Confessions of a second-time mother

3 to 7 years

Created by Swetha Kannan
Updated on Mar 22, 2017

I just spent the last 20 minutes trying to wipe off felt pen marks from the floor and painfully realised that a child’s creative mess is too stubborn even for the strongest of turpentine solutions. It is too clever for a mixture of baking soda and vinegar too. I am the kind of parent who does not want to stand in the way of a child’s innate urge to express freely. I did allow my first child to liberally liberate himself on the walls and what not. I still remember my three-year-old son writing ‘far’ on all possible surfaces except the paper. (Yes, not ‘cat’ ‘rat’ or ‘bat’ but strangely ‘far’.)

As dirty palm prints and crayon doodles welcomed visitors to my house, I cringed at the sight of their raised eyebrows and frowns. But not once did I regret having indulged my little one’s creative abandon. Of course, there was the brief attempt to divert my son’s attention to the black board I designed especially for him. But he would always go back to wall art. There was little I could do. So, I learnt to enjoy every little doodle and scribble from those tiny fingers. Walls can be painted again but childhood inspiration strikes only once, I reasoned.

Sadly, the tolerance to unsightly mess (with due regards to my son’s artwork) was greater when I was a parent in my twenties. Today, at 33, I have to say, a tad guiltily, that I flipped at the sight of pink and purple on the floor.I can hear my second son cry, “That’s not fair, amma.”

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Sorry, son. But the truth is I am older today (though not necessarily wiser). The thirties have brought out the intolerant and impatient side to my parenting. As a first-time parent, I was far more energetic, accepting and all-forgiving. I would say I was cooler and more chilled-out. It is not just wall or floor art. Messy rooms, toys strewn all around, food particles stuck in sofa cushions, jumping on the bed—just about everything gets my antennae up these days. I use the words ‘no’, ‘don’t’, ‘stop’ with my younger one, who is barely two years, a lot. Have I become a control freak parent the second time around?

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I wonder if I am the same person who let her first son crush a newspaper so that he could listen to the crackling sound it produced (apologies to newspaper lovers, I am one too!). The bewildered look on the little one’s face as he tried to locate the source of the sound was priceless and my joy knew no bounds. Will I ever be that mother again?
As I sat down to type all this, my younger one grabbed a colour pencil from nowhere and drew a circle on the living room wall and said, “Paambu paaru (look, snake).” My instincts told me to grab the pencil and chide him. But then I saw the ‘far’ squiggle on the wall and stopped myself. I won’t curb him just this one time, I told myself.