My husband often compares my making sweets or curry to an aunt who is very close to his family. She too has a big family like my husband’s and would bake cakes just by mixing the dough with her hands. She would make a good quantity by taking approximation of each ingredient and serve everyone as much as they liked. Her cakes are very homely and yummy. Then my husband tells about his mom who is very very particular about the proportion of each ingredient that she adds to her cakes and she bakes them with much care and it comes out really yummy – the vanilla plain cake being my favourite. All her cakes come out of the same texture and hardly ever there’s a mishap. Yet since so much of time and effort goes into the making, each one gets a small portion. It is kept preserved cut in cubical shapes and stored in boxes for a longer period so that each one gets equal proportion and they could enjoy it for a longer time.
That’s life… some of us fall into the first category of people, and some of us to the second. I definitely fall to the first. In all aspects of life. I can slit open the cover of the pulses completely and fill up the jar without spilling a single grain while my husband might cut only a small portion of the packet and neatly fill the jar as well. I remember Sis Annie Poonen in one of her message mentioning not to be too much bothered about the time a daughter in law wakes up – this was a message to the mother in laws. While speaking she mentions that the woman could wake up at 8 am and still finish all her chores well. We don’t have to wake up by 4 am to finish the chores.
The word ‘should’ or ‘should not’ many times adds such a burden to a person that cannot be lifted up easily. I sometimes go to the extent of telling this if I wanted the manner of life another person has, I would personally go and ask them how to get it yet if I have kept myself away from asking too many questions to another person that simply means I do not want to follow her / him. I do not have confidence in that person!!! Keep your rule book to yourself!!
I have gone through it myself and I am so scared at times to speak about my experience as a mother lest it puts a burden on some other woman. Questions like when did you make the child sleep separately, because so and so mentioned that a child should sleep on another bed by 1 year old, or you should not breast feed a child more than a year, or you should train up a child at the dining table or you should not take a helping hand from your husband and its not right for him to do any household work as he is a man. It’s funny… I have heard people rebuking their sons for helping their wives with the household work.
Almost six year into marriage and witnessing so many beautiful and God fearing families around me, I have to acknowledge that each spouse is different and each child. There cannot be a should or should not list forced upon another person as her circumstance could be so different. Let’s be more patient with one another. My pain is different and my endurance as well. Your pain might be different and your endurance as well. Let’s not generalize things based on our experience as each one is different as are the flowers in a garden. Some flowers are rough like the sunflower and they stay strong yet the petals of a rose do not stay too long on her stem. May we be compassionate on one another and be willing to listen to others cry and sympathize with their pain.