CHENNAI: When my older son was nine months old a friend and I spent the weekend at another friend’s place without our children or spouses. I remember how freeing that trip was. To be able to stay up late, sleep in the next morning and do whatever I felt like during the day (being a new parent basically means wanting to regress to one’s teenage) was liberating and I came back feeling a little bit more like the person I used to be BC. Before Child.
It was a momcation. In the last few years, we’ve seen an explosion of vacation-related portmanteaus. Friendmoon: when your friends travel with you on your honeymoon. Babymoon: when you enjoy one last vacation as a couple before the baby comes along. And now, momcations: where mothers escape the stress, pressure and responsibility of mothering to relax, unwind, or as Tina Fey in Date Night said — to order a sandwich and soft drink through room service and eat it alone. Look at the evolution of these vacation trends: everyone together, just the two of us and then I, me and myself. Over the years, I have travelled alone many times and on these trips, I am briefly transported to who I was BC — a more relaxed, easier, funnier version of my current self. I can feel my uptightness slip away.
And I always promise myself, this is the person I will be when I return home. This person whose smile is real and not a grimace fixed to the face. But we all know how hard that is. That the minute we step through our front door, we slip back into ‘mom-mode’ without even realising it. We once again take over the administerial duties we had relinquished when away, the emotional labour and the physical work.
It can be hard to carve out time for yourself in the middle of child-rearing, work and keeping abreast of vacation-themed portmanteaus. And it can feel like escaping it all for a few days is the only way to retain your sanity. But shouldn’t we also examine why motherhood has become so stressful and how mothers have overburdened themselves — physically and mentally — so much that they need to get away from it all for a few days to feel like themselves? Only to return to the same situation they needed a break from.
As I read articles praising the momcation: identifying signs that YOU need to take one, listing the benefits for you and family, and momcations for all budgets,
I can’t help but wonder what do single moms do? What about moms who can’t afford decent child care let alone a weekend away? Moms who are not only looking after children, but ageing parents too? And the sneaky sensation that this is yet another hashtag that will fuel more beautifully filtered pictures on social media that give us one more thing to feel terrible about. I’m not saying we should be creating some perfect life you don’t need a vacation from, because that just doesn’t exist. But it’s about making those small adjustments, or making a big noise about the changes that need to happen so that everyone steps up and makes regular life easier and more equitable for all us.