Scorn Republic: Oh Mommy!

Modern-day mommyhood is a new curve ball, an advanced Stockholm Syndrome where adults are held captive willingly by children, being forced daily to handle tantrums, change diapers, manage every aspect of their lives, culminating in a sloppy goodnight kiss, indefinitely. 16 hours a day of sheer torture, with the minute respite of sticky kisses and intermittent hugs, puppy-eyes and a sweet “I love you mommy,” followed by an impossible demand, almost always. The struggle to prove that sleep is not an essential component of staying alive, is daunting.

For the cool millennials who aren’t parents yet, I advise: Cling on to this independence with every shred of restraint you have in your energetic, toned bodies, for once these critters descend into your life, everything changes, from your dress size to your daily schedule or your thought process, and possibly your will to live. Oh, and to sneeze or laugh out loud in public, being petrified, is an added bonus.

Unlike parents of the yesteryears, the moderns are bogged down with guilt. We have a world of knowledge and conflicting advice via Google and support groups on our fingertips, the sole outcome of which is to make every single one of us insecure, feel guilty for doing too much or not nearly enough and become a mere second-guessing shadow of our former selves.

So what’s it really like? Ask yourself how you’ll deal with a child screaming in agony because you don’t allow them to stick their finger in a socket and electrocute themselves, or stop them from swallowing a penny? Do you know what the perfect temperature and colour of toast is? Did you know a banana can be peeled a wrong way and that if there is a speck of crust left on a sandwich, it becomes extremely poisonous? How much repetition can you handle, because you’ll be spending atleast two years listening to baby shark, on repeat! Do you have good calcium and vitamins reserves in your body, because you won’t sleep more than two hours at a time for the next trillion months? Most importantly, how long can you hold your breath for diaper changes and do you have a stomach of steel to handle curdled milk vomits? No amount of nannies will save you from the inevitable smelly duties. You have to deal with all of this, while rocking a fresh blowdry and a full face of makeup; without having any emotional outbursts or bouts of anger of any sort directed towards those holding you hostage, lest you be labeled as “abusive, unstable, not fit for parenting, lazy or depressed.”

If aliens were looking at us from space, they would assume that we are all subservient to masters that are babies in cutesy onesies, otherwise what’s the logical explanation of a bedraggled adult running after tiny beings, every second of every day only to be paid in poopy diapers that give off noxious fumes enough to be smelt all the way to space?

We serve gluten-free, sugar-free, additive-free, non-GMO food for our kids, plated creatively as if they’re Gordon Ramsay. We must ensure minimal screen time. Our kids must read Shakespeare and have great handwriting, a mature emotional quotient, be well behaved and confident, dressed fashionably, attending well-known schools, be worldly with bi-annual vacations to exotic locations they can’t really process or appreciate, be able to use chopsticks, speak in two foreign languages all before they learn to wipe their own butts; for us to be even at the bottom-rung of the parenting gold standard ladder. It’s exhausting!

Gone are the times of our moms giving us Maggi or sugar-roti for dinner, allowing unlimited Cartoon Network on weekends, serving us a well-deserved thappar (smack) for misbehaviour and not caring what we wore, which made for a ton of unfortunate childhood photographs. Grandparents today don’t realise how good they had it, without judgement from peer parenting fatwa-brigades.

Then there’s Covid-times parenting which I’ll address in the next biweekly, because writing is cheaper than therapy.

Till then, happy parenting, Eid Moo-barak, and please don’t litter carcass remains on streets. No one needs to see bloodied puddles or animal intestines strewn all over. Mic drop.

Scorn Republic is a bi-weekly satire column commenting on trending topics and societal happenings