by Meet this interesting mum based out of Mumbai, who’s a writer by passion. She shares with Mums and Stories how she entered the arena of blogging, writing and more. She is also known as the Practical mum, in her words. Nupur shares, “ It’s a spillover from my “Dear Diary” days, I always kept a journal as a child and it helped me through a lot of my adolescent years. With the internet and blogs becoming a thing, I took some of my thoughts online but never made it into a regular thing. It’s not a “profession” for me, but a vocation. I’m a boring financial banker type person by day! Excel spreadsheets and powerpoint formatting take up a lot of my working day.
But something about the written word has always attracted me. And when my son came into our lives, it just acted as a funnel on which topics I can write about. I also found a lot of new parents struggling with aspects which felt very natural to me. So with some encouragement from friends (who were used to my advice, with a twinge of humour, shared on Facebook and whatsapp) and my family (who are always supportive of all my endeavours) I decided to start a blog and Instagram page to capture my journey of motherhood. “
Explaining further Nupur shares, “ The thing with someone who has been an intermittent blogger, as you may also have discovered, is that they stick to the definition quite consistently! Intermittent – posts and updates on the actual blog; Blogger – always on the lookout to log experiences on the web. While my blog practical mum remains a place with a lot of drafts and ideas waiting to be published, my space on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/practicalmum/?hl=en has found it’s voice and I share most of my parenting experiences there.
So right now, I’d categorise myself as a micro-blogger more than anything else. On that note I don’t relate to myself as an influencer. It’s an oft-used but very abused word these days. For me, the people I get influenced by are the ones whose opinion and life-view I can relate to. It baffles me how “being an influencer” is the sole purpose of some bloggers. It has to come (to use another oft-used and abused word) organically.
I’ve too often seen posts where there is no clarification about being sponsored, I’ve been asked to review products on e-commerce sites for pithy amounts, I’ve seen followers and likes and comments being bought left right & centre. It’s a mucky world and after being dazzled by the glamorous side of it, I’ve found myself more attracted to the core. The real content-creators are very easy to identify. And I like to believe I’m on this path; being a mom blogger who wants to share a motherhood journey with it’s ups and downs and honest truths. People getting influenced by my thoughts is more important for me than people getting influenced to use the products I use.
Nupur shares her parenting dilemmas, journey as the practical mum. Talking about choosing this name, she shares, “ Motherhood makes you discover more of yourself. It’s one of the many phases in life that is actually life-changing. Having a whole human life rely so utterly and completely on you changes the lens with which you see the world, and your own being. With this lens, when I asked myself what kind of a mother I am, I found the answer to be quite entangled with what kind of a person I am.
Pragmatism has been my go-to way of dealing with most of the things in my life, and my style of parenting was to do the best for my child, so long as it was practical to do it. I believe in well-researched and thought-through decisions, and don’t get swayed by fads and trends. That’s the flavour you will find on my Instagram page too; and calling myself the “Practical Mum” was a natural corollary to this.
I wrote a post a few years ago on what motherhood has taught me (https://practicalmum.net/7-things-i-didnt-expect-when-i-was-expecting/), and while it captures to a large extent the range of changes I found in myself as a parent, I also believe that this is a never ending process. I’m learning things about myself, my son and my husband each passing year. And it would takes reams upon reams of paper to capture it all.. or perhaps that’s exactly what I’m trying to capture with post upon post on Instagram .”
Talking about the never ending lockdown and reopening in every city, Nupur shares, “ The lockdown has been hard on all working parents. We are a nuclear household, with no full-time nannies or maids. With offices, school and day-cares shutting down, the task-list for my husband and me seemed never-ending!
It’s been hectic to manage full-time work from home, the household, an online presence, and an active child. The key to my sanity has been knowing that I’m not in this alone. Fortunately, we’ve always been co-parents and sharing the load of the household and child rearing comes naturally to us. I always speak up if I’m feeling overburdened and he steps in to give me a break, and vice versa.
The first thing we did was to set up a shared calendar at home. (My excel training and work-life spilling over to home-life!) Both of us used to log in any scheduled calls, and also any online classes for the day. This was the only way to make sure there was some semblance of order during the day!
For our son, screen-time has never been the go-to option and we agreed to keep it that way even during this time. He got 3-4 hours per week of learning apps on the iPad, and 4-5 hours of TV shows/movies. The rest of the time was spent with offline activities. It was hard, of course (most “good parenting” tends to be hard) but we managed. Podcasts, music, drawings, books, lego, and his imagination have kept him going. Patience, cuddles, conversations, and his limitless love have kept us going.
Of course it has been tough to be cut off from social interaction. For a 5yr old, it must be unimaginably hard to miss school, his friends and his time outdoors. But like always, I’ve found kids to be more resilient than we give them credit for.
We’ve learnt to slow down and listen to stories, to stare at the clouds and enjoy our meals together, to know the calm of having nowhere to go, to have fun and really understand the meaning of the words, “home is where the heart is.
For us as a family, the lockdown has brought its own positive surprises as we’ve learnt to spend time with each other, and also to give space to each other.”
(All images and content subject to copyright).
