’s Day has come and gone and not a single mag or newspaper I read has pointed out to a lady and said “ And this lady has done wonders in the field of child rearing,cooking, baby sitting, sacrificing her happiness for her kids and her career by being a house wife” . How many people actually honored the unsung housewife? I for one would like to nominate my Mom as a super achiever as wife, mom and housekeeper par excellance.

She bought up three kids single handedly when my Dad was in the gulf. Her first born was the stuff mommy dreams are made of. Quite, obedient, helpful etc. The second two were recurring nightmares. Hyperactive, disobedient and cranky. No maid would touch us with a barge pole. They would tell my mom “give us baba, we will look after him” Now baba was the first born who didn’t need looking after...seriously.

So my mom handed me over to my Chetan and took upon herself to look after my second brother. Now you might wonder why she needed to devote herself to look after him exclusively? Because his idea of entertainment was to run across the main road, climb trees and break limbs, pull dogs by their tails and get bitten etc. He never learnt from his mistakes and went after more trouble. He even pulled a pony’s tail and missed its kick, which could have shattered his 5 year old bones. She had to keep an eye on him every second of the day and night!

Now my mom was not the quintessential housewife who made sure that food was cooked and served on time and we were bathed, fed and in bed on time. She had the time to sit with us with Encyclopedia's and instilled in us the reading habit. TV was a strict no no. Only Discovery Channel and later National Geographic and Animal Planet were allowed. For my brothers an additional concession of Sports Channels were given. One of the reason why we are not so hooked onto TV.

And then my Dad came back and soon got busy with setting up his business. After a hard days work he didn’t want to come home and discipline the kids. He preferred to play with us or sit quietly while we climbed all over him :) So my moms hope of halving her parenting duties were dashed :)) But she managed with a smile and the occasional grumbling :))

Now please don’t tell me that she was not a working woman because she was a housewife!

I would like to dedicate this International Women’s Day to my mom.