How did pre-internet mothers do it? How did they rear children without the cushioning impact of a friend at the other end of WhatsApp or Google to field queries like “How to remove mud from white socks”? How did they survive?

I have no good answer to this. What I do know is this: those women had nerves of steel. Not only did mothers from the eighties have to survive the crushing reign of their own judgmental mothers, they also somehow knew how to rule with an iron fist. They did not breed – or tolerate – children who would practice fervent eye-rolling. If fading photographs are to be believed, they had the waist circumference of a broom. Their poofy hair (they had to navigate a hair care routine without the calming effects of frizz-free conditioner) may have looked questionable, but their minimal makeup looked on point. What’s more, they could churn out a showstopping meal for about a thousand guests without channelling their inner Hulk. And as if all this wasn’t enough, they knew how to remove marker stains from white school shirts. By hand.

What was this sorcery? I have no idea, but I can hazard a guess that it is now extinct. We parents – well, mothers – in 2024 are unable to trot out daily meals or hang up clothes from the washing machine without a good set of wireless headphones coupled with a mindless show. The headphones pull double duty as a shield from the plaintive cries of family who interrupt to ask the most pointless question known to humankind. (“You said it would be 10 more minutes 20 minutes ago, how much longer is this going to take?” or “Seriously, it’s been 21 minutes now.”) Remember, mothers, you are far less likely to throw a shoe at anyone if you cannot hear what they are saying in the first place. Protect your family. Get headphones.

Mother online in 2024

Zara Noor Abbas, one of the newest mothers on the block in the showbiz world, has not yet reached the headphones stage. That is because she is – rightly so – besotted with her baby, who has not yet learned to talk back or roll her eyes. Posting a bare-faced unedited picture of herself on Instagram with her gorgeous baby Noor e Jahan, Zara, overcome with a surge of maternal love, writes, “This is for her sick days. When she is not feeling well. And the late nights and early mornings. The moments where I lose sensibility of everything else around me and only SHE matters. I didn’t know this existed. I thought I only felt this for my Amma and Abba. And will never feel it again for anyone. But this is something more than that. This is crazier. Beyond all possibilities.”

A first-time parent – and I know this because I was such a specimen once upon a time – is mainly appalled by how little time these things spend sleeping. Baby books like to say things like “Newborns sleep for up to 16 hours a day”, but they keep to themselves the key fact that those 16 hours are broken up into 10-minute segments. Whether Zara’s baby is a unicorn who sleeps through the night or follows the 10-minute-segment rule is unclear, primarily because on a public platform like Instagram, this young mother did not want to be lynched. Instead, she focuses on the good stuff – the underlying current of love that stops any new mother returning her baby to the hospital because it doesn’t come with the sleep function installed.

“You teach me resilience, perseverance, courage and strength to do it all. Thank you for choosing me,” continues Zara. “I love you Noor e Jahan. I want to and will do anything for you. Insha Allah – always and forever.”

Opting to shield her baby’s face from the world, Zara rounded off her post with an unapologetic explanation of how she looks (annoyingly stunning for anyone on a schedule of broken sleep after having essentially pushed a watermelon out of a straw): “Please bear with only the Amma in her glory where no photoshop (or) body editing is done because I respect and appreciate my body for being so miraculous. Alhamdullilah.”

Unbearable TikTok parents

As far as social media mothers go, Zara has done the impossible: other than looking beautiful in her unedited glory, she has not irritated anyone with her post. She has avoided the pitfall of sounding smug or perfect. Whether things will still be the same six children down the line is anyone’s guess, but for now, Zara passes the litmus test of bearable online mothers. Because you see, one advantage pre-internet mothers had is that whilst they may not have had WhatsApp or Netflix at their beck and call to speed up time, they were at least spared the scourge of smug TikTok mothers.

If you are unaware of what a smug TikTok mother is, do not look them up. Those of us unlucky enough to have encountered them, however, know that they usually have about ten children, massive open-plan houses, farmland to grow their own vegetables, steel water bottles (with a metal straw), magazine bodies, and they absolutely adore every second they spend with their angels. Not only do they relish making school lunches for 45 minutes straight, one of them also – and I am not making this up – makes her own cereal. As in, she makes the actual cornflakes. From scratch. However, if you think that alone is alien behaviour, another one has gone a step further and mills her own flour, because store-bought flour is full of poison. How does she do it? I scrolled past before she could tell me, so you are on your own if you are curious.

Finally, for those of you who do not live in the land beyond mad and are in search of more achievable parenting hacks, The Big Bang Theory is an ideal companion on your headphones for mind-numbing cooking and laundry tasks. If you are a first-time watcher, a casual screen-ward glance every minute or so will suffice as Sheldon Cooper’s soothing observations in your ear make the time – if not fly – then at least speed up slightly. If anything, Sheldon’s nasal whine is less grating than questions about when the last roti will be ready.

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