Mother’s Day

This year Mother’s Day celebrations are going to be different. It’s not going to be about brunches at restaurants or a one-day trip with family or pampering with a spa service. Mothers say they are happy to be locked inside homes with their little ones and do some fun activities together like dancing, singing, painting, quizzing or making some models with DIY kits. They say they are seeing the lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to spend more time with their kids and teach them to become more independent.

Ruchita Dar Shah, founder of FirstMomsClub, a community for mothers, says she has been freed from the kitchen duties on Mother’s Day and her boys will be showcasing their cooking skills. “It will be either be a shock or a surprise for me. I’ll have to wait and watch,” she says and laughs. But she’s definitely looking forward to a quiz session hosted by her 11-year-old son Jai. “He’s recently been watching and has been inspired by Bournvita quiz contest. So he hosts a quiz contest every Sunday evening. He prepares questions for different categories such as history, sports, music and movies and whoever claps first, gets to answer. The contest is for about 45 minutes and we have had four quizzes so far. My 15-year-old son Vivaan and I have won it twice each. There’s competition between him and me now,” she says.

Apart from quizzing, she’s been spending time watching movies and series with her family. “Sometimes, we watch separately as my older son prefer to watch action and sci-fi. So he watches it with his father. We need to ensure that the content is age appropriate. We watch series like Young Sheldon with my younger son and some English comedies,” she says.

Few moms have been engaging with their kids in painting and cooking. Rajni Arunkumar, content editor, a mother to nine-year-old daughter Ahana and 14-year-old son Ritvik. “My daughter has taken in-charge and has informed men in the family that I should not be allowed to do any household chores. So, my son has been looking up for recipes to make breakfast and my dad and husband would be making lunch and dinner respectively,” she says adding that she knows nothing more about the surprise that is being planned. She says she has been spending time individually with her son and daughter. They are different interests and she’s been equally a part of them.

“My son likes to cook. So we have been baking some breads like pochacco bread until we ran out of yeast. For weekend, we made pancakes with different toppings and filings. Ritvik also baked his own birthday cake and a mango ice cream for his grandmother on her birthday. My daughter loves to paint. So we have done acrylic painting, mandala paintings and other different kinds. We are planning to learn a song and perform together next week,” Arunkumar says.

Neha Mital, another mother who runs education company Learning Room, has been enjoying art with her children, a nine-year-old son Adidev and six-year-old daughter Adeya. She’s included a curriculum with art for her kids. “We have many DIY kits and paints which we had thought of using later. But now, we have opened them all and made some cool stuff, some interesting models and artworks. We have been doing puzzles. Apart from artwork, I have involving them in daily chores such as folding clothes, washing and cutting vegetables so that I just don’t get help but they also learn these life skills and become more independent,” she says. For Mother’s Day, she’s been planning on indulging in some ice cream and cookies and catching a movie. She says she cannot thing anything better to do on a cozy afternoon on Mother’s Day.