The woman who makes me feel like a stepson – and I love her for it

When I was in the 11th grade, I wrote a school essay about my mother. My opening line read: "The woman who makes me feel like a stepson is my beloved mother." My teacher gave me a confused look. My classmates laughed. But my mother, when she found out, pretended to be offended for exactly four minutes before she brought me a plate of food I didn't ask for.

Mothers love us with everything they have, their commands, their prohibitions, their unsolicited advice, their volcanic temper. Hidden inside every single one of these is our well-being. But let's be honest: in the very act of loving us, mothers can be spectacularly, breathtakingly annoying.

"It is the peculiar genius of mothers that they can embarrass you, exhaust you, and make you feel unconditionally safe – all before breakfast."

The Greatest Hits of Mom's Love

1. The pre-alarm wake-up call. She wakes you up 45 minutes before your alarm, because she was already awake, worrying about you sleeping through it.

2. The fan ambush. She sneaks into your room at 2am to switch off the ceiling fan. You'll catch a cold. Apparently, you always will.

3. The forced feeding. Food appears in front of you whether you are hungry, full, sad, happy, or mid-sentence. The plate is non-negotiable.

4. The bitter gourd conspiracy. Korola bhaji, the vegetable you hate most, arrives on your plate weekly, disguised under love and the phrase "it's good for you."

5. No afternoon playtime. The eternal ban on going out after 4pm. The street, apparently, was full of dangers invisible to everyone but her.

6. The mandatory study hour. Dragged to the study table with the precision of a military operation. The books were open. Your eyes were not.

7. The late-night lecture. Come home ten minutes past curfew and receive a full lecture on responsibility, danger, and the specific way your delay aged her by several years.

8. The eavesdropping. Every time you took a phone call to your room, she somehow already knew what it was about. Every. Single. Time.

9. The relative roast. She listed your flaws casually in front of the aunties and cousins. She built you up in private and humbled you magnificently in public.

10. The impossible grocery review. No matter how carefully you chose the fish or the vegetables at the market, she would find the one flaw. It is a gift she was born with.

And yet. Look carefully at every item on that list. The early wake-up? She was already awake. The fan she switched off? She walked in quietly, in the dark, so you could sleep. The korola she kept cooking? She read somewhere it was good for the liver and decided that your liver mattered more than your feelings about it.

The phone calls she eavesdropped on, she wasn't being nosy. She was terrified of you growing up and away from her. The grocery criticism? That's quality control on behalf of someone who has cooked every meal thinking of you.

Every single annoyance is, when held up to the light, a love letter written in the wrong language. Mothers don't always say I love you out loud. They say it by turning off your fan, waking you up early, and forcing one more spoonful into a mouth that is already full.

Inside every irritation, every unsolicited lecture, every forced plate of bitter gourd, there is a love so enormous it doesn't quite fit inside ordinary gestures. So it spills over into everything, all the time. Even the annoying parts. 

Especially the annoying parts.

Happy Mother's Day.