the complexities of human emotions.

Glimpses of an idea, a topic, a decision, a revelation... that's how my mornings usually start. I'd wake up, not always with the best laid plan of what to do with the day ahead of me, but at the very least, I'd have a mind map where I'd dot the i's and cross the t's. A sort of aerial to-do list, if you will. 

I'd know roughly what I want to do at approximately x-time of the day. It's always been the way I operate, accentuated even further during my college years. That didn't change when I got married and started living with the husband, and I don't intend for it to change now that I have a child. For a lazy person, I'm weirdly organized. I'm organized about my laziness. 

Anyway, that weird preamble does have an intended point: here I was, sitting at the terrace this morning, and these topics, ideas, discussions; snippets of it seemed to go by in a flash in my head, tantalizing me with this irresistible need to write. Write about something, anything. Were these topics, by any chance, dark and heavy or were they light and fluffy? Both. I think about wars, mental health, and climate change as much as I think about why breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I think about the complexities of human feelings, societal and peer pressure, the scary but wonderful world of motherhood. 

This time, as I have done recently, I am going to zone in on my insecurity and motherhood. As in, my insecurities as a mother. Boy, where do I start? Even admitting that I'm insecure about my supposed skills requires effort from my part. Don't get me wrong, I know perfectly well that every mother is just trying her best and no one knows 100% what they're doing when taking care of a child. It's just – it's one thing to be insecure while you're alone and facing judgments from the outside world that seem to be hell-bent on seeing you fail, it's quite another to be doing what you do while facing the judgments of several members of your household then hating yourself because you know that what you should be doing instead is: a) stand your ground, but not defensively so, and b) actually hear them out/listen to their advice instead of moping because they actually might know better...? (In case this wasn't obvious, the 'they' here is my mother. And nanny, to some extent.)

I have a daughter who's just now starting to eat and getting her what and how much to eat is only part of a pickle. Aside from that there's my mother, who, along with much of her generation, believes that all a baby should eat for at least the first period is banana purée, and only that. Why? Because her digestive system is still very weak, so she still needs time to adjust and shouldn't be fed anything else. The logic makes sense. It is the argument that is not, especially after I've read multiple reports that we shouldn't actually give babies banana or any fruits as their first food since it's likely they'll have a harder time to like other types of food whose taste might not be as interesting. Above all, what makes this frustrating and difficult is actually a myriad of more emotional things. 

Number one: I am my own person and I am figuring out what kind of mother I will be. This means I should educate and inform myself as much as possible because this is the one job I cannot mess up. Ergo, no matter how well-intentioned my mother is in giving her advice (at this point it's more like an instruction disguised as a suggestion), at the end of the day I would like to have a choice in treating it like it is: advice. Number two: the impact of the aforementioned attitude is my mother getting her feelings hurt by my assumed dismissal. My face being an open book definitely doesn't help, every time I'm feeling any discomfort, there it is... as bright as a sunshiny day, as obvious for everyone to see. Number three: eventually I'll feel guilty over this assumed dismissal, hence my resolve starts to waver, then I'll think of some sort of compromise or ask her about things so she'll know how much I value her opinion, but then later on, I'll seethe and hate myself for not standing my ground... and so the circle of hell begins. 

The truth is, I'm tired of everyone treating me as if I don't understand a thing about taking care of my own baby. I know I don't truly get the hang of it, but what I hear every day is: "Don't let her sit like that", "Aren't you gonna steam those carrots first?", "She's obviously cold, give her socks". Even a friend of mine who's supposedly at the same place as me, sometimes sounds like she knows better than I do (or maybe that's my sensitive side talking). And if you're curious, the answer to all those questions: "I trust my baby, as weird as this sounds. If she's trying to sit, then I will goddamn let her attempt to do so", "Yes, I was only cutting them in dices so that they'll go easily in the food processor", and "I was just about to give her socks but you were hogging her." HAAAHH. Feels good to let this out in the open. 

I may not understand every acronym, be an active member of every forum, and most of the time I may even fuck up and do stuff that is "frowned upon" in the mother-baby community. I definitely need help every now and then, but that doesn't give anyone the right to feel superior because "they did it first". Let me take care of my own baby, because I'll be damned if I don't give my absolute all to make sure my own daughter is alive and well in this life. 

© Photo by Raul Angel on Unsplash