No-Nonsense Chayaisms from the 80s…I'd like to be a father,not mother

 I'd like to be a father not mother

IF there is any truth in the theory of reincarnation, I would like to be a father in my next birth! Everyone raves about the joys of motherhood, and how fulfilling the role of a mother is. But let me tell you….it’s far better to be a father.

It’s like having the best of both worlds! All you do is provide the bread and butter for the family and relax in an easy chair with your paper. It’s left to the mother to make that bread and butter interesting fare, day after day!

I remember the time the doctor announced the happy news – that I was to be a mother. He shook hands with my husband and congratulated him. Thereafter it was hubby who hogged the show while I went around looking like a carrier pigeon. When D-day arrived, there I was lying in the depressing maternity home, while father-to-be was enjoying the Christmas-eve party on board his ship! ‘Duty you know,” was his apologetic excuse! Once again, champagne bottles were opened to toast the new father, while mother was wheeled into the ward and given antibiotic injections!

There must be some tacit understanding between a baby and the father. How else can one explain, the bawling child wanting only mother to pick him up? So, while father sleeps, mother keeps awake with the baby, mixing feeds and changing nappies at unearthly hours! The man whom you think is a wizard who can change a fuse in a second, looks so helpless when it comes to changing a wet nappy!

“You are so good at it!” he says with grudging admiration. Fool that you are, you fall for the bait and change on….

It falls to the mother’s lot to take junior for his immunization shots, school admission, dental appointment and shopping for school books. Father hands over a cheque with a flourish and bows out of the scene. When the school report is something to be proud of, junior goes gleefully to father for his signature. When the math and science marks plummet down, it’s mother’s turn to sign!

The most unenviable mother is one who has teenage boys! Believe me it’s a tough life! I feel like the cement slapped on between two bricks. Sonny boys want to do something but father does not approve of it. They come to me enlisting my support. Hubby  gives me a “dare-you-take-up-for-them” look. I pretend something is burning in the kitchen and escape!

The boys hate vegetables which their papa loves. I try to avoid making the controversial dishes and am dubbed the “mother who spoils her children.” All their misdemeanors are credited to my account while their plus points are thanks to the father’s genes!        

The hand that rocks the cradle – cooks, shops, washes, grinds and aches and aches. And after all this, you sit back while sons go around carrying the father’s name! To add to it, we have Robert Frost saying, “You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love.You have to deserve your father’s love.He is more particular” Well!!