A Mom’s Infinite Struggles

We as humans, are born with excellent traits to adapt to the built-in system of our different cultural backgrounds, backgrounds’ expectations, and several right or wrong approaches of the norms of our society.

In this millennial era, life has been made a series of continuous struggle, where one has to cope with and manage their time, save money, think of future planning, like buying a house or a business. But wait! This is Different for some people. This is truly justified with my cousin sister, who have lived here for more than 2 decades, well-settled with couple of gas stations business.

For a family of seven, immigrating to a different country, and mingling to an entire new structure of life was quite a series of several milestones.

I can relate to this as I remember the times when our family of seven, immigrated to Canada 14 years back from Pakistan, where it was a total new thing for us. There were numerous challenges, like family settlement, jobs, language barrier and just overall settling into a New System at the other side of the world. But I Never gave up!

Waking up every morning and reassuring myself that it would be a NEW DAY today, I continued to keep fighting and overcoming my deepest challenges of Life. I was only 16 at that time--- A thriving teenager girl, full of life, who was occupied with dreams of flourishing and shining in her career of becoming a Computer Engineer, when I started working in a Subway restaurant. After 6 years of the continuous struggle, the BIG DAY arrived.

You Got That Right! Got into my Bright Red Lehenga ( Indian Bridal Dress), I was just on Cloud Nine. Like a princess from a fairy tale, I was travelling into my sweet realms of dreams, to build my roots stronger into my new home. But things would change so fast I had no idea about.

Soon, it was the time to face another challenge... the challenge of working hard as a spouse and make the ends meet. You might be thinking that What’s So Special/ Unique or even a big deal in it? Everyone deals with the struggles of marital life at some point. But, most of you might or might not be aware of the agony of being treated badly, even though you have been trying to be a good wife, who is always trying to stay efficient in her daily chores, while also running weekly errands.

I had always thought of seeing my life partner as someone who would care and not sneer at me when I needed him the most. And that’s what erupts a volcano of emotions within me, despite him seeing me struggling through my daily chores, but always ill-treating me when even the slightest of the things doesn’t fall into place.

Finally, it was one of the best and the most AMAZING moments of my life, when my bundle of joy, my son, Kabby came to my life--- THE MOST AUSPICIOUS MOMENT OF MY LIFE.

The moment Kabby was born, it seems like I have forgotten all my pains and complaints associated with anything that I could think of. I was weak, bearing the unbearable aches and pains of my C-Section surgery, where standing up and performing daily chores had seemed like a challenge. But, getting through the struggles of post-pregnancy was my mantra at that time.

Right after the Epidural that I had received post labour, I realized that my body was experiencing Arthritis..... a condition in which one loses grips in one’s hands, legs and even doing simple tasks like, combing hair, lifting your hands, changing clothes or even going for walks become one of the biggest challenges of life.

I didn’t let any of my weaknesses or setbacks take over me. Instead, I decided to fight back. I just needed a push to understand my situation, and how to deal with it. Being a young mother with a new-born baby, when my immediate family of 4 siblings and my parents had moved to Alberta, I had no choice but to stay focused and Confident. I observed my sister-in-law arranging the stroller, and making the feeder, and changing nappies. Of course, New Mothers do get some information at the hospital, however, that’s No MATCH to the family support that we need as New Mothers. My biggest challenge or fear was my mobility.

Pretty soon, I was able to get my physical strength back, from eating right and regular workouts. When I realized that my son Kabby, has gotten onto the fast-paced mode of growing and thriving everyday with baby steps, I was filled with an unusual, but irresistible wave of accomplishment day by day.

As a parent, I believe that parenting comes with numerous challenges. Don’t take me Wrong.

“:THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG WAY OF PARENTING. IT JUST GETS BETTER WITH TIME AND EXPERIENCE.” (Mariam's Idea").

The above-mentioned phrase is my belief and an insight to other parents with the same struggles that I have been through and still coping with it. It came to me as a storm when I found out that my Kabby has a low-spectrum ADHD, since the age of 3 years.

Honestly, I have Never heard of it, until it was brought up to me back in 2016, as Kabby seemed to be doing good, growing up every day with better talking, showing his running skills, and eating right as well. Not to mention, the symptoms of ADHD were really mild, and for most kids grow out of it, I was able to accept the fact and work on it with my Kabby, and still working on it.

The Worrisome aspect of the ADHD for me was that I needed to give a good insight to my son’s upbringing, right from Day one, something like to be watchful of your surroundings, how to say greetings, like, “Please” & “Thank You”? And how to respond to another kid or try to explain to his fellow mates about a topic, and answer questions about Roblox.

I was also surprised to see his Kindergarten teacher to be very helpful and the school would walk me through their monthly events to participate in them. It was and it is truly a BLESSING for me and Kabby that I - had found the support that I needed at such crucial times. But as life goes, so does the challenges, and the ups and downs in life also teaches us lessons that one should keep trying and never quitting on it.

I wouldn’t say I was never scared of the unexpected. When I say, “unexpected”, it brings the anticipation as to how Kabby will be interacting with his fellow mates? Not everyone understand the concept of autism associated with ADHD, and most of the time, people misunderstands it with some behavioral issues. Similar was the case with my son, Kabby.

It took me by the storm when a random lady at our nearby park yelled and tried to move Kabby from her daughter, when she mistakenly thought of Kabby hitting the other child. I was really upset and a wave of panic shook me inside out. I approached my son to get him out of the Lady’s grip, gave her the verbal image of the actual deal here, and warned her Not to Ever Grab another child ever like this, which could have led to serious consequences for her.

For days, I had been rethinking and reimagining the entire scenario, as to how and why someone would do something like that to an innocent child, who is going thru ADHD at no fault of his own? Several Sleepless nights, with water running out of them just to get absorbed by the satin pillow, I used to blame myself for letting this happen to Kabby.

Questions like, “What if I would have been stood close to Kabby?” “ Or should I have intervened and informed that woman about my Kabby’s situation?”

“Oh, God!”

I was just fighting myself and putting the blame onto myself. I was just thinking of ways to rectify the situation in retrospect, in order to avoid any unexpected, future scenarios.

These were some of my unexpected inner fears. I still think of those times when walking along the grocery store, Kabby would reach out to a complete stranger and started talking, hugging or just talking to him about his Thomas Trains or Dry bone Plushy Toys.... and there I would be...... running around after him, giving him a big cheer, and a kiss on his cheeks, and try to explain to him to wait for Mommy to be with him, following the stranger as well.

Well, I have realized this by experience, that if you let your fear rule you, you can never rule the fear, and would always be his slave. At this point, I decided to realize what my true self is? Am I gonna be that one, Worried-all-time Mom, who is scared to let her son go out to the grocery store, just to avoid any negative interaction with people? Or m I gonna be always restricting my son to walk straight, avoid any talks to any random person, or not to mingle with a bunch of kids at the park? The Answer is Simply, “NO.”

After thinking and pondering over the unforgettable challenges, I came up with a promising solution.

First of all, I decided to maintain a healthy lifestyle, for both of us.... me and son Kabby. I decided to work less on my hours at work as an Field Sales Rep, and took the same time to strengthen both of our understandings of each other and of how to deal with any situations like previous ones, at least, to feel more connected and to be able to adapt to creative family time, in order to build great interactions amongst each other as well as any other people we interact with.

I started maintaining a series of daily checklist of our routine and sticking to it. The Below-mentioned tactics are the ones I developed:

1. Having a Good Breakfast ( Combination of Fruits, pancakes and milk)

2. Going for the morning walks together (Mid July to September)

3. Planning a Water-Color Activity( Drawing Minecraft figures Kabby)

4. Planning an early evening park trip, and Kabby playing freely with kids.

5. Having a snack time in the evening, and learning tables of 2 and 3.

6. Teaching Kabby clean-up times, organizing times, just before going to bed.

7. Finally, Bed time stories and recapping that day's activities with him.

A simple, sample chart of my daily routine and anti-dote to the challenges I had been facing for quite a long time. I planned many of them, and since then, dealt and embraced any tough situation with open arms.

What I have also learned is that it has just made me a stronger and a better person inside out. The hesitation, shyness and fear of disbelief that I had piled up subconsciously within me was shattered and the credit goes to my will power to break free of those fears cooking inside me...

But Hey..... Today, I can proudly thank my GOD first, that He had showed me the Right Path, and Have given me the Strength to do so, and also To my Dearest Son, Kabby.... who gave me the reason to embrace changes to my lifestyle in order to change his life too.

I am pretty sure that Other Moms like me might be facing Challenges on a daily basis too, and I hope the way that I have come up with a promising solution to my challenges, that they would find ways to deal with their challenges as well.

I believe and hope that other moms would also find inspiration thru my ideas and solutions to better assess and deal with their own situations.

I told myself in those difficult times, that I and Kabby are in this together, and we would conquer these challenges together through constructive approach towards life, taking baby steps, learning optimistic ways of dealing with people while encountering some negative behavior of the general public.

(Created and Written by: MARIAM)