How mothers can be frutsrating

First -- I'm a mother, yes. But that can't stop me frm cribbing about my mom.

Two -- There's some time at least before Sonny Boy grows up to crib about me. That can surely wait.

Three -- I love my mom. And without her, I wouldn't even be (not just in the "given birth to me sense". I mean in a larger all-encompassing sense.) I wouldn't be able to work without her now for sure. I couldn't have asked for a safer mommy-in-charge arrangement for my li'l one, with her supervising the nanny...

...but mothers being mothers, they want to mother you all their life.

The other day the husband and I were having a conversation about some logistics for the next day, to attend a ceremony. Mom, who was hanging around, had to tell us what to do, even before husband had replied.

She always does that -- tells me what I should do, specially when I don't ask for her advise. But when I do ask her (like when I could easily do with a second opinion or genuinely feel lost and need guidance), she turns around and says "Do whatever you want to..." And that's the end of the conversation.

She can be soooooo frustrating sometimes, when she treats looking after her grandson liek a chore. All responibilities are strictly to be stuck to. She will not feed him dinner at any cost -- unless I'm really late and have no hopes of gettin home even by his late-est dinner time, and have informed her well in time. And she'll do it muttering a hundered things under her breath. And the moment I land at home, it's like "Here, take your boy's dinner" ...an almost "My time's up" look and she vanishes into the receses of the house.

I agree she's old, physically not really up to coaxing the brat to eat at a time when she's itching to just hit the bed. But what the hell, my grandmom did it for her. My mum went to the movies, attended weddings, and had a full-time job all because grandma took care of me.

So I expect the same from her for my baby. But then I guess I'm being unreasonable. My grandmom was much younger...but i can't be blamed for that too.

And that's where the paradox in the Indian family system lies -- it's great to have a support system you can totally fall back on, but in always falling back on that family, you never become independent.

In fact you're so dependent on it, you can't survive without it. Take that family away and you struggle to cope. You're lost.