History repeats itself

I am just back from a flying visit to my mother’s place

Although the trip was only for a very short period but it gave me insight into my role as a daughter and also as a mother. And I realized one thing i.e. a mother is a mother whatever her age may be. Whether she is 75 years old or 50 years old or 25 years, the basic traits of a mother never changes.

She is always loving, forgiving, caring, over indulgent, over protective, over anxious and she overlooks and forgets all her physical sicknesses, physical discomforts when she wants to do something for her child. She goes out of her way to give happiness to her child and derives incomparable pleasure in doing petty things for them.

I realized so many things about myself which earlier I used to take for granted .also I got a chance to analyze my past and present and visualize my future

I also saw my mirror image in my mother

This time I tried to put my self in her shoes and then only could I understand her anxieties and her reaction to many situations in the past and also in the present.

In my young days when I was just a daughter I used to get irritated so many times whenever my mother used to advise me on certain issues or correct me. During those days I used to have only one answer,” mummy please let me take my own decisions, I have grown up,. I never for a second gave it a thought that how my mother must have felt when I used to snub her like this

But now when the roles have reversed, now that I have become a mother and I do the same things and when my children reply in the same manner I feel insulted or left out.

Most of the times I forgive the mistakes of my children, I overlook their indifference towards me and I always justify this by saying after all I am a mother , how can I carry any grudge against my own child, how can I be angry with them. But then after meeting my mother or talking to other mothers I have realized that I am not doing any thing great. All mothers are the same. Inspite of me not liking some of her thinking or her beliefs and my telling her so , she forgives me and my insolence. Don’t I do the same with my children?

My behavior towards my children is a reflection of my mother’s behavior towards me.

And of course my children’s behavior is a mirror image of mine towards my mother.

When I pester my children for eating or I want to know little tits bits about their life, at times they get irritated and find my attitude as an intrusion in their privacy. But don’t I feel the same when my mother does the same thing.

It is truly history repeating itself.

I always laugh at my mother when she gets excited over my visit to her and she starts asking me what I would like to eat and she goes out of her way to make my favourite dishes, but then don’t I behave in the same way when Neha comes to India. The pain of parting which I feel for my daughter when she goes ,even my mom must be feeling it when I leave her.

The pampering which my mother or father gave me the is similar to what I shower on my children and most of the time the reaction of my children is the same as that of mine when I was just a child.

There is a saying in Hindi which goes “JAAKI NA PHATI BIWAI VA KYA JAANE PIR PARAYI” ( literal meaning of this saying is till you get pain in the cracks of your heels you will not understand what other person is feeling) till you experience the same pain; you will not realize what the other person is feeling.

Until or unless we put ourselves in the shoes of others we will not realize what he is undergoing.

One can understand the feelings of a mother or a parent one only when he or she becomes one.