Born free

I was at the salon this morning getting deliciously soothing things done to my hair when I overheard the conversation of a young mother in the chair next to mine. She looked to be in her late 20s, and had two sons of an age high enough for her to take them on vacation for a three-week period without domestic help in tow to deal with them. But she was bemoaning the fact that she would not have that help, saying that while she was delighted to spend days with her children and loved them very much, she was bored with the job of motherhood and needed a break, alone. Her older son, she was telling the hair stylist, was very attached to her, and she enjoyed that. But she would and could go only as far as reading him a story and tucking him into bed; the rest, the maid in charge of the boy would have to do.

Which is, in itself, rather scary for someone like me, who was brought up by fond parents with a little help from a grandmother. I rushed into this world early, impatient to go places and meet people and get things done, and was welcomes fairly heartily by both mother and father, or so I was told, though occasionally I got another version, depending on how irate or how affectionate they were being. Neither of them was what I wanted in a parent – especially at regular intervals as I was growing up – but I was nowhere near their vision or version of a daughter that they wanted either. But we managed, skidding along the good stretches and carefully navigating the bad ones, occasionally stalling at a speed bump that was too high or a pothole that was too deep.

The real problems came with being a child who was perhaps too close to her parents, and still is, in a way, even though one parent is no longer too close by to watch and wail. It happens that way with an only child, and a girl, who is almost always protected, cosseted, coddled and closed in, first by her sheltering elders, then by circumstance, then by her own ethical context. It is very difficult, beyond a point, to break boundaries or rules, especially since, after a stage, you start believing in them to such an extent that you do not see life any other way. Luckily for me, I have had a very liberal and liberated upbringing, one where there were no rules expect the ones I was told about, carefully explained and detailedly defined. But then the rules I made for myself became so strict, so controlled, so limiting, that to break them or even break out of them seems nigh-impossible today.

In that set-up, I had freedom to be whatever I wanted to be, however I wanted to be it. And that, today, is what I am. For which I thank my parents – bless their mad little hearts and minds – as often as I can. And maybe some day that young mother I encountered at the salon, when she herself grows up and learns what her rules are, will show her sons that same freedom.