Mother's Instinct

Usha writes this really heart wrenching post about a girl, who admitted that she was being abused by her uncle. Instead of providing her some help, her parents labeled her a liar and attention seeker. Not just that, they withdrew her from the school and took her back home – where I shudder to think what fate awaited her.

When I read the post, my greatest angst was against the girl’s mother. I felt as a mother, she should have understood. As a mother of a child, especially a girl child, one of her first duties was to protect the girl. Protect her from the dangers that lurked in the world and in her own house. And I’m not talking out of my hat, I talk from experience.

We were shopping for winter coats for the family last year. Hubby was in the males section, while I had sonny in his stroller with me in the females section. I moved to another aisle, sonny still in my line of sight. Then I heard a voice say “hello handsome. How are we doing today?” I don’t know what it was – but all the hair in my body just stood on end. I jumped into the aisle where a man was bent over sonny’s stroller.

He saw me and straightened, smile on his face. “hey mommy”, he said. “we’re just getting to be friends”. I made some small talk about how sonny was in the way and I was just moving him away. “no no” he said, sonny was not in any way. “Go on shop. I’ll keep an eye over him.” Pretty innocent, right? But I don’t know what it was, the alarm bells just rang non-stop in my head. I made some lame excuse about just looking around. Told him, hubby would need his help, if at all. After that, I just stayed in the center of the shop. He came and went, helping hubby and some other shoppers. At no point did I leave sonny out of hands reach, even for a moment.
As hubby cashed out, he made some small talk. Then he said, “its too sad, my son was just here, and he’s about as old as your son. They could have been friends”. I still could not shake off the feeling that there was something wrong about the guy. Told hubby about it who laughed at my weird irrational fear. “It has no base”, he said, “except your maternal instinct”.

Yes, that’s what it ought to be – maternal instinct. One that each mother feels for her off spring. And I guess that’s what keeps our children from harm. It was just a feeling I had, but I decided not to ignore it. Nothing came of it. But then I keep asking myself “what if?”. What if I wasn’t as hyper and if something had happened to sonny. There are enough loonies in the world to ruin a child’s life forever. No matter what the situation, its best to err on the side of caution. So I hung onto sonny’s stroller acting exceptionally tight-assed with what may have well been a friendly store assistant. Or may be, I managed to fend off some psycho.

10 months down the line, I dont know if I’d call myself a cautious mom or a crazed lunatic who thinks the world is out to get her child. On a completely different tangent I often wonder if my super cautious attitude is rubbing off on sonny too (but that’s grist for another post). I suppose, till he is under my care (or as my mom would put it – under my roof) I will keep looking out for him ( o who am I kidding – I’ll be looking out for him – even when I am 6 feet under).

But seriously though I’d rather live and laugh about how manic I was than live in regret all my life for not having been cautious enough.