Individuation

What i was trying to convey through my response to the latest comment(sachin's) on "what this space means to me" is well expressed in this link. Though I was researching on the term "individuation" I got into this page which says more about the experience of being a mother than what we have said in this blog.
It reminded me of my shameful and embarassing involvement with medical world for delivery. All the experience of being a puppet in the hands of the 'gynocologist' who thinks it is she who is going to deliver the baby and the senior Doctors who think "how stupid u r, did u think delivery is a natural process!" and the like came to my mind while reading this.
There is another important question raised in the same write up in the fact that:
"The standard cultural response to women publishing, broadcasting or teaching their experiences is to vilify and denigrate the women themselves; ignoring what it is they have to say."

what this space means to me.

I was dying into silence when a friend of mine (when I called) inspired me to write this by commenting on the boring content in this space. What can this space mean? This is not a gathering of people who have same ideas and backgrounds. When they start speaking there ought to be a common platform. And at this stage it is not there and I believe this is the right way to start with. I wrote my ideas without caring for the feelings of people involved and am silent now because I need to know what ought to be discussed here by observing the current. Once Prasad also asked at the end of his write up whether those things are to be talked about in this space. We don't know. This is a prior stage of this blog where the speakers and readers form and give form to this. So how can we speak of that?

OK-- this gives me a chance to put forward this idea which might have been there in many minds but didn't came here. So the silent members, if they are silent just because of this lack of clarity about platform can occupy the space.

Another thing is that I didn't fear this space is dying out. Because this is where the casualities meet, excuse me for this expression. But for people who have selected their own path and have not got any guide in any form, parenting is a similar experience. I would try to explain it further. There are people who became parents accidentally. There are people who wanted to be parents but realised after that this period is more complicated than what they imagined. There are people who knew it is going to make life different and yet wanted to take up that difference not knowing whether it will be positive or negative. There are people who thought it's going to be very very tough and it really didn't trun out to be so and hence wonder what it was that the past generation used to say:

I have heard my mother saying many times that she wanted "traditional" kind of children, that she could never love her children, that she has sacrificed her life, she has lived for them-- so many contradictory statements which really made me curious. Earlier I used to mix up things and would think she is loveless, she is wrong. Once I listened to her conversation with my friend (who is elder to me and younger to her and hence shares both sides). That friend told her she could never love her children because she herself was a victim of her own mothers sentiments and wanted her to marry and have children when she herself wanted to do a Ph.d. But I knew she is loving and I have seen her caring so much about her children. I heard my mother saying she had the same phase.

I have heard Sudeep's mother saying Sudeep and Subid are like heartbeats to her. And I have witnessed the kind of cruel sentimental blackmailing she does to them and to those who are part of their lives. There were so many complicated and contradictory statements from these mother figures that I really wanted to explore this thing called parenthood. And I know my exprience of being a mother does not in itself give me any insight to the situation. My friend whom I called today to hear the abovesaid comment about blog also said that he doesn't want to be in such a pathetic condition by begetting children. I want to ask him how is this becoming any less than being an activist in a world knowing this is not going to change the whole world and is not going to bring things into an order.

These are all explorations and we are not in any ideal state whether we are parents or not. I myself prefered parenting to doing Ph.D in IITB. And hence had experienced a strange pleasure while moving around the campus with my huge belly, resigning my post as a Ph.D student. I really wanted to scream at certain period and tell the academic world, "look, if there is going to be any lack for the world of an academic work, the academic stucture itself is responsible for that, and here's another way of living and learning.." So many such statements came to my mind before I reached another academic space again thinking of doing research and balancing my motherhood and research experiences. I would talk of it in another post since this has become long.

Saturday and Sunday holiday

They say children are pious, spontaneous and innocent. At times they say children are very selfish. I want to explore how to keep our innocence and spontaneity alive. Are we different from children?

Saturday and Sunday holiday!

But for the holy children (at times, they r holy na?) it's a strange idea. The second day aadil spent his half day in the new environment as a serious man, he seemed to be adjusting...

Third day he was ok and fourth day he was happy when Sudeep met him after the "school time",

Fifth day was a holiday and morning we missed bus to city and came back to room.he was so irritated and took his bottle and strted going to school all alone. It seemed he didn't like the idea of having a holiday.

OK, let me come to the factors that might have made him happy there.
It could be the presence of other kids.
It might also be because the authority doesn't seem to impose themselves upon the children.

They are sensitive enough that they don't insist on a diaper, don't put the kid "inside" all the day, and they don't feed the children. Children eat by themselves, spilling around and playing with their food.

When he comes back to spend the afternoon with me, (I spend the whole morning time with myself, thinking, writing, dancing,cleaning...) he finds a mother capable to be spontaneous with him.

It makes life different. After spending three or four hours with him, I take another break of about three hours and it energetises me. Now I feel relieved of the guilty feeling of not being good and spontaneous with Aadil. "MAKING OF A GOOD MOTHER"?

It also changed my view that only those people who are enlightened (had self realisation) should think of parenting. We (normal people in the phase of transformation) can also be good parents provided we get time for our own needs.

I wrote in my diary: We all need to give more attention to the child in us, while we care our children. Aadil's needs are better served now than when I was thwarted by my surroundings to become a full-time mother.

i want to write about my experience with creche. in fact i want to make a film on it and write a book on it. for the time being i will just write here. but i am not finding the time. so i will just postpone it for tomorrow. when i will write a long piece on it, i hope...

Aadil goes to creche

This blog seems to have entered the "endangered" list already. Friends, we know we are all busy but let us try to find some time for this space, say an hour a week at least.

So let me start with an update on Aadil-- he has started going to creche. Well, more precisely, we took him to creche this Monday. He didn't seem very uncomfortable there so we've decided to keep him at the creche in the mornings. He wasn't happy with the curiosity with which other children, almost all of them elder, treated him the first day but hopefully that "cute baby" treatment will give way to healthier relationships soon.

Whether we grow with our children or not (no matter how much ever we try) is a matter of debate but let us not give up this space so soon.