Today is May 30, three weeks after Mother’s Day was celebrated in India. However, this little vignette was initially written two months ago as a submission to an international website. It wasn’t selected for publication, so I was keen to share it here but with one thing and another, I just didn’t get time to do it before today. Mother’s Day this year – my first with my second child – was extra special because I spent it on a ladies trip to Goa with my mom, aunt, cousin and daughter. All we did while there was shop to our heart’s content and eat delicious food. It was the best celebration and the best way to take our minds off all the chaos in the world – wars, political crises, the rise of AI et al.
Anyway, here is my little vignette – a Mother’s Day tribute. Do let me know what you think of it in the comments section below:
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We Will Always Have Harry Potter
By Noor Anand Chawla
Much of who I am as a wife, sister, daughter-in-law, and mother is shaped by the influence of my own mother. When I was expecting my second child after a gap of 8.5 years, my mother sought to prepare me for the emotional tumult of parenting two children.
She reminded me of the jealousy I developed when my brother was born a few years after me; of the sense of competition that pervaded our sibling relationship for most of our growing years; and how she often acted as a buffer between us to quell heightened emotions. To counter these issues, she advised me to build individual relationships with both my children.
So, when I grappled with frustration and mom guilt at being called upon to simultaneously address the vastly differing needs of my children – one a sensitive and shy pre-teen and the other a boisterous and demanding newborn – I took a card from my mother’s book.
With breastfeeding taking up large chunks of my time, I decided on a sedentary activity – reading the entire Harry Potter series to my son while nursing the babe. We bonded over the relatable characters, magical mayhem, delightful plot twists, and enduring friendships the series had to offer, and I understood my mother’s advice on maintaining individual relationships with kids. In time perhaps, my daughter will develop interests that align with mine, but I know that my son and I will always have Harry Potter.
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This blog post is part of ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Mister Tikku.
This post is part of the Bookish League blog hop hosted by Bohemian Bibliophile.
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*This is not a sponsored post.
**Copyright in pictures and content belongs to nooranandchawla.com and cannot be republished or repurposed without express permission of the author. As I am a copyright lawyer by profession, infringement of any kind will invite strict legal action.