Sanity During Motherhood Requires Having Fun

By EMMA BARLOW, Staff Writer

Whether you are a stay-at-home mom, or a working mom, you are working hard.

And just like any nine-to-five job, sometimes motherhood can get tedious. With dishes piling up and butts to be wiped, I find myself looking forward to my kid’s bedtime. This is when I can do my laundry in peace and quiet.

Okay, most of the time I say ‘forget that laundry’ and turn on The Bachelor while devouring a half-pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream…hey, don’t judge me. But as every one of our mothers will tell us, my children’s adolescence will be gone in the blink of an eye. After a week of being in robot-mommy mode, I catch myself. Then I remind myself to let go a little and let some fun during the day.

Some days, I am in no mood for fun. I peer at my list of things to do and start itching to check off a couple, or sometimes I am just being plain grumpy. I don’t always choose to forget the list, but I find that when I do, my kids and I are so much more fulfilled at the end of the day. Our day runs smoother, and everyone is happier.

When I get down on the ground to play trains, help fight off dragons, or even get the starring role in “Save the Princess”, I am reminded of why I wanted to be a mother in the first place. Getting down to their level to finger-paint and crazy-dance to ridiculous music is also very therapeutic. It certainly helps my sanity to get a few laughs in once a day!

We all have busy days. I am not even close to a perfect mom, sometimes I just have to force myself to play when I am not in the mood…and I never regret it. Some moms work, and have to go to a job, and then come home and have less time in the day to complete their list. Our children know we love them, and even if we can give an hour of play, or even just twenty minutes going through their bedtime routine, and reading them a story before bed, you will be filling their little hearts, and yours, with love. Love is what this is all about anyways.

And that’s my giving a hoot.

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Emma is an extremely busy and proud mother of two young, strapping lads. She lives in the Phoenix Metropolitan area with her husband of six years and is an active member in the faith community.

More from Emma:

»Moms Need a Timeout Too

»Being Charitable In Modern Times

»No Such Thing As A Novice Mom

A Rising Comic’s Manifesto

By MOHANALAKSHMI RAJAKUMAR, Staff Writer

DOHA, QATAR — “The laugh is political,” said cultural theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. After doing standup comedy for nine months, him and I are in agreement.

As the only consistent female member of a regularly preforming group, each performance is an experience in neural multiplication, creating new brain pathways doctors say keeps away Alzheimer’s. Getting up on stage once a month is about one-tenth of what a comic would do elsewhere in the world. Because of the limited amount of venues, we do as many shows as we can.

Whether it’s once, or whether it’s five times a night, audience members come up and often say, “I could never get up on stage.” Those people are the nice ones.

There are others in the crowd that come in, sit in the front row, arms folded, and scowl as if to say go ahead, try and impress me.

The nights that I get the most laughs are the ones when I make fun of the trials and tribulations of our family of three: an Indian mother, a Thai-American husband, and a white-looking toddler. “Arab women seem concerned I’m running off with someone else’s child,” I say, and there is an explosion of laughter.

The origins of my standup are actually in essays I wrote about being a South Asian-American woman living in the Arabian Gulf where society is stratified by race and class. Most people of my skin color are nannies or janitors. When it came to making jokes, I stripped out the social commentary, and then had a list of readymade, comical situations. Yes, the irony of racial politics is funny.

But some nights, like this week, I have other material I want to try. Arabic language gaffes, mixups with my name, commonalities between South Asian and Arab culture. These don’t get the same belly laughs; I don’t have to hold punch lines until the crowd recovers. There were a row of women laughing, but as women are wont to do, chuckling to themselves politely.

I left the stage, knowing I had left the safe laughs to the side in order to take a risk. And that is the manifesto of creativity: trying, testing, adapting, working. I’ve read about Chris Rock who goes to small clubs and tests out hundreds of jokes before taking the best of the best on stage. I know Tina Fey’s now-popular show 30 Rock had almost no viewership in the early days. I’m not saying I’m Chris or Tina, but I am saying it takes a lot of work to be really good at what you do.

And that’s my giving a damn.

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Dr. Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a well-traveled scholar of literature and a freelance writer based in Qatar. She is a co-founder of the Maktaba project, a Children’s Library concept starting up in Doha. Follow her on Twitter @moha_doha.

More from Mohanalaskshmi:

»Seeing But Not Seen

»On-Stage But Off-Camera