The working mother experience - part 2

I received an email from a friend complaining that the previous post was all about the trials and nothing about the triumphs. I have been remiss, I admit. The fact that the triumphs outweigh the trials, I thought, was self-evident. She says no, not if you’re not on the conveyor belt yourself. So, here goes. Here below is my exposition on why I choose to work instead of staying home with my son.

As with all things, it began many years ago, with my mother. My mother, rabidly religious and old-fashioned, was also a working woman. She belonged to the working women legion of the previous generation that did a 150% job at home (cooking, cleaning, in-laws, kids et al) while still holding down a fairly serious, well-paying job. I know very little about the nature of work she did, just that every weekday morning, for thirty five years, she demonstrated responsibility by stepping out of the house to face the world. I was never told how much money she made but I knew it wasn’t a pittance.

I’ve been to her office a few times as a little girl and vividly remember the room she worked in. The room was large with big windows and a tall ceiling from which fans hung and hummed all day long. A broad, glass-topped desk stood under one such fan, mounted by several thick ledgers. I usually took with me a book to read while she worked but most days I would just daydream that I was the person on the other side of the desk, peering into that important looking ledger. I remember being kicked that the person I called mom was someone the Reserve Bank of India considered important enough to employ, retain and promote periodically. I knew even back then that I wanted a career.

All through her working life Mom came back home with stories about class fours (clerks) who didn’t work, typists who sleep in the cloak room, her boss, who’s son or daughter was getting married and when and so on. I listened, not fully understanding, but when I went to work myself I was able to better relate to some of her stories. After work I would stop by the kitchen and relate the day’s happenings, receive advice and compare notes (our careers overlapped by a few years). The fact that I could discuss the nitty-gritty details of my job with my mother was something I was very grateful for.

One fringe benefit of mom’s job was that when mom made friends with women from different geographies she picked up their cuisines. Rajma/Chawal was introduced to our household thanks to Panjwani aunty and Karakuzhambu thanks to Ganga aunty. By the time I was in my teens her repertoire of dishes had grown to include such items as chop suey, jams, pizza, biscuits and nan breads, to name just a few. Living, as I do, in the west, I cook way less adventurously than my mother did all those years ago in remote Mylapore.

The biggest influence my mother’s job had on us was, of course, financial. She got me my first computer and my first moped. She further financed the fueling of the moped with some arcane allowance the bank accorded. My college education was funded by a scholarship from the bank. Owing to the fact that she worked in a bank she knew the basics of investing and did not have to depend on the man of the house to secure our future. As a child I used to listen to my parents discuss investments and I grew up with the knowledge that it is not necessarily something that is relegated to the men of the house. When I got my first job she appointed herself my financial planner and opened LIC accounts, fixed deposits and purchased jewelry with my savings. To this day mom manages my bank accounts in India, sending me scanned forms and balance details even without my asking her.

Mom was an ace at taking exams. To prepare for one particular exam held by the bank, I remember that she checked into a hotel room for a few days, which was an unusual thing for a woman of her generation to do. Sure enough she topped that exam but perversely declined the promotion that came with it, since it required that she relocate to a different state. Right there she was demonstrating the fine art of balancing priorities.

Being a working woman made my mother an independent entity in our eyes, not just someone who made our meals and took care of us. She never once lectured us to be independent. She did not have to. She was leading by example.

I work because my mother worked and that enriched my life. I can expect to do no less for my child.

The working mother experience

The one opportunity I had of getting published, I blew. The office was compiling a list of stories about the trials and triumphs of working mothers on their rolls and an email was sent out soliciting inputs. I was thrilled to bits. So much so that I had the email safely tucked away in my 'Follow up' folder and promptly forgot about it. The book, when it came out, was glossy and attractive with dozens of stories that pulled at my post partum, hormone surged, and sentimental heart. There were stories from people at all levels, stories of the every day kind, stories about what a struggle it is to raise a child in this shifting world of changing priorities. At the time that I browsed through the book S was seven months old and I was a tired, groggy-eyed, barely-alive human being who was just a millisecond away from a meltdown at any point of time. I was touched by several stories in the book, especially one by a manager who spoke about attending a customer call on mute while rocking her sick baby in her office chair and changing his diaper at the same time. (been there, done that). That one moved me to tears. So here is the story I would have written had I remembered to contribute:

November 17, 2008: My first day alone with my son, Sanjay. No more parents or in-laws for cushion; it’s just the three of us. I'm terrified of screwing up. I'm terrified of not being able to cope with work, chores, a manic pumping schedule and the sometimes monotonous task of caring for an infant. I have no experience to count on, only overly confusing and contradictory advice from the internet.

