On Motherhood in Cyber Era

‘The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness’
-Quoted




Who says that being a mother to a daughter is the same as being a mother of two sons? My relationship with Hannah borders between insanity and apprehension but always with pride and love, at least on my part. Insanity at the sometimes profanities that I mouthed out because of my apprehension of what will become of her and sometimes pride when she reasoned and stood up to my sometimes most domineering character.

I take pride on the rare occasions that she discusses her boyfriends or even her career prospect to me. I am even proud that she sold off clothes bought by me which is not to her liking through e-bay although I do not get a cent back. At least my business streak surfaces from time to time in her.

I read an article somewhere describing mothers falling into categories of one which is the alpha mother or more apt the control-freak kind like Abby in ‘Desperate Housewives’ or the laid-back type like Felicity in the same series.

I may be a cross between the two characters or neither because there is no wrong or right way to raise a daughter but you do things that seems befitting in her best interest – to the extent like maybe doing her needlework when she was nine so that she can complete her other homework. I gave birth to my first born about 21 years ago and now she is graduating in accountancy – something not much different from my Mathematician background. This picture deeply embedded in my memory of her mouthing her first word ‘ayah’ at 4 months instead of mama because that is the most frequent vocabulary that she hears. Admittedly, I called out to her father frequently to help out with household chores and my man who was than a new husband and father had not most often responded in time to a first-time mother that panicked at the slightest twitch her first-born made. I was a very harassed mum than – what with starting a career and motherhood. Calling out ‘ayah’, I were to later discover was not an act of preference at all - when her younger brother’s first syllabus is Hannah as by that time the most frequent vocabulary of the day was than of course her name. As such your first spoken legible word has nothing to do with the person you identified with most – so mothers out there should be enlightened by my discovery.
Hannah’s first piano exam, becoming a prefect than dropped for not completing her homework, being called by her teachers and arguing out with her teachers that they should cool it down with their homework to a nine year old like her - much to the dismay of her teachers as I myself was an educator; graduation stuffs and encounters with boyfriends has been etched in my memory for all eternity. I told my wayward daughter than that being a ‘prefect’ or short for perfect is not everything but the ability to learn from consequences of one’s action should be imbedded properly in her brain. The glorified moments as well as the battles too as we combat our differences would be another tale to tell.

In personality, she does not take after me at all for we are two different kindred in this chaotic world - me the more reserved, quiet type, bespectacled lady of my era where to be heard of for one’s academic achievements is more important than being seen while she the party girl among her friends. Never the academic icon like her mother but the more extrovert type that is bent on having a good time always for had I not named her ‘Farhanah’ in which means ‘joy’. My own mother mould me to be the meek lady that never raise a single sentence against her but I was surprise that when it comes to Hannah I will always be siding with my daughter and arguing out that times has changed and she deserved the space which I had always craved for. Looking at my own beloved mother, still mouthing advice on how I should raise my daughter gives credit to the adage that a mother who is really a mother is never free holds an absolute truth that all mothers in the world accept

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