International Girl Child Day

On International Girl Child Day

Let me share what I love about being the mother of a girl child, and what I don’t!

I love the fact that:

• I always have a best friend to share my crazy thoughts and ideas
• I have a 24-hours-on-duty supporter & motivator & sarcastic advisor
• I have created a “Mini Me”
• minus the flaws, mistakes, restrictions, fears, inhibitions
• plus the freedom to make her own choices, boldness, independence, maturity
• I can hand her down my favorite dresses/jewelry/shoes and relive my younger days (despite my obsessive possessiveness)
• I can be the cool mom that her friends are jealous of!    

I hate:

• having to always look out for her safety anywhere in this country at any time of the day or night
• the mistrust in my eyes when I look at every guy/man around her 
• having to restrict her from wearing her favorite short/sleeveless/tight dresses ‘coz I am afraid of “inviting unwanted attention”
• the paranoia that grips me when I don’t get the missed call she was supposed to give me when she ‘reaches there safely’
• the horrific images of kidnap/rape/acid attack/maiming that flashes through my head when she doesn’t pick up my call or her phone is switched off/unreachable 
• the societal pressure to marry her off ASAP/save for her dowry/take engineering or medicine for a good-paying job
• the cliche Malayalam idiom that roughly translates to (read in a nosy Aunty voice) “leaf fall on the thorn, thorn fall on a leaf, damage for leaf only, no?”

There is more, but right now, I have to go and give her a lecture about that harmless selfie she just posted on Instagram (Sigh!! because obviously, no one lectures the creeps) 

Will be right back!