The demands we make on our mothers

We humans have heard and lived the following “truths”

• Children love their mother more than anything else in this world
• Scriptures, poetry and sundry ancient writings call up on us to place mothers alongside Gods and worship them
• We swear on our mothers
• We ‘go home to mother’.
• She is figuratively placed on a pedestal

But in reality…

• If there was one person who is always taken for granted in our lives, it is our mother
• We expect her to be there ALWAYS for us
• We expect her to not fall sick ever…because we expect her to be there for us when WE fall sick
• We expect her to be a great cook of all kinds of foods
• We expect her to know how we feel all the time, even if we never make an attempt to understand how she feels
• We expect her to be cheerful and show us a happy face when we get home every evening
• We expect her to listen attentively to what we are willing to tell her
• We expect her not to probe into things we are unwilling to tell her
• We expect her to have money to give us when father refuses
• We expect her to be ready to take over our responsibilities at a very short notice since we are too stressed out for time
• We expect her to shower equal love on all of us… whatever kind of persons we are
• We expect her to find all those things we lost in the house
• We expect her to do things for us, help us out in times of work stress, never once considering whether she needs our help ever
• We expect her to be silent sometimes and talk on our behalf at other times, understanding when to do both without being told
• We expect her to accept our decisions… but expect her to let us know/ ask permission for the decisions she makes
• We want her to be ultra modern in things related to us, but expect her to be the traditional self effacing mother at all other times
• We want her to earn a decent income, but never give her job related excuses to stop doing things at home for us
• We never realize the double / treble burden she carries because of her contributions to the family
• We rarely recognize her achievements outside the home
• We do not like our mother to dress up and look better than us…
• We suspect her abilities in decision making in spite of having hundreds of instances where she has proved that ability
• We do not expect her to understand our world and hence do not share any of it with her
• We do not trust her advice and never ask for it; wonder how much we are losing out!
• We rarely personally compliment her for all that she does for us; we will tell the world we love her more than anything in the world though!
• We are quick to outsource all the tasks she was doing when we leave our mothers house, never considering doing that for her!
• Some among us are even ashamed of introducing her to our friends and colleagues!
• Our expectations from our mother outweigh our expectations from our father
• We are more confident of confronting our mothers rather than our fathers
• Parenting lapses are expressed to mothers rather than fathers, as if she holds the sole burden of all parenting responsibilities
• We expect her to be the best role model she can be, but can excuse our fathers from that role often
• Fathers are often excused for making bloomers in household work, but for mothers it is a nightmare to not know how to do things around the house
• Incompetence in our jobs is common and we expect to still be employed and face not much censure; but incompetence in a mother is hardly ever condoned!
• Fathers retire from work, mothers never do
• We hardly ever request her, we assume we have a right to her services all her life
• Until she is no longer capable of it, we expect her to work for us
• Fathers can come home for comfort and solace from the trials of work, but where will mothers go?
• The nicest persons among us too have taken advantage of her at some point in our life
• When something goes wrong with the children or their lives, it’s the mother who is blamed first
• And strangely, all the curses/ expletives too target the mother in all languages of the world. We expect mothers to take that ignominy too in their stride
• At some point in life there are some among us who see her as an impediment to their life too…

Then when she is gone, we suddenly sit up and take notice of the fact that we have lost the most important person in our life, we think of her every minute, praise her to the skies, regret her lose terribly…when it no longer matters to her anymore…

There is no tougher task than being a mother in this hypocritical world! And it often does not get its due recognition or reward!