Heavenly feeling

Life has now got more busy. Work has increased. R is growing. And suddenly it seems like she is growing in fast forward. Even though I am practically around her always, I didn't realise she had grown. Until she took her first few steps, unknowingly, like it was normal for her. I looked at her, gave her a big smile and asked her ' you walked on your own?'. She gave a big smile -which probably meant .' Yes Ma, I did and I did it well right?'. Now it's become a game of sorts. Of her repeatedly trying to walk from where she is standing to me, with a big smile, tongue out, and arms raised. And each time I can't help thinking- this is what probably heaven must feel like.

Mothers today

Todays newspaper carried two articles- one on how first 6 years of a child's life are important and the other about how to deal with 'difficult' mother. The second article really surprised me as I never had imagined anyone would write a book/article telling adults on how they should deal with their mothers. I also never thought anyone would categorise mothers into various types. This particular article broadly categorised mothers as being 'good enough' or 'difficult'. Now Good enough is not something that is associated with being a mother, but the author claims that many cultures and society unecessarily Expect mothers to be perfect. Which in a way makes mothers do things for their children in a way that she thinks is right for her child rather than what the child really wants. This is primarily based on what the society expects of her. I know I have started noticing articles on such topics off late as now I can relate to them better. But I wonder if such articles or discussion ever would take place when our parents were raising us. I doubt the answer is yes to that. In fact did our parents really think in such detail about parenting like the way we do. I don't intend to say that they didn't care enough for us but they just didn't know any better at the time. I am sure our parents consider us lucky to have access to so much of information making parenting easier. But are we really that lucky? Or would we be better off in the ignorant bliss? The two articles in today's paper made me wonder just that. It's good that so much is being researched and written about better ways of parenting. But probably somewhere it's also confusing us even further and at times affecting our judgement. Only time will tell what kind of mother I will turn out to be but I hope I am not a 'difficult' one :P