Nancy Elliot Edison, you are my inspiration

When Sandeepa of Desi Momz Club came up with an idea of a Mother’s Day Special on DMC, with the caveat being that one didn’t have to write about oneself or one’s own mother, I was immediately intrigued. I don’t fall to praise easily, and to find another mother worthy of my admiration apart from my own was a tall order.

Luckily for me, I didn’t have to think too hard, there was one mother I’ve never known, who has lived centuries before me, and who I admire and who, unknown to her, has given me hope and courage. The mother of Thomas Alva Edison. Everyone knows the man, he has given us some of the most useful inventions, with his life the stuff genius is made of. But did you know that when he was seven, a schoolmaster called him slow and his brains, ‘addled’. His furious mother removed him from school and began homeschooling him herself. She was a teacher. And her faith in him and his abilities were what made him what he eventually went on to become.

Here’s the little I have researched on her:

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=fsMhuXeEtH4C&pg=PA44&dq=Thomas+Alva+Edison,+mother,+influence

Thomas Edison's forebears lived in New Jersey until their loyalty to the British crown during the American Revolution drove them to Nova Scotia, Canada. From there, later generations relocated to Ontario and fought the Americans in the War of 1812. Edison's mother, Nancy Elliott, was originally from New York until her family moved to Vienna, Canada, where she met Sam Edison, Jr., whom she later married. When Sam became involved in an unsuccessful insurrection in Ontario in the 1830s, he was forced to flee to the United States and in 1839 they made their home in Milan, Ohio.
Birth of Thomas Alva Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was born to Sam and Nancy on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. Known as "Al" in his youth, Edison was the youngest of seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Edison tended to be in poor health when young.
To seek a better fortune, Sam Edison moved the family to Port Huron, Michigan, in 1854, where he worked in the lumber business.
Addled Brain?
Edison was a poor student. When a schoolmaster called Edison "addled," or slow. his furious mother took him out of the school and proceeded to teach him at home. Edison said many years later, "My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me, and I felt I had some one to live for, some one I must not disappoint."

What can I say? Everytime I struggled with my child and his seeming slowness and reluctance to fit into the mould of learners, everytime I shed bitter tears after PTA meetings when I was told he was far far behind the class and when it was hinted that I should perhaps take him out of school and put him in a special school, I would think of this mom and her determination to refuse to accept a schoolmaster’s definition of her son’s limitations, and her ferocity in educating him herself, giving us some of the most important inventions we have in the modern day world.

I think of her and feel ashamed of myself, for feeling cowed down and hopeless and hovering on the edge of despair. And I pick myself and push my son to prove to his class teachers that he can cope. And he is not slow. He is brilliant. I know it. And I hope one day he proves it to the world. And remembers how his mother fought for him and believed in him too!

Happy Mothers Day to you too!

(posted by karmickids)

Hola de Buenos Aires moderno (Hello, from trendy Buenos Aires!)

Just wanted to post a quick note from BA (where we are having a crazy winter in the summer - given it is in the southern hemisphere), since I sa a blog about keeping kids safe online and thought you folks may find it useful. Though written for a BA audience (I gather), it is pretty global in it's messages.
http://www.beesafe.blogspot.com/

Not doing it all

I was on a rant in my blog about how packaged masalas (not the primary ones like chilli powder, but the "biriyani mix", "idli mix", etc.) never work for me. The post elicited some comments, including the following:
"Hi Roopa, How do you manage to do everything so well -a great job/two kids/a blog/work out etc.etc..just curious. Can you please write a post about that to help some folks like me an idea about your routine.Take care!!!"

I'm flattered, but I'm not sure I'd say that I do do everything. There have been choices along the way. Things I chose NOT to do, things I choose to focus on right now, things I've decided can wait a couple of years.

• Rifle shooting -- now that was something I was pretty great at. But it took three to five hours of training four to five times a week. Not the kind of training that a mother of twins, with an NYC mortgage to contribute to can keep at, I decided. Funnily, I don't miss it...especially given I'd done it for about sixteen years with a real passion.
• Poetry -- I had dreamed at one time of truly taking time to read the greats, work with other poets, understand what it took to be good and evocative. Sports became the focus, coping with a new country and cadence became another, living life became a key distraction. It is not a passion anymore.
• Consulting -- engaging around an issue, solving it and working through an issue with absolute focus. I had felt like a fish that had found its preferred body of water, but travel and the hours can conflict with the deep urge to sit down and spend a couple of hours coloring rainbows. Choosing a sane work-life balance was a real priority, and my current role has allowed for that.

