Disclaimers
1. Amol and me are young and first time parents.
2 .Adi has always been a better child than we have been as parents.
Unlike most moms who gush over their child's milestones I have celebrated my "milestone"mom moments..........The first night I slept through in his infancy, the precise date from when toilet accidents stopped happening,the first Monday morning he stopped puking on my face after I stuffed him with idlis, the first academic year school work was completed without my intervention, the first time that he made me a sandwich post a long day at work(I have outsourced so much of the cooking to him from then ).....the list could be endless because I have an elephants memory.
Cut to Act 2
If one thought being a teenager was bad : being a teenager's mom is the living eighth rung of hell...
Adi grew taller than me ( there was not much to catch up anyway).....He questioned our authority as parents(he is the better child anyway, but still)....His voice changed.....wisps of downy hair on the cheeks n chin surfaced....we disagreed about everything.....my baby who crowned mom the queen thinks I fly the quidditch now. My Google search engine showed "how to be better parent"," 5 mistakes in bringing up teens" with all the data that Mr Pichai promised not collect n process n sell to the ad world
My boy had come of age and I wanted to shout from the roof tops the rite of passage......mostly out of happiness
Our western parent peers celebrate Sweet 16 and Quinceanera, Bar/Bat Mitzvah by the Jewish .Closer home in the South India we celebrate the girls menarche as Manjal Neeratru Vizha in Tamil Nadu, Peddamanishi Pandaga in Andhra Pradesh, Nishanth Tarannum in Karnataka.
We did not have any template for boys in our vast mixed culture marriage . Amol would cringe everytime I mentioned I wanted to celebrate my boy's Testosterone bonanza but eventually gave in with precondition that I will not post pictures on social media with embarassing titles
My Tamil family played along...My brother (mama-maternal uncle) painstakingly gathered theme specific Seeru Varisai - (gifts from the maternal home) The Goan side explained to their FnF that it is an exotic tradition . A professional barber was called for Adi's first facial hair trim. We had a moustache cake, 16 gift wrapped goodies.A feast (mutton biryani, boiled eggs, fried fish, prawn curry, mori mutton) was laid out for FnF. Prevailing days of bird flu scare forced me to drop out Adi's fave - chicken. I did not want to compete with Mugabe but my boy simply loves his meat . Veg readers dont judge me. All this is legally, socially allowed to be consumed in our current right leaning times .
With this coming of age I hope to handhold ADi to cross the threshold of adolescence n become an adult mom. Responsible child he always was........
I am waiting for a couple of more milestones ...the first time he will wake up in the morning without me waking the entire neighbourhood. ...the first when I dont have to tiptoe to catch him doing something. But hey I am an Indian mom . We never really cut off the umbilical cord. Do we? Should we?
