During our last holiday, my 2 year old son refused to come
to me in the flight. When I asked him to come to me so I can put him to sleep,
he said “ Papa…neeni”. Papa will put me to sleep. Just his little preference of
his father over me brought the million dollar smile to my husband’s face. And
my husband said to me, “You must be used to his importance to you all the
times, but for me it is precious. One instance of him choosing me over you can
make me smile for days. These are the memorable moments for me”.
It’s when I realized that how much a father longs for becoming
the primary parent in a child’s life. He loves the child almost equally but
seldom gets his share of love from the child or rather his share of his love
from his wife.
Father, the man in the family who is equally important as the
mother for bringing up the children, rarely gets his share of accolades. In the
process of rewarding mothers for their endurance, labor pains, choice to breast
feed, patience to handle a toddler and blind love for kids, we ignore the other
side of the coin. There is a man who supports a woman throughout her process of
becoming a loving mother.
It is true that mother spends lot more time with kids and
loose on her own self in order to meet the responsibilities. But can she do
this if there is nobody around to hear her complaining about her difficult day
spent running around the toddler or trying to feed the baby.
Gone are the days when man used to come home, eat dinner,
watch TV and go to sleep leaving all the responsibilities of kids and home to
the woman of family. Things have changed, believe it or not men do a lot more
at home than we give them credit for. A counter argument can be that women are
equally supporting men to earn the living. True, women are doing that and they
are taking care of kids too.
But isn’t man doing the same? Is he not working very hard at
office to make sure that his family gets all what they want and helping women
in chores. I have seen many mothers around me either leaving their job to take
care of kids or finding other easy options to make things work. But do we even
ask a father if he wants to leave his job and sit at home to take care of kids.
It has been assumed that no matter how much a woman earns, the prime responsibility
for earning bread & butter along with cheese and pasta is of man.
I myself keep saying this to my husband, “I am quitting my
job, I just can’t handle this anymore”. And I really do it very frequently. And
boy, every time he listens to my nonstop complain and ends up saying that he will
do anything to support me and he understands how much I do for the family. But
ever he gets upset with my tantrums or mention that he also hates working so
hard, travelling all the time for his job. Because we think he is doing it for
his job without even thinking that his job is mean to all our luxuries and
comfort.
And we women, do we even thank enough the men in our lives
for being so supportive all the times? I know men loses their patience around
kids and have limited ways to handle them. But they are absolutely brilliant handling
their frustrated wives and to bring a smile back on her face so she can get up
next day ready to face the struggles of motherhood.
Ladies, he has always been there, right from the day when
you told her you have conceived to the day he took you to the Labor room and felt
your pain silently when you cried at every contraction. He was there when you
joined back your work to tell that everything will work out and trust me he
also wanted to cry the day you had to leave your little one to preschool. It
was not just breaking your heart, it was killing him too but he didn’t cry else
who would have told you that it is going to be ok. He loves the kids as much as
you do but he steps back and allow you to bond with kid to become the most
important person in a child’s life.
I have seen men carrying babies at parties, weddings bearing
the eyes of old uncles at home. They become the subject of mockery of other men
who laughingly say “he is so scared of his wife that he doesn’t have the guts
to give her the baby”. But he is doing it because he wants to take turns with
his wife with baby so she can enjoy too.
It is true that it will take thousands of years for men to
get the strength to carry a child in womb or to get the patience to feed the
food to a 2 year old. God has not made him to deal with sleepless nights for years
when kids are growing up, he is surely going to snore around when mother will
be up all night. But he will make sure that mother and child are comfortable
during that sleepless night and he also will become the punching bag for his
wife in the morning to be blamed for everything.
Nobody can take the mother’s place in a child’ life, she is
going to be a baby’s lifeline. Mothers, we all really do a lot for our children
and family. But let’s take a step back and let our men be in the limelight once
in a while for being the incredible father and husband.
This one is dedicated to my husband and thousands of men
around the globe who are putting in lot of efforts in order to bring up a happy
child without even being appreciated for their efforts.
