A few months ago, my identity got totally transformed. I'm a mother. Period. Nothing else. I'm called "mom" at the neo natal ward, at the immunization clinic, at baby stores, by the lactation consultant, at the airport, on the flight and everywhere else even when my own 9 month old is a long way from calling me mom. My duties of course are taking care of the baby, taking care of the baby, taking care of the baby (no, thats not a typing mistake) and perhaps making sure the fridge is stocked up. Dearly as I love my baby, I cannot help complaining at times. I had thought about adoption at one point of time and wonder if I could have coped with an adopted baby.
Anyway, now as the highs and lows of roller coaster that is new parenthood seem to smoothen out a little and I get some breathing space to re-look at my life, I realize I cannot be a stay at home mom anymore. I need my sense of fulfillment to be derived from a myriad of sources - family, career, charity, nature, books etc., not just one. One day, as I was thinking hard about this, I remembered something. This realization had come even earlier. There was a moment of epiphany two years ago.
Cut to April 2012. I arrived in Singapore, nervous about staying together with my husband for the first time and excited about experiencing life as an INSEAD "partner". It was a good thing they regard the word "wife" as a non-inclusive one since it is the prerogative of only married, straight women. "Partner" is so much more better, it includes anyone. I liked being called a partner too as I wasn't too comfortable with the wife identity still. Doesn't "girl friend" sound more cool? (After two years it doesn't sound cool anymore, only childish, but that's another story). One afternoon, after a movie plan, some of the partners were planning to shop for clothes and having nothing better on my hands to do, I joined them. I very distinctly remember standing in the queue for trial rooms at Cotton On and chatting with one of the partners about the fit of Gap jeans. All this while, at the back of my head a thought kept running. That this is what being a partner is all mostly about. Somehow, that memoryshot (I just improvised screenshot). Okay, that moment of standing at a trial room and discussing fit of clothes somehow for me symbolized the word "wife". And I was thinking then that I wouldn't want to be recognized primarily as "ABC's wife".And I'm thinking the same now. Déjà vu moment.
