I’m laughing out loud reading this post, because it’s what I’ve always thought reading and hearing these tales of the sacrificing mother. What perfect rant material ! I mean, let’s face it – I’m no Nirupa Roy. Anyone remember her ? The white-sari clad, ever suffering, bent over a choolah, self-sacrificing mom there ever was (in Bollywood). Think of the most motherly mother you know, and Nirupa Roy could motherly mother her by a ton ! I mean, I’m not dissing her or anything. She’s got her choolah, I have my microwave – and what can one do about advancing technology ?

I’m not an earth mother types either. But the earth mother variety bothers me the least What worries is the abundance and the growth in the numbers of the “Superwoman and Mother” – the kind who’s driving hard negotiations with an important customer in Germany on the phone, wiping screaming baby’s bottom with one hand, and cooking a 7 course meal with the other. And smiling. And seriously this phenomenon wouldn’t bother me in the least if these women were located geographically halfway across he world. No, they happen to be neighbors, friends, close associates who come and extol their accomplishments before yours truly and in the same breath manage to praise their mothers-in-law and worry about the little time hubby dearest gets to devote to cricket watching. You can imagine my angst.

I’m not a SuperMom – I’m a plain old Mom, and as cheesy as it sounds, I am the 100% unadulterated love-incarnate types. As you are. And you. And you too. Aren’t all moms ? Let’s not sell ourselves short. I don’t have to blog about milk and poo-poo and pee-pee worries (am I glad my kids are potty trained now, whew !) but that doesn’t mean I didn’t worry about it. You would too, if you were the one doing the washing-up.

And while we are fessing up, let’s break a few myths. Cliched but true – Motherhood is hard (fatherhood is too). There are no easy routes to it – and that’s from me, who’s barely started her journey. I mean, labor is hard. If you listen to desi women (women like my Mom, mom-in-law, sister-in-laws, friends) who almost all delivered without epidurals, labor is labor – it’s painful but it’s pain you gotta take. I haven’t actually received any reasonable replies about why it makes sense to avoid pain if you can. Apparently in India nobody ever thinks of an epidural (What woman – can’t take a day or two of pain that’ll totally rip you apart ? You wimp !) whereas in the US it’s the norm – they will routinely ask whether you want an epidural, and no aspersions cast on your wimpishness.

I mean, you’re going to have a baby – you’ve gone through 9 months of carrying around baby in your tummy, probably endured morning-bloody-sickness (how well put, Ammani !), gone through various tests which involve sticking a sundry number of needles in your arms and god knows where else, you’ve gotten into the dreaded OBGYN’s stirrups about a hazaar times, and now you’re lying on the triage table with your legs way up and about half the ward peering up your vagina. Plus you face the prospect of painful labor, complications at birth, and if all that goes well, a scrawny little infant (trust me they all look scrawny at the time – all except mine) who’ll be bawling for milk every hour regardless of night or day, and silvery stretch marks on your body which won’t go way no matter what they say on TV, and a body which looks like it’s still pregnant and won’t fit into those pre-pregnancy clothes. You can’t be a wimp now, can you ?

That’s why it amazes me when I meet a woman who wants to go un-medicated during labor. There can be many reasons, the woman wishes to go “organic” (prospective earth-mother ?), or the reason which nauseates me – that the husband or mom-in-law wish her to remain without a pain-saving device. Then there is martyrdom – are there less painful ways to be a martyr -I‘ll take them. It would make sense to me, if my writhing in pain would make the baby more beautiful/handsome, ensure a high IQ, or even make the baby potty-trained at birth. It won’t. And believe me, by the time you reach labor’s crescendo, and the contractions are way up there, how you’ll wish that you had taken something to shut out the pain. After my first experience, I made sure I got the epidural the second time around. It’s actually quite miraculous, one moment you see and feel, and scream out the contraction – there was a little graphing device attached to the bed, which mapped out the intensity of the contraction – it’s like the top-half of a sine curve, and quite interesting to see if you aren’t otherwise engaged – and the next you still see the contraction on the graph, but you don’t feel a thing. I’m like – WOW ! Then, I was ready to write paeans and odes in praise of the epidural. (Disclaimer – this doesn’t mean an epidural is right for you – consult with your doctor, etc.)

The two days I spent in the hospital post-labor, was made better by the fact that the baby looked and slept like an angel, the hospital food included delicious pizza (catered from a nearby, extremely well-known hotel), I was finally able to go back to caffeinated drinks like Diet Coke, and could actually sleep on my tummy.

Cult of Bad Mama – Part 2, here.