A while back, there was an advertisement from FirstCry about “fussy moms.” I watched that advertisement and found myself laughing, because I really was, and in some ways, still am, that mom. I am “fussy” about car seats, I am “fussy” about helmets while riding a bicycle, I am “fussy” about my kids being respectful and decent human beings, and just about everything they showed in the advertisement. But what made me laugh the most was that bit about the “fussy” mom who was angry about someone ringing the doorbell when the baby was asleep. Because that was exactly how I used to feel when my girls were babies, and while I might not literally have yelled at anyone (except maybe once), I am sure they could see just how annoyed I was every time I opened the door to someone when my babies were asleep.
Yes, it is indeed a “fussy” thing for others. But talking from strictly firsthand experience, I can tell you that no matter how cool and chill a mom is, their babies’ naptime is a life-and-death thing for most moms. I had trouble especially with Vedu as she was an extremely light sleeper as a baby. Even a slightly loud sigh from us could wake her, and she would start bawling her eyes out and wouldn’t settle down until she was rocked and held, and sometimes fed too, even if she wasn’t hungry. Only after she was six months old or so, when she started sleeping alone in her room, did she start being better with her sleep. And even then, she had the tendency to wake up to noises outside and decide that she was done with her nap, even if she had napped for only ten minutes.
Unsurprisingly, I was paranoid about anyone waking her up—the security whistle going off at midnight, a pack of dogs on the street outside howling and barking at odd hours, neighbours’ kids screaming and shouting in the corridors—the list was endless back then. I remember the time when a visiting help opened the Godrej lock of our main door, despite me rushing forward and telling him I would do it slowly as the baby was sleeping in the next room and might wake up if the lock was opened too loudly. He didn’t let me get to the lock and opened it himself, making a loud “Katackk” sound. Of course, that woke Vedu up, and she went back to sleep only after kicking up a row for half an hour. Even today, when that baby Vedu has grown up to be an eight-year-old girl, any time I see that person, I think of how he woke her up back then and feel an unjustifiable anger surge in me. Yeah, I am crazy like that! 😛
Coupled with the fact that I was going through the peak of anxiety and depression in those days, this was a much bigger deal to me than it would be to other, more normal mothers. So I had even gone to the extent of pasting a huge paper with a gigantic red X drawn on it on top of the doorbell switch, which was the clearest way people would know not to ring the bell when the switch couldn’t even be seen under the paper. But no, people seemed to take it as a challenge and would go ahead and press the X mark, as if it was a pointer that said, “Please press here.” (In hindsight, I should have just unplugged the doorbell. But I guess I was worried that people wouldn’t know the bell wasn’t working and would keep pressing the switch and then simply leave, even if they had come for something important.)
Anyway, while there are countless instances of me losing my shit internally, but somehow keeping it together about people ringing my bell when Vedu was napping or breastfeeding, there has never been anything more annoying than one person doing this every now and then, relentlessly, I should add. It was an aunty who lived in our building and used to make yummy snacks and share it with others. It definitely was a good gesture, I agree, and I am sure she just wanted to spread some joy. But the problem is that, a new mom battling sleeplessness, depression, anxiety, paranoia, and navigating just about an overall shitty (and simultaneously, the best) time of her life is not really looking for joy all the time.
While most new moms would appreciate homemade snacks given by a well-meaning neighbour, the timing really matters the most. And as ungrateful as it sounds, this particular joy always came at the wrong time. In the numerous times she had done it, she was sure to turn up at my door at 2:30 in the afternoon, right when I would be breastfeeding Vedu in the calm and quiet of our room, with her feeding and dozing off peacefully. And right then, this aunty would start ringing my bell. With her husband in office and with her baby feeding and sleeping on her breast, what do you think a “fussy” mother would do? Ignore the doorbell and focus on the baby, because nothing, not even a bomb blast, matters more than making sure that your baby doesn’t wake up.
But this aunty, my God, she was not one to take a hint. She would keep pressing the bell 1… 2… 3… 4…. 5…. 6… times in a row and still not think of stopping or even telling herself that maybe we are out. No way! She would stand there, continuously pressing that bell, until I would come to the realization that if I didn’t answer the door, she was just not going to leave and maybe the She-Hulk in me might literally strangle her. So I would somehow put Vedu down on the bed, with her protesting it and making all sorts of angry noises, go to the door and tell this happy neighbour, with a not-so-happy expression on my face, “Oh thank you for this, but I was feeding the baby, and around this time every day, I feed her and put her to sleep. So I can’t really open the door always.”
You would think that saying that would make a difference. But did it really? I had to experience this very same “joy” multiple times until she moved out thankfully a year later. As I said, it does make me sound ungrateful. And it does make me sound like a “fussy” mom. But people never understand that the one hour of naptime in between is something any exhausted new mom looks forward to. If a joy-spreading neighbour or the kids in the building who take pressing a hidden switch as a challenge come in the way of that much-needed break, of course you can expect to see a “fussy” version of that mom. Don’t complain about it. Think about what you can do to help. And sometimes the help is trying not to help at all, as we have learned from the snack-sharing aunty’s story.
Also published on Medium.
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