Mum's the word

Some mothers have them


Its been hard to ignore the octoplet mother, Nadya Suleman. I first heard about her when she made a splash in the press somewhere at the start of the year.

Two months later, she is still making headlines. With death threats and dedicated websites, I’d hate to shed more light than necessary on the newest ‘celeb mom’ in town. However there is a haunting realism to this issue. Its much bigger than that rhyme about a mother who ‘had so many children she didn’t know what to do.’ The children in this story are real and their fate is very real too.

Anyone with children can testify to sometimes swearing that ‘This is it!’ ‘I’ve had it,’ ‘No more kids.’ Of course you love your children and can’t live without them but when it comes to back talk, dirty diapers or the terrible twos, its easy to imagine your life in an exotic spa with much more pleasant things to deal with. So who in their sane minds would have 14 children in this day and recession-laden age?

Having come from a happily crowded house of seven siblings, large families don’t come as a surprise to me. I can’t imagine life without even one of my kin, but I always wonder how my parents ever managed with so many of us.

The recent uproar over Nadya has rightfully brought on some serious questions. Can she really handle all these children as a single mother? Is it really her mother’s duty to share the responsibility of the grand children? Should the doctors be taken to task for allowing a single mother of six, have half a dozen more?

There are no simple answers. What bothers me are the frequent interviews with this mother of 14. While she forces a smile and dodges the press, my mind wanders off to where child number five must be and who he or she must be with? Surely this mother can’t lug all six of her children to every television interview. Most of the new siblings are still recovering in hospital.

Any mother and some father’s too can relate to wandering off mentally when at work or at the grocery store and not having your kids within view. Its almost as if you cease to exist after you have had a child and your mind is always on your children and what they must be doing. I’m not suggesting that parents are distracted at their jobs, but I’m sure all of us have our minds on our kids at some or the other point of our working day.

So I hope that Nadya gets help. And plenty of it. Not necessarily the monetary kind. Sometimes all you need is two safe hands whom you can just hand the baby to when you want to visit the bathroom. I hope she can find such trust worthy hands.

There are a few unshakeable truths. The immeasurable joy of having your child take his or her first steps, the unforgivable sorrow at missing out on your child’s simple achievements, the unmistakable moment when you identify with another mother who said what you’ve been thinking all along and were too frightened to admit.

Being a mother is easy. Its motherhood that requires truck loads of dedication.

Image by Albert Almondia (courtesy fineart.com)