November 18, 2008: Two days in my administration and S is having a triple assault of fever, ear infection and a stomach bug. I am terrified that my child will die in my care. When I tell my doctor this on the telephone she does not rise to the bait. She will simply not have him brought in till he is hot enough to iron clothes with. In the middle of this blue funk I catch myself thinking about the afternoon meeting that I will have to skip. Can I catch-up on what happened tomorrow? And then comes a stab of guilt. What kind of mother thinks about work at a time like this anyway?

November 19, 2008: S is feeling better. The woman at the daycare urges me to bring him in. She assures me that playing will make him forget his discomfort. I dress S warmly - over dress him - and that makes him unhappy. He whines all the way to his daycare and then some.

November 20, 2008: I'm late. My first meeting for the day begins at 9.00 AM. It's 8.15 AM now and I can smell the diaper that is inside several layers of winter clothing. It would take five minutes to remove all those layers, two minutes to clean him up and five more to put them back on. I would never make it in time for the meeting. Should I just drop him off in his morning mess? Is it very discourteous to do so? Or should I dial in to the meeting like yesterday? I'm so sleepy and tired. I don't want to be faced with any decision at the moment.

November 21, 2008: I read the book 'The working mother experience' and realize that I’m neither a mercenary nor a freak. I am just one of several thousand working women trying to do the best she can when both time and energy are shrinking.

Flirting with writing

All over the web people point to nanowrimo as a way to kick start that novel you always wanted to write but never quite got around to. Its quite simple. In the month of November one does his darndest to write 50,000 words towards that elusive novel with little or no emphasis on quality, grammar, or even plot. It’s a simple number game or a literary enema, if you will. Once the darn thing is out -and I'm not belaboring the enema bit here- one can take as long as he wants to rework, restructure and basically beat it into shape. At the end of the month you submit your post to the website and get a pat on the back from them and from then on you're on your own. The website apparently only does a word count so you could upload your mortgage document or a legal brief and be called a novelist but why would you want to? There is an editing equivalent of nanowrimo but I’ve spent very little time on it primarily because I feel that if I’m going to write in a tearing hurry, I'd be better off editing consciously. However, since my focus is completely given to nanowrimo prep at the moment, I reserve the right to go back on my opinion on namoedmo. The website has a list of authors who went through this "novel" processing line and ended up with a published book but - this won't surprise you - none of them have gone on to win the Pulitzer yet.

When I read this I went through a cyclical round of embarassment, shame and excitement. I felt like a loser even considering the possibility of enrolling but the chance of shooting Mr that-is-such-a-stupid-idea-i-can't-believe-I-wrote-that in the head was enticing. If you'd even participated in a high school creative writing contest you'd know what I mean. The whole challenge in writing is that this busybody of an inner critic sits with you and takes over the whole process till it reaches a point where you crumple the paper, toss it in the bin, and drown yourself in back-to-back 'Sex and the City' episodes. To be part of a process that says quality is overrated and that its all about the act is liberating. For me, however badly I may write, writing really gives me a buzz. Just for that, it's worth going through this exercise, don't you agree?

I've been preparing furiously for the event, scribbling notes on paper napkins and 5-subject spiral bound note books. For a while I contemplated getting yellow legal pads to write notes on but dropped the idea because it's old (Scott Turrow wrote Presumed Innocent in this manner). I've purchased several books on the subject of writing which I've stashed in all locations where I could potentially have a free minute (in my car to read when i'm getting an oil change, in the kitchen to read while i'm waiting for the water to boil over, in the...you get the picture). These include such thrillers as Plot & Structure, Strunk & White etc., I've been reading a lot of writing blogs in my free time as well and some easier reads such as Stephen King's 'On Writing'. The only non-writing book I've read this month -Murakami's 'What I talk about when I talk about running'- ended up having considerable advice for writers.

Here is Murakami on the subject of writing:

"Writing novels, to me, is basically a kind of manual labor. Writing itself is mental labor, but finishing an entire book is closer to manual labor."

And here is what Stephen King says in 'On Writing':

"Running a close second [as a writing lesson] was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position."

Two experts saying more or less the same thing - that it's as much about ass-to-chair as about fickle talent and the former can sometimes compensate for the latter.

I'm willing to buy it. I have nothing to lose and 50,000 words to gain.

Poetry to beat the blues

I never thought I’d say this but my adolescent fascination with Vikram Seth’s poetry is wearing off. His prose I still love, but his poetry, when i re-read it, sounds clichéd and affectedly cute. There, I’ve said it, and now that I have I feel less of a traitor. That said, I heartily recommend chanting the following verse fifty times as an antidote to Monday morning blues. It works for me.

'Voices'
Voices in my head,
Chanting, “Kisses. Bread.
Prove yourself. Fight. Shove.
Learn. Earn. Look for love,”

Drown a lesser voice
Silent now of choice.
“Breathe in peace, and be
Still, for once, like me.”

-Vikram Seth