Delectable Details

"Having children doesn't make a woman a mother" ran an [facebook] status update of one of my estranged colleagues.

You can argue until your lips crack, your throats hurt, your veins ready to burst, you're all ready to act as only humans can possibly do: tear your interlocutor's throat and drink the person's blood, only you aren't thirsty, over the issue. Yet, it is a tough job being a parent to little kids though it all comes down to You want it, they've got it (They being your kids):
- As babies they could do no wrong: all cuddly, cute as can be with everything they do sending you into ecstatic love and pride. You've been wanting this pride since you knew that kids don't come with the mail, and they couldn't care less as long as there is a teat to suckle everytime they open their mouth.
- Come toddler age, and they look for you, among their toys, when you are starting to regain your love to soap operas. And yet you mollycoddle them, dress them to the nines and parade them around town. All the while scanning those tabloids and bulletin walls in the hospitals for the next Baby Contestas you want to enter them to it and taking notes of the prizes offered, should your kids win.
And you find all your diplomas now come complete with thick-red-crayon drawing of figures suspiciously looking like a sausage having been run over by a truck, with curious-looking protusions and big circular things which if you let your imagination runs really wild may resemble a bit like feet, tail or eyes. Figures which upon interrogation are revealed to be those of dogs, cats or pigs--lipsticks used-up, unsigned contracts now paper planes after taking a dip in the bathtub, walls a scene of batlefield among soldiers of fairy, zoo crew and Ferrari drivers. You bite your lips and try to maintain composure, explaining to them the connection between the importance of your lipsticks to your overall presentability to everyone except your husband; the risk of their living their days like "those kids in Africa" now that daddy's paper is just another one of those Titanic wannabes, with wings to boot; the big, BIG possibility of their grandma's failing to remember their birthday, what with all the walls looking like that--they being kids the connection, or the lack thereof, would escape them, so you can get away with this trickery. All the while you curse under your breath for their losing in those baby contests, into which you've invested quite a lot for the admission fee, new clothes for them and such like. You want the world to acknowledge how great the parties involved in presenting such joyful bundles of cuddly love to the world and see if they care.
- And they grow by the millimeter, occupying more space than you yourselves have trouble filling (being there is not enough space to fill yourselves with in the first place), more and more you bump into them, more and more they ruin your concentration just when you need to focus all of your thought, mind and heart into texting or chatting, more and more often they appear behind you and startling you when you were this close to coming up with that winning move in the chess game against that damn computer(!!!), more and more often they come to you with all their stories which day-by-day sound more and more to you ridiculous, tiring, Why-do-only-I-have-to-hear-this-?, Who-is-going-to-listen-to-ME-?, Don't-I-deserve-attention-just-the-way-I-show-them?, I-want-my-ME-time, Don't-I-deserve-MY-self-actualization-after-everything-I've-been-through,That's-it-I-may-go-to-Komnas Perempuan/Komnas Pria (this writer's pipe dream)-tomorrow. You want your ego stroked, and those kids' big eyes wonderment and dependent love to you just don't cut it.
- And, of course, should you lose your kids' nanny and all their grandmothers or great-aunts have (Surprise!) their own lives to live so that they cannot be there for you to take care of your kids (for you, don't forget that...), you have this to say: "Yeah,yeah, I know, I'm late. Again. Sorry, boss. Got problems at home." You want your excuse, and they provide.