25/05/2016 Author

What have you given up?

2 weeks ago people celebrated Mother’s Day. One day in every year that people take time off their busy schedule to bring their aged mothers for a fancy meal. Younger mums receive handmade crafts from their school going kids. It may sound cheesy but seriously everyday is Mother’s Day if you show appreciation and be nice to her daily.

Many times, girls lose their identities when they become mothers. That is sad but true! I sometimes feel it too. People tend to forget you as you, you used to be one of the first person they invite to a party or a badminton friendly match. You were a dancer, you were a surfer, you were a diver, volleyballer, swimmer, singer, writer etc. And now, your new role has overcome every titles you have earned and built throughout your living years, it has reduced you. You are now a mother. A mother to a cute son, mother to a pretty daughter, mother of 5. Some mummies get an extra adjective in front of the title eg. hot mother, pretty mother, young mother etc. Women get so overwhelmed by their new role that they can lose themselves. Suddenly it seems like there is no choice, every mum gets to choose 1 of the limited default life styles and live it, like choosing a template or preset. I have extreme regards for all sorts of mothers, be it FTWM (Full time working mum), SAHM (Stay at home mum) or WFHM (work from home mum). But for this part on identity loss, I would have to give it to the SAHM, they win hands down. There is no title for SAHM except SAHM or mother. There is no CEO, director, officer in front of your name, you are being introduced as so and so’s wife, so and so’s mum when (IF) you meet new people. Most probably the new people are your children’s classmates’ parents. Apart from the obvious sacrifices, there is so much more to what a mother has to give up, so much that you would say “forget it, lets move on.” It is hard to list all the sacrifices as some stuff are not quantifiable and also hard to describe or you may feel shy if you want to list the smallest thing that should not have mattered eg. I gave up eating my favourite tom yum noodle as I have to share non spicy noodle with my son, this is small but it is still a sacrifice, and many of these small things add together and weigh on you. Slowly, you no longer eat tom yum and you forgot you liked it and to think that you were nicknamed Spicy Queen when you were alone. Now your eating habit has changed and your nickname also do not apply anymore.

baby photographer

Motherhood is a mad stage of life, it can be as confusing as a teenager going through puberty. I remember there was one day where I was so angry with my son that I lost it. Immediately I felt terrible for shouting at him and then straightaway I hated myself for being a noisy useless mum, everything went wrong that day, then somehow Adam Levine’s Lost Star was playing and somehow this particular line of lyrics caught me , ” God, give us a reason, youth is wasted on the young…” Haha.. I felt like I have wasted my own youth to nurture the young. Then I felt extremely guilty for thinking that and then I hated myself even more…. That was one very bad day.

Love, Jen

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