The multidimensional mother
Updated On: 29 March, 2024 04:14 AM IST | Mumbai | Rosalyn D`mello
For me, holding a job reduces the drudgery tied to the singularity of the maternal identity. Working with students is the most rewarding form of professional labour, and as I teach, I continue to learn
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A sculpture by Mona Saudi from the ongoing exhibition, ‘In the eyes of our present, we hear Palestine’ at Al Dhaid Clinic in Sharjah by the Sharjah Art Foundation
Since Monday morning, I have been living through the peculiar conundrum of simultaneously missing our toddler yet being surprisingly content with the four-night break I’m on from being called ‘mama’. I was a mess on Sunday evening. I held my toddler close and couldn’t fathom not sleeping next to him for the first time since his birth. When I count my consciousness of him during the span of my pregnancy, the time of our togetherness feels even longer. And here I am now, finally on the other side of the anxiety. Tomorrow, as you read this column, I will mid-flight, on my way back to Milan. We will be reunited.
I was lucky to be staying with my family in Dubai. It definitely helped to distract myself. Did I check in with my partner or video call my child? No. I have only been sending video dispatches. I felt it was best not to check in on his caretakers—my partner and my in-laws so that they didn’t feel like they needed to report to me. Returning to Dubai to meet my niece and nephew, who are now 15 and 14, was also a good reminder of the fact that these separations are small blips in their trajectories. Neither have any memory from their childhood of being without their mothers. The advice I mentioned last week, about anxiety stemming from lack of trust in people, has held me in good stead. Another calming text I read spoke about how, in the absence of the breastfeeding mother, the child simply will sleep with the father or the alternative caregiver. It is not that they need necessarily to feed to sleep, they need, really, to feel safe and be offered the right environment.
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