We all know how motherhood makes you a better person, more patient, more accepting, more forgiving, more organised, alright the list is endless. But lest I knew I would have another suffix added to my name; “Shivangi the WITCH”, I know it sounds harsh, Not that anybody calls me by this name, but I am sure this is what is going in their heads. The “THEIR” here represents my In-Laws and the extended family on my husbands’ side. And I have been the Bitchy Daughter-in-Law from time imponderable. And ever since I had my baby, my “not so popular attributes” have only amplified.
To understand this you need to understand the framework of my family a bit, I live in New Delhi, in one of posh localities of the city in a Joint Family, yes you got it right “In a Joint Arrangement”. And I am not a very family orientated person, I am a very ME person indeed. So the arrangement includes a set of In-laws, And my husband’s brother and his wife. There are also other members of extended family but they are still a bit far, and by bit I mean only a BIT ;). So we are a close knit family, or so my Mother in law likes to believe. I have tried many a time to burst her bubble of togetherness, but I fail, and she triumphs. Alas!
OK so coming to how I became WITCH, the one sad part of my story is that my sister in-law does not have a baby yet, she has been trying, but with no success. Coupled with a two miscarriages, her life has been rough. And she is the favorite daughter in law in the family. Not that I envy her I am more than happy that she is too friendly since that takes load off my chest to make everyone happy. But after I had my lil munchkin things changed. I had always decided that my sister in-law could spend as much time with my lil one as she wanted because I could always feel her pain. And things were going great. I was OK with all the attention that my lil one was getting, she being the first of her generation in our household.
But I realized after some months that I was losing control, my baby was rarely with me, I was losing my time with her. And it was becoming difficult for me. I wanted to raise my child the way I wanted to, make a schedule for her, her nap-times, her eating habits, her story book time, lullaby time. I wanted to organize her life a bit at least to my liking. And I was failing terribly, and this was distressing. There were times when I used to get her to her nursery, and in five minutes someone would come to take her. Times when it was time for her dinner but she was with her uncle and aunts eating absolutely rubbish stuff, or her story time but someone would call out her name and she would get distracted. The significance of time in a little toddler’s life was insignificant. I had to go about asking where my lil doll is to be able to spend time with her. So do you understand my dilemma a bit??? I am not over agonizing, but I just wanted to spend time with her alone, or with my husband, or just make her sleep my way, on my time. I wanted her to bloom in a flower from a bud to my liking. You plan so many things when you get to know you are having a baby, and you want to do them all when you have the little bundle of joy.
So to bring an end to my agony I started speaking out firmly that I wanted my child with me for sometime, started making fixed schedules for her. I accept I came out blunt many a time, ruder than I intended to, but I was losing it big time. And that’s how I became the WITCH. I ended up upsetting many people, in the process, and of course they were not fools, they understood the change in my attitude. But I believe I did the right thing, I had to. I might turn out seriously like a witch here, but one has to be in my shoes to understand it. Also I would like to say here that I am blessed to have a family like them. They have been good to me, but giving space is necessary. I understand that my daughter is the apple of everyone’s eye, but she is the apple of my orchard and I want it this way!
I might have been wrong in certain things, or wrong in putting up certain things, but it felt like the most sane thing to do, Like all the motherhood books preach “Trust your motherly instincts”, I did just that and have no regrets whatsoever. WITCH or Not I am Angel to my daughter, every time she cringes in anyone’s arm crying mumma, my heart swells with Happiness. Pure Bliss.
Triumphs and Tribulations of Being a Mother 