On Privilege

Privilege is a word that’s bandied around a lot these days. White privilege. Male privilege. The privilege that comes from being rich. The list is endless. Each of us enjoys a different sort of privilege and some of it depends on one’s perspective as well. For example, some of my friends in India think I’m privileged because I live outside the country and hence enjoy a lifestyle that’s coveted by many. Some other friends wouldn’t dream of being in my position, because their lives in India are perfectly comfortable, and they enjoy the proximity to family and affordable full-time help that’s nonexistent outside of the country.

But what I want to talk about today is teaching kids about privilege. My son is five now and he has a very comfortable existence. The other day, we were having a conversation, and he said: “All the kids can watch what they want on TV Amma because everyone has a TV at home.” I started to explain to him how that’s not true and he just couldn’t fathom it and wouldn’t listen. In his version of the world, every kid has a TV at home. I can’t blame him either, because every home we have been to has one, if not more, televisions and a myriad of other gadgets. And that got me thinking on how to explain privilege to my son.

I didn’t grow up wealthy. My parents were middle-class Indian parents and like any middle-class family, we scrimped and saved for the stuff we wanted. We were expected to finish the food on our plates without complaint. We got new clothes for birthdays and special occasions. We had exactly two pairs of shoes- one for school and one for everything else. Chocolates and toys were an occasional treat. TV time was regulated and we were told we simply had to do well in school. Every single thing we had, we were expected to be thankful for, and we were. Both my parents had their ancestral homes in small villages and every holiday, the sibling and I would be packed off to our grandparents. There, we would see the kids in the neighborhood, their homes, and their struggles and that would reinforce what our parents told us, that we were indeed privileged. Our parents also always made sure that we were cognizant of the world around us, the struggles of everyone around us. They also made sure we shared with those less fortunate.

When my son was born, I wasn’t worried about his upbringing. I was going to raise him the way my parents raised us. What I didn’t factor in then was the fact that while I grew up in India, my son has already lived in four different countries in the short five years of his existence. He barely remembers India. He started his schooling in one of the most developed nations in the world. He went to a preschool were his friends’ parents were already shortlisting private schools and prep schools for their kids. We have two cars. His friends have lavish parties for birthdays. They get multiple presents for Christmas. And to an extent, as a parent, I have had to comply as well. He hasn’t had a lavish party to date. And I always try to limit the number and value of the presents he gets. And for every present he gets, he has to donate a toy he already owns. I try to strike a balance, and often when I feel he is taking things for granted, I sit him down and tell him how privileged he is to have all this.

I don’t know how much of it he understands, but so far, he complies with whatever it is I ask of him. He gives away his toys willingly. When he gets money as a gift, he donates half of it to charity. He tries not to waste food. He does chores around the house to earn money and donates part of that too. But he is only five, and I worry that as he grows older, and becomes more exposed to the place and the culture that surrounds him, he will forget his privilege and start taking things for granted. I know I will be prepared, but I don’t know if it will be enough.

But for now, I’m doing what my parents did- I’m trying to teach by example. And I’m exposing him to stories and issues from different parts of the world, showing him kids who don’t enjoy the same privileges he does. I teach him to be thankful for everything he has. To be thankful for the people who help him- be it the server at the restaurant or the cashier at the supermarket. To be thankful for the things he has every day. And I try to find stories, incidents, and books that we can discuss that talk about privilege. And I’m hoping that for now, this is enough. And that once he’s grown up and we have the more complex discussion about what it means to be privileged, he will understand and choose to use his privilege wisely.

Raising a boy

Parenting is hard. It is demanding, exhausting and mostly thankless. And as primary caregivers, it is often harder on mothers than fathers. You are responsible for your child’s well being- physical, emotional, mental and in most cases spiritual as well. You are constantly worrying about what your child eats, what he drinks, what he reads, what media he is exposed to, what sport he plays- the list is endless. But then, parenting has always been difficult. “It takes a village”, they say and they’re right. Only in today’s global society, you are the village.

When I was pregnant, I had this quiet conviction that I was going to have a boy. Once D was born, I was at a complete loss on how to raise him. I only had experience around little girls and I was completely flabbergasted on how to go about bringing up a boy. The initial months were easy- you just had to feed him and make sure he wasn’t too warm or too cold. As he grew, so did my disquiet. As a woman, I felt, I was more comfortable connecting with a girl than a boy. After all, all I had to do was teach her from my own personal experiences and those of my friends. I just had to teach her to keep struggling and fighting against the injustices meted out to her, in the same way I had been doing since I was old enough to understand being a girl put me at a disadvantage. I just had to teach her to not conform to society’s expectations from a girl, to fight against patriarchy, to tell her that being a girl did not make her any less of a human being. With a boy, I wasn’t sure where to start.

That was the time the MeToo movement started taking center stage and as I went about reading and doing research and wondering how to start parenting my boy, it hit me. Boys have never had to face any of the disadvantages that girls did. They were never told they weren’t good enough. Ergo, the challenges they faced were different. And they were complementary to the ones girls faced. I realized then that raising a boy wasn’t all that different from raising a girl. It is just that the issues they had to face were different.

The first order of business was trying to raise my son to be as gender neutral as possible. Which meant not conforming to the “blue-pink” madness when he was little to choosing his toys, the books he read and the messages he was exposed to. I’ve always let D pick out his own toys. I’ve never made a conscious effort to direct him to more “masculine” toys like trucks and cars. Granted he loves them but he also loves to cook and play house and I’ve never stopped him from doing those. I’ve never asked my son to “toughen up” and not cry. I’ve taught him in turn that everyone cries and it is yet another way to express emotion. The one time he told me that only girls wear pink, I told him no- colors are a personal choice and it’s not just for girls. He’s dressed up in skirts and tiaras and in superhero costumes. He’s sensitive and frequently needs to be held and cuddled and kissed and I’ve told him that’s a healthy way of expressing affection. He helps out with household chores- cooking, cleaning, folding the laundry, taking out the trash- all traditionally considered to be the forte of girls. I also make sure he sees his dad doing the same things so he understands that household chores aren’t divided based on gender. I’m doing this to make him self-sufficient and also to instill in him this belief that gender doesn’t define what one does or becomes. Hopefully, when he’s older and is bombarded with the kind of sexist messaging and imagery that is so prevalent in today’s world, he will remember these lessons he learned as a child and be strong enough to stand up against them.

This is a world of angry men and angry women. Women’s anger is righteous and stems from centuries of being oppressed, controlled and relegated to the sidelines in all walks of life. Men’s anger stems from a lack of control. It tries to silence the voices of others including women. For ages, men have been taught that they are in control of everything- from their destinies to politics, economics, society, and women. Why else would we still have men making decisions on women’s bodies? Every single mistake they ever made was justified with the nonsensical argument of “Boys will be boys”. They’ve had the world handed to them on a platter and have constantly been told that they could be anyone and have anything they wanted. The whole world was full of successful “men” for them to look up to.

But today, women’s voices are louder than before and it has led to a fundamental shift in the definition of what being a man entails. Today, being a man has come to mean being an ally to women. At least, that’s the way I prefer to think of it. And this means, instead of sticking to the age-old ways of raising boys, we need to raise them more like we raised our girls- to be sensitive, to be compassionate, to be helpful, and most of all to fight against the established world and social order that treats girls differently from boys.

Mind you, I want my son to be tough. I want him to be tough in the sense that he’ll stand up for what is right. I want him to be tough when he stands up against