Notes from an Ungrateful Mother: The growing pains of motherhood
by Imane Fawzy Nofal
Photo by rahego
The codes we use in life have no age and no specific criteria. I remember how fond of eating ‘kallamana’ behind my mother’s back I was around age 10. My mom used to prepare it by boiling sugar in water and adding two drops of lemon; she used it for hair removal and would hide it in the fridge. And when I asked what it was, she’d say “it’s kallamana”. Actually there is no meaning for ‘kallamana’ in Arabic, so no one would understand what I was talking about if I had mentioned it. Anyways, I loved ‘kallamana’.
Like mother like daughter. I now use codes myself. My husband and I have agreed on ‘opium’ as a codename for biscuits … so that our twin boys do not insist on having biscuits whenever we mention it. He would ask “Imane, where is the opium?” Thankfully, we are spared the screams of “koty, mama, koty! Mama, kooootttyyyyyy!!!”
Motherhood is a more challenging code than kallamana and opium though.
Hmmm, isn’t this a massive digression from my opening paragraphs? Well, allow me to quote Charlie Brooker’s: “let’s pretend it didn’t happen and start again, after I click my fingers. Since you won’t be able to hear me click my fingers, I’ll substitute a pound sign for the noise itself. Ready? 3 … 2 … 1 … £!”
Codes in life have no age and no special criteria. To governments, companies, individuals, they are used to cover-up truths. Trying to decode them however stimulates our minds and urges our thinking. I am a person who has faced so many codes from an early age. My mother used codes with me and I, in turn, use codes with my kids. But the most compelling code to me thus far is the code of motherhood.
One week ago, I was reading Notes From a Dragon Mom. She is a mother whose newborn baby was diagnosed with an incurable disease; she is a short term mom who has nothing to give her son but lots of love and the least of pain. Personally, I liked the part where she says, “He can watch television if he wants to; he can have pudding and cheesecake for every meal.” I do love cheesecake, but that isn’t my point. What I appreciated is that she does not put many restrictions on her son like other normal mothers do. She wants him to live in a maximum state of happiness.
Do you love your child/ren? Well, I think your only answer would be “how silly! Of course, I do.” For most moms, losing a baby is like losing life. The mere thought of it is heartbreaking! I know Egyptian girls who long for marriage just to have kids. Children have magic in them. It is not uncommon for people to stay in bad marriages just for their kids.
This is nonsense! Yes, I believe this is nonsense. Maybe I am different. In general, I am not that much of a kids’ person. It was never in my plans to become pregnant right after getting married. God’s test for me was so hard though. Or, it wasn’t God’s test after all – it is the normal result of sex with no contraception! I got pregnant only two months after my marriage. And, for more of the challenge, I received the news that we were having twins!
I won’t go much into the details. The bottom line is that I was never happy about my pregnancy and didn’t enjoy the experience. I never loved that plumb belly I had as if I was acting the part of some comic silly character! I never even answered the congratulatory notes I received from friends — what were they congratulating me for anyway!
I was up to my responsibilities though. I figured out how to breastfeed them both, to lull them to sleep at the same time when they refused to let anyone else hold them. I was so disciplined — even in how I treated them; for example whenever I kissed the right cheek of one, I would do the same for the other.
It gets overwhelming sometimes, I must admit. Don’t you feel furious when you find them dropping their toys all over the floor after you’ve been collecting and tidying up for hours? Aren’t you pissed off when they sneak after you into the kitchen to scratch your tefal pans with metal spoons? Don’t you get mad when you’re doing work on your laptop and find all your work gone because they pressed a wrong button? I am being realistic, buddies.
I am honest with myself. I wasn’t born with all the answers of motherhood (and I guess no one is). Have you ever wondered why children don’t say “mom” or “mama” until after their first year of life? I believe that unlike most neurological and other developmental milestones, God delays this phase until moms are ready to receive it; until they are passionate and connected enough with their kids to be deserving. If my twins had said “mom” right from the beginning, it would never have meant much because I hadn’t really learnt to be a mother. These days, even if they say it a thousand times, I am never bored. On the contrary, I am so passionate about it! Is it weird that it is me saying so? Nope, it is just that I have had time to reach these motherhood milestones. And, I know that love for children is a fact of life. It is just a fact that needs years of education until you get your bachelors.
Imane blogs at Express It 2 Live It
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