What children do

Someone I know posted this on Facebook:

Thought about this for a while:
1. My husband and I started very high but were soon down to very low on the x-axis. The first year was tough. Many reasons for that; for me, the main reason was that we come from somewhat different back grounds but even with my 'exposure and open minded upbringing', I had assumed that all families are alike in what is appreciated and admired. Many things were a shock to me. So that was funny! Not funny then !!
2. We then had many years of very high on the scale before the kids came (the first one came in year seven). I think as far as 'fun' is concerned, we have certainly not gone back to that amount of fun. Also as far as satisfaction with personal achievement is concerned, I have not gone back to the high before the kids.
3. I think that if we did not have kids, I would not have been happy right now - as a 36 year old. We may have been having as much fun as before and I would most likely have achieved more at work, but I think that not being a mother would have made me sad. It seems like a cop out answer, but I think it is a trick question anyway. Having the kids has put a definite stress on the marriage and my career has taken a back seat BUT not having them, would have been sadder and might have put a worse strain on the marriage and maybe my career too.
4. Having children and raising them seems more meaningful than having fun (the effects are longer? that is how I am supposed to think?) - I do not feel a huge responsibility towards the world but I do think that two normal adults would be a fantastic addition to it.
5. Finally, to me, marriage is not a steady state condition - it is an evolving growing organism. If it remains the same, it stagnates and dies - I think children, relatives, friends, jobs etc., all provide necessary stimulation, so that it does not die. I certainly miss having the time to spend on myself that I used to and that does change my self-esteem and self-worth. I think in general, I feel that I used to be ‘cooler’ before the kids and more interesting (and more interested too, now I am so sleepy most of the time!). I think, since the younger one is two, we are just coming out of the new baby phase - so feeling tired and stretched to the limits and having no time all comes with the territory. We recently had two awesome weekends - what I used to call normal - we went skiing one day and then went rock climbing (just to a gym) the next day - and that felt great to me - and at that point I was having more fun and was more happy than I would have been if we had been doing the same things but without the kids. So that sums it up I think. I enjoy the baby stuff and the mommy stuff for sure, but now when I am doing something that I used to do before the kids, I have more fun doing it.

Latest Read: The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad

 I enjoyed reading it and would recommend it. It may offend some people from my part of the world but I think it is written truthfully. It shows how complicated people are.
This is what I think about women’s rights in my part of the world: Generally women (or anyone for that matter, but I am talking about women for now) are not treated well. If someone can be trodden upon, they are. That is not true for everyone of course. I used to get very defensive when I first came to the US and people were surprised that I was a very well educated girl from Pakistan. However, I have changed my opinion about this. I feel that how a girl is treated in my part of the world is totally dependent on her family. If her family happens to be open-minded then she is treated well and her personal ambitions are taken into account. If they are not, well, too bad. She does not have any real legal recourse. If her husband is a good man, all is well. If he is not, even in good families she is told to bear it. The system is not with her in any meaningful way. And that I think is what people mean when they say that women are not treated well. They are not. I agree.

Latest Read: The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmed.

I want to gauge my eyes out and punch the walls till I break my knuckles. I want to scream so that everyone can hear me. And then I want to curl up on a hard floor and weep. Bravo Mr. Ahmed, for writing so beautifully and honestly!

 It’s not that I didn’t know. Everyone knows. But where are the prideful traditions that I was told marked the strong people of FATA? I cannot take pride in any of this. Resilience maybe, but other than that, it is all about oppression and stubbornness and cruelty. There is no beauty here. Who bloody cares if this is what they have been doing for centuries – that argument became moot fourteen hundred years ago in Arabia.

A must read people. This one is a must read. It’s a beautiful beautiful book about things that are old and ugly.

A world in another in another

If someone could tell an ovum that one day it would stop being an egg and be joined with another and become something else, what would it think about it? And then it does happen and the egg thinks it is dying but it passes through that death like stage and is greater than just an egg.
Then, if someone told that baby in the womb that his placenta and his cord are not him, and one day he will leave his world and go into another, what would the baby make of it? He becomes bigger and as he does, he finds his world not as comfortable as it used to be. He cannot swim freely or do somersaults anymore. And then comes death and he discovers he can eat and breathe and there is a wondrous world around him. And it is because he passed through that death like stage that he is there.
And someone tells the now grown man that one day he will leave this world and go into another and that his body is not him. What would he think of that?
The old man is not comfortable in this world anymore. His body aches; he cannot run and jump as he used to be able to do. And he dies and leaves his body in this world.
Do you only die and go into the other world if you listen to the obscure fantastic voices telling you that this body is not you? Or do you die and go into the other world when you have developed all you could in this one? Does believing in the next world help in adjusting in that world? The egg becomes the baby becomes the baby in his mother’s arms becomes the grown man. Did the egg become the grown man because it believed it would? Did the eggs and babies that don’t make it did not because they didn’t believe?
This grown one is thinking about this. Still thinking.

Latest read: The Good Muslim by Tahmina Anam.

Tahmina writes about a woman and her family learning to live in post Pakistan Bangladesh. Good book. Made me think about why someone intelligent would move towards 'fundamentalist' Islam.  (I am using the popular meaning of the word and use it to refer to the beard bearing, strict segregation wanting, miswak wielding fellow we all have often met). The woman is angry at her brother for turning towards fundamentalism and feels betrayed. She is unhappy that the Bangladeshi people do not realize how hard fought their freedom was. She tries to rescue her nephew but that ends in tragedy. And of course, the atrocities done by the Pakistan army are a back drop to the novel. The book ends with hope though and I liked that and more importantly, it ends with the acceptance of what happened.

Closure?

Too fast! I remember being in 4th grade for an eternity. Finally 5th grade came and that continued forever. I remember my first school not too fondly and was surprised to later find out that I was there for just a few months. Even in college, time was friendlier. I wonder why I feel it go so fast. And I often wonder if my children perceive their time as I did my childhood time even though we begin and end our days together.

I went to see some paintings by an amateur artist. He is mad. But wonderfully so. He creates multiple paintings every day. He is good, and as I leafed through his collection, I thought getting better. He said that he could remember each day of last year.

Is it because I used to create things every day that I seem to remember each day from childhood? I keep a diary at times and when I write regularly time slows down.

And then the duality of feelings! Thursday was chemo day for Papa and he would get steroids that made him feel better for a couple of days. When I called him, I felt that Thursday would never come. It would always be so far away. But at the same time, here at home, the weeks were flying by but still Thursday would not come.

December I remember. Like a childhood poem, I can recite it. The 1^st was when I decided to stay. The 2^nd was when I accepted I knew. The 3^rd was poetry day. The 4^th was when Papa was home. The 5^th was a good day. So was the 6^th. The 7^th was not. And so on.

Papa used to be amused by death scenes in movies. He said no one makes speeches, they just die. Papa went peacefully. He was there and then not there. Some people have very peaceful births, they are not here and then they are born. There is no struggle and no fear. I felt the same way about Papa’s passing.

On Being Mommy

I love being mommy. I loved carrying them and giving birth to them. I love to nurse them.
Their eyes light up when they see me. I cannot even begin to describe how that feels - every single time. The girls will not remember all this as they are so young right now; and so all the cuddling and hugging and kisses are just for me to enjoy now and to cherish forever. What a fantastic, absolutely mindboggingly beautiful gift!