Which brings us to the comment and question:
6:30 am: Wake up and stare into the fridge. Whip up a dish or two for the kids (this activity is put on hold every time a grandma is in town!)
7:00 am: In the summer, there is time for a vigorous swim before work (usually two or three times a week)
8:00 am: Off to work
6:30 pm: Try to get back from work, and hang out with the kids. Ideally eat dinner with them once or twice during the work week
8:00 pm: Start reading to the kids
8:30 pm: Three days a week or more, hubby will hang out with the kids as they fall asleep and I go down to the gym for 45 mins on the ellipse, or a crazy training session with Tracy!!
9:30 pm: Log back on and get an hour or two of work done
11:00 pm: Do a bit of blogging to keep my writing muscles alive
At least once a week, make sure to have a grown-up dinner and walk home with hubby.
Seems like a bit of a slacker life, if you ask me. Out there are are 17-year-olds writing novels, 30-year-olds millionaires , and single moms who struggle to make ends meet, give their children guidance and necessities .... I'm just a working mom, trying to make sure to be good to her family and herself; lucky in having a caring husband, fantastically supportive friends, family and colleagues, and the ability to access great schools and institutions in this metro. It's about priorities, circumstances and ambitions....

Tell me what you think about the following Boston Globe article. Initially, I felt the central assertion was questionable: that women are choosing not to pursue certain careers from aptitude, not just giving up given glass ceiling dynamics or personal circumstances. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to reflect a lot of my own choices. I did feel that the dynamics in India or China are quite different...
The freedom to say 'no': Why aren't there more women in science and engineering? Controversial new research suggests: They just aren't interested.

http://rooparecipes.blogspot.com/

I love you, Mom

Thanks, Poppins Mom, for this lovely theme. I have to admit, I've struggled with it whenever I've thought about it, because it doesn't seem like I do anything out of the ordinary as a mom, but I had to give it a try, so here goes:

Dear BEV,
With your typical need to be objective and give yourself feedback about everything, I'm sure you can think of lots of things you're not doing for your kids - you don't always remember their medicines, you love it when they've gone to sleep and the house is quiet, you yell at them and lose your temper and sometimes you make them cry. You forget to make Chubbocks do his school assignments and sometimes you're not organised enough to produce on-demand whatever the school has asked for. You missed the admission deadlines to start with for Chubbocks' schooling. You not only go out to work but enjoy it and forget about C and P for hours every day when you're busy.

On the plus side, though, you do have a few things going for you. The first is that despite not being gaga about kids and frankly nervous and unwilling to start with when you heard you were pregnant, you not only went through with but enjoyed the process of transformation - the rush of hormones that made you feel like a mom, the operation, the turning-into-a-human-pincushion with all the bloodtests (well, ok, maybe you didn't enjoy the last two, but you did it. Not once but twice!). Not only that but you let that little drooling 7 pound bit of mush turn you from a gung-ho career woman into one who couldn't bear to let the baby out of her sight for the first six months and who actually down-shifted and worked parttime and took up an easier job so it would free up your mindspace for the baby.

You're not always up there with teaching the kids their alphabets and numbers and stuff ( thank God for your mum, else they'd be little illiterates). But you do like to teach them the art of whimsy - knowing the names of each flower in the garden and kissing them in the spring, dancing like loons to any and every song, giving answers like four hundred and eighty six when your son asks how old you are, not squashing ants but carefully observing how the mother ant is carrying food home for her babies and helping her by brushing obstacles away...You teach them to laugh and have fun, and everyone who's ever met your kids comments on what happy children they are.

You don't teach them about ambition and excelling and any of that, but you do teach them kindness and respect and how to laugh and enjoy the world around them every day. You let them fall down and bump themselves a few times and not get up to cry but turn to look at how badly they bruised the floor. You teach them to let go of dignity and 'face' and just be themselves. You encourage their creative and artistic sides, even as you don't focus too much on what they are 'supposed to be learning'.

You're determined to do the best you can for them. I remember...how you drove yourself mad with guilt when C didn't breastfeed. And how much effort you put in to ensure P did, from eating herbs to researching on the net to staying up late pumping to taking medicines and lugging the pump to the office which didn't even have a space to do it in. How many nights you cried about C's terrible Two Tantrums and how much research you did and all the books you read to figure out how to cope. How from someone who used to be so finicky, you're now even ok hanging out with babypuke on your clothes while they nod off to sleep. And how you fight even with their father or your parents or inlaws for the right to choose how they should be brought up.

Most of all, you've made the key transition that every parent needs to make to become the best parent possible - you've learned to put their needs ahead of yours, in big matters or small. You learn to wrestle with your own temper, with your emotional needs to hold your babies close, with your fears and demons, in their better interests. When you hurt them, you cry right along with them. And you know no one in the world could love your two more than you can. Most of all, I think the kids know it, judging by the way their faces light up when you walk into the house, and by the way they'll even miss going to Ajji's house if you happen to be home from work. I think that makes you a good mom.
Love,
Me
PS. Do you think you could work on the temper a little?
Cross-posted on Rainbow Days