A big salute to stay-at-home moms

Mothers managing home deserve our unstinting praise for all the good work they are doing

In most households across the world, career driven men and women, more at ease striking million-dollar deals in the boardroom or delivering high powered presentations in front of wary clients, are finding to their chagrin that home schooling their kids ain't a walk in the park.
Teachers, I'm sure, must be taking a few minutes out of their busy e-lesson planning to gloat over the fact that their work will no longer be taken for granted. A friend of mine who was tearing her hair out wondering how to keep her three kids (all under the age of 6) out of each others' physical space, let alone follow the concept of social distancing at once, had my absolute kudos. Not only did all three want to watch television at the same time, but all three insisted they wanted to watch different cartoons at the SAME time. Whew, we probably dodged that one! 
Not that it is any better at our place. On the first day of home schooling there was I prepped with his timetable and a list of words he needed to practice. In between an emergency run to the supermarket to stock up on essentials (which in my case was basically condensed milk and tinned tomatoes for some weird reason) and a quick bite before I had to settle down for my remote working session, I barked off my instructions. A word starting with 'W'. Simple enough. Now for the challenging stuff. A word rhyming with wig. After a lot of back and forth we both hit upon his favourite cartoon, Peppa Pig. And off he went to gleefully write it down, only for me to notice he had drawn something in pink. "That's wrong." Tears unfolded. "Why", I ask, "why do you have to cry for this?" "Because I got it wrong," he sobbed. "But we said Pig and you drew something in pink!," I was exasperated. "But, but.... ", by then luckily I was summoned away by an official call, and could escape to the other room, leaving my partner to handle the tears.
Whoever said working mothers have it tough? My heart went out to my friend who no doubt had to face three such tantrums at the same time. I know Mother's day is over, but if I could roll back the days I would definitely give out extra stars to the stay-at-home mums. You are the ones who deserve our unstinting praise for all the good work you are doing which sadly is often unacknowledged not just by other members of the family but yourself. Even as I am typing this out, my son is having a mini breakdown. "I miss my friends!," he sobbed his heart out. "I want to go back to school." So do we.  -ambica@khaleejtimes.com