Spice Girl

Struggling to make sense of the dramatic changes occurring in her pubescent daughter, Vidya Murlidhar is comforted by the realisation that they were nothing but her attempts to discover her true identity, and as a mother her job was to let her be

- Vidya Murlidhar

I stood outside my teenage daughter’s room, livid. Bang! Maya slammed the door shut on my face. Even though at that moment every cell in my body felt rage, my sharp mind, that could use the choicest of words in retaliation, froze. I was too confused, too tired to voice my anger. From inside the room I heard Maya say, “I hate you Mom. You are so mean. Go away.” I stood there trying to comprehend the situation. What was happening to us? Of late, our fights were a regular occurrences teadfast as the sunrise. Each time, Maya made it quite clear that I was the prickly thorn in her otherwise rosy life.

Every day Maya came to me with demands that she deemed essential but which I found ludicrous. Yesterday we fought because I had refused to let her get her nose pierced. For God’s sake, why would anyone let a loved one go through the pain of getting additional piercings? Weren’t regular visits to the dentist to get her braces painful enough?

Another time I did not give her permission to let her get her hair coloured. How could I let those beautiful black tresses be colored blue or pink? She could do all that she wanted to when she was forty. (Or maybe never.)