Sharing with Mom

I don’t share everything with my parents, like most of us. I have strongly believed in not doing so.
It started initially when I was growing up in a conservative set of family background, where children are not expected to 'share' but 'follow' their parents.

This took form of a habit and later when I started to stay away from them, this further shaped up in the 'need-to-know' based conversations.

Furthermore, I started to tell them only the best things or the favorable incidents and they were absolutely ignorant about the dark phases I was going through in life.

Until one day-

Some years back, I met one of my friends in Mumbai, who happens to be a mother of a girl of my age. While I was sharing a patchy experience with her, she asked, "So what did your Mom say about this". I told her that I hadn't told Mom anything about this as I didn't want to get her to get worried.

And then, her reply to this reversed my ideology.

She said, "I think what you are doing is very wrong. You are depriving your mother of the right she has as a mother over you. I'd feel very unfortunate if my daughter doesn’t share her heart out with me thinking I’ll get hurt? Ill be terribly hurt to see that she doesn’t chooses me to be a part of her life. It is gut trenching to note that whatever I gave birth to doesn't believe in me."

The thought hit me in my head. I had been terribly wrong and careless while trying to act right and careful.

On that incident onwards, I gradually (on test basis) formed this habit of sharing things with Mom to observe her reaction. And I found that she very well understood the fact that her daughter’s life wouldn’t be simple always.

She had concerns about me not living a ‘perfect life’ but I deliberately started involving her in my everyday chores and helped her see my definition of ‘perfect’.

I started discussing many things that helped me see her point of view, see her as a woman, not just as a concerned mother.

Consequently, I found that the more I shared my f'cked up stories with her, the more she believed me and the more she supported me. The second observation was- she too got rid of her habit of showing me only the rosy side, and her emotions became barer. 

Since the experiment was successful, sharing became important and a regular practice and so does the level of trust. Now, even if I happen to go to eat a buffet at Bombay Dreams Restaurant, I send her photo of my thali. I try an overtly sexy dress, I send her pictures from trial-rooms.

​Nothing great has happened to my life but just that clearing up mist from my window has made me see that my mother has always stood by me.