parent child relationships

TSM Book Club Book #22: The Direction of the Wind by Mansi Shah

June 3, 2023June 3, 2023Posted in May Reads, TSM Book ClubTagged addiction, depression, drug abuse, family, Mansi Shah, motherhood, multigenerational, parent child relationships, Paris, self-discovery, The Direction of the Wind, TSM Book ClubLeave a comment

Started: May 22nd
Finished: June 2nd
TSM Rating: 4/5

It is only by pure coincidence that the last two books I picked up to the end of May featured protagonists struggling with mental health issues with varying degrees of severity. Both deal with heavy topics of suicide, depression, loss, drug abuse, and parental abandonment.

Direction of the Wind tells the story of Nita and Sophie Shah, a mother and daughter told twenty years apart. They both grew up in similar circumstances but with drastically different experiences.

The story opens with Sophie mourning the death of her beloved father. Losing him brings her back to her mother’s death as a child. When she overhears her aunts speaking of her mother leaving, not dying, it sets Sophie on a journey that is equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful.

Twenty years before Sophie’s journey, Nita takes one of her own. Overwhelmed by her community’s expectations of her as a wife and mother and driven by a growing desire to be an artist, she packs up as much as she can and leaves her marital home, and boards a plane to France.

While Mansi Shah doesn’t label what precisely is wrong with Nita, she is clearly suffering from depression and has been for most of her life. It seems that being forced into marriage and motherhood only exacerbates her condition, weighing her down in a way that feels inescapable.

After a while, though, she begins to feel the same trapped feeling in France as in India. Trapped by circumstance. Trapped by things beyond her control, and she can’t figure a way out.

She had felt trapped in her life in India, but now she was learning a new form of being trapped and wondered if people were always trapped by something, no matter what they did or where they were.
Direction of the Wind, page 88

As with Recipe for Persuasion, another woman struggles with motherhood, what it means to be a mother, and how to do what is best for her child. For Nita, it was leaving because she felt herself beginning to resent Sophie. She left to save her daughter from her “darkness,” as she put it.

They were the most serious thing that could happen in one’s life. Children highlighted every trait you lacked. And if you were not meant to be a parent, they stole your spirit in a way you could never get back.
Direction of the Wind, page 136

While it’s a story of family, it’s also a story about friends who become family to both Nita and Sophie. They both have strangers come into their lives when they need them the most. For Nita, it’s Dao. For Sophie, it’s Manoj and Naresh.

The words “I’m here for you” had a power in them that was greater than any other, even the phrase “I love you.” “I’m here for you” showed solidarity and acceptance and conveyed in the best way possible that one was not alone.
Direction of the Wind, page 222

Family is complicated. Expectations are complicated. Secrets are complicated. Mansi Shah weaves Sophie and Nita’s sorties together so well; each chapter picks up where the other left off, as Sophie follows right behind her mother, missing her by just a few steps rather than two decades. While the story has dark moments, there is always hope just around the corner.

Wins Will Come, and They Will Definitely Go

February 16, 2023February 17, 2023Posted in TSMTagged boy mom, mom life, mom struggles, motherhood, parent child relationships, survival, tantrums, the struggleLeave a comment

Some days, I feel like I have this mom thing down. Everyone sleeps through the night — not in their own bed — but through the night nonetheless. Then there are other days when everything I thought I knew goes flying out the window and I realize I’m Jon Snow beyond the Wall.

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Thursday was unseasonably warm for mid-February, so I took J to the park. As we were walking up to it, I overheard two money talking about how they just wished their kids would listen sometimes. “Mom just needs a win.”

And isn’t it something how little it takes for we moms — and dads — to feel like we’re ok. That we’re on the right track and everything really is going to be ok. Right now, as parents to tiny humans, it’s hard for everything we do wrong to feel like an epic Bay of Pigs level failure.

It occurred to me the other day that the reason we think our failures are so epic is because when our kids feel, they feel BIG. That morning, for example, a different van picked C up for school. The seatbelt on his usual seat was broken — the strap that allows me to loosen and tighten the straps was broken — and this was unacceptable to young C. He had a total meltdown. Was damn near inconsolable. It took about fifteen minutes to get him into buckled into another seat.

After the bus was gone, I talked myself down for calling the bus company and yelling at the dispatcher about the broken seatbelt. I also talked myself down from posting a rant on my town’s mom’s page. Instead l, I took a deep breath, messaged C’s teacher in the app to let her know he’d be coming in hot so that they would be prepared to console him. Then I took J to the park.

What I’ve learned in the almost five years that I’ve been mom-ing is — can’t believe C will be five soon😬🥰 — if my reactions are as big as his, then we’ll never grow. Him as a boy who needs to learn how to manage emotions and me as his mother who needs to teach him how.

So yea, some days you’ve got it all together. Some days you don’t. And some days, it starts well only to fall apart and come back together again…and then maybe fall apart again by bath time. It’s the cycle we live in now as parents that won’t end until…we’ll I don’t think it ever ends.

***inhales deeply, long exhale, followed by a looooooong sip of wine.***

A Mother’s Love Through Criticism…

December 2, 2022January 15, 2023Posted in TSMTagged mom life, mother daughter, mother's love, mother-dauaghter, motherhood, parent child relationships, parent-child relationships, self-care, tough loveLeave a comment

In my junior year of college, I came home at the end of the first semester exhausted. It had been a particularly trying semester, and finals week came with a snowstorm. Sufficed to say, I was happy to be home when it was all said and done. My mother, with ever the keen eye, looked at me and said, “You look unkempt. Here is some money. Go get your hair done.” Before taking the money (obviously), my response was, “I’m sorry I’ve been more focused on passing my finals than what my hair looks like. I thought that’s what you were sending me to school for.” While annoyed at the comment, I did appreciate her hooking me up with the cash for a bit of self-care.

My mother has been notorious for commenting on little things like this my whole life. She does it to my brothers too. I used to think it was just her nature until my girlfriends would share the perceived f’ed up stuff their moms would say to them too. In my teens and 20s, I resented her for it a little bit. Why couldn’t she be a little nicer? A little less brusk. Usually, these comments came when and about things I was already frustrated about or keenly aware of, so often, my reaction to them was less than pleasant.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that the comments aren’t from a place of malice or ill intent. It’s coming from a twisted Boomer place of love. I can’t totally blame this on being a Boomer because my paternal grandmother does the same thing. I generally brace myself before stopping by to see her. But I digress…

Since having my boys, I’ve come to appreciate her observations…that’s not 100% true. I only really appreciate it when she tells me I look tired because that is always followed up with, “Bring the boys by, and we’ll take them for the weekend.” This past weekend, for example, she took them home with her after Thanksgiving dinner and kept them for three days. When she does things like that, it’s kind of hard to stay mad at her for telling me I look like shit…

So remember, this holiday season when your mother is lobbing criticisms at you, she’s likely coming from a place of love. Also, remember that we can correct these behaviors with our own children, and these patterns need not be repeated with the next generation.