The CEO of big corporation called PepsiCo, and one of the most powerful women of our time in a recent article says "you can't have it all". Made me think, why not? Off course i am no CEO, so i wont claim to have the CEO's perspective, i don't even work at the moment. Doing a PhD isn't quite like working 9-5, it like working working 24X7X365. There is no 'free' time because your 'ideas' go with you wherever you go. Yet i can say i feel supremely fulfilled. And dare i say, i feel like i have it all. Sure i struggle sometimes, errr...always...to be a good mother to you, and then i struggle hard to do justice to my own work and then to everything else life demands, and to live in a way that is enjoyable. But is the mommy me separate from the student me? No, both my roles reinforce each other. For instance when i am reading something ridiculously good, especially about living ethically, incorporating values of justice and respect in children, it influences the mommy-me. It makes me think how in our daily lives we could incorporate those values. And again being with you has taught me (and is teaching everyday) the virtue of me patience, of communication, of 'thinking outside the box'...Being your mommy has made so much better also at my job. That's amazing to feel so 'whole'...so together!
Someone asked me about 'sacrifices you make as a mother'. If years later i become a Bollywood-style 'Ma' and tell you how much i have sacrificed for you, plz call that a bluff. My motherhood experience so far has all been about choices- easy choices like the choice to become a mommy, to breastfeed you, to spend time with you. And difficult choices like having to put you at a day nursery when you were hardly 6 months old, or move my fieldwork from Delhi to Assam so you could stay with your grans and i so could i or to let you go watch TV a bit longer that you meant to just so i can finish this blog post ;-) Never have i 'not thought about myself'. I always have, because if i am not happy with my choices i will be an unhappy person and an not a mommy you will like to be around. And the fact that you are dangling on my shoulder watching me types and muttering in gibberish tells me we we are ok.
PS This post is dedicated to your Nasreen Mami who is bringing into this world your first cousin brother or sister....Yey !! May she have all the fun you and I have together. Wink-wink*
Someone asked me about 'sacrifices you make as a mother'. If years later i become a Bollywood-style 'Ma' and tell you how much i have sacrificed for you, plz call that a bluff. My motherhood experience so far has all been about choices- easy choices like the choice to become a mommy, to breastfeed you, to spend time with you. And difficult choices like having to put you at a day nursery when you were hardly 6 months old, or move my fieldwork from Delhi to Assam so you could stay with your grans and i so could i or to let you go watch TV a bit longer that you meant to just so i can finish this blog post ;-) Never have i 'not thought about myself'. I always have, because if i am not happy with my choices i will be an unhappy person and an not a mommy you will like to be around. And the fact that you are dangling on my shoulder watching me types and muttering in gibberish tells me we we are ok.
PS This post is dedicated to your Nasreen Mami who is bringing into this world your first cousin brother or sister....Yey !! May she have all the fun you and I have together. Wink-wink*
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