Happy Birthday Kajol: Revisiting Five Powerful Quotes On Motherhood

Kajol on motherhood: Be it Anuradha "Anu" Apte from Tribhanga, Anjali in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham or the helicoptering single mother from Helicopter Eela, Kajol has made the mother look more human on screen than the mythical she who cannot do any wrong. The actor makes sure to deliver her best performance every time she is on screen. Blessed with a daughter Nysa and a son Yug, Kajol turns 47 today. So, we decided to revisit her powerful motherhood quotes from her conversation with Kareena Kapoor in her show What Women Want.

Kajol on motherhood

1. She does not believe in being a controlling parent.

"I am not that much of a controlling parent. I actually don't believe that it is conducive to a healthy relationship. My mother was the complete opposite of it. My mom literally gave me the name 'rebel upbringing' to me. I was a very differently brought up child."

2. Parenting style

"There is a fine line between giving children a grid to grow up with and overwhelming them to a point that they can't grow."

3. Working mothers' guilt

"I remember telling her (her mother Tanuja) at one point that ‘Everybody else's mother stays at home and they come to pick their kids up from school and my mother is the only one who does not come to pick me up from school.' And she was like, 'You know baby I have to work.' I looked at her and I realised somewhere, maybe as a child at that point of time I stopped resenting her….I think it (the guilt of working mothers) is because of the responsibility factor. In societies generally, the responsibility is always the mother's to bring up the child. And that's where the guilt factor comes in."

4. Experience of being a working mother

"My son came up to me and he was like, 'Mom, why do you have to go to work?' I was like, 'You remember playtime? Nobody stops you from playtime…So this is my playtime and you have to let me go, with a nice happy face.'"

5. Learning from children

Kajol narrated an incident when her daughter Nysa refused to be present at a family incident because she did not like it. Being a stern parent, she got her to sit with the other members. But her son Yug made her realise that she should not have scolded her for saying the truth. "That was huge," said the actor. She also added that she was learning trends from her children. "I am definitely picking up their habits in music…selfies and what looks good on Instagram."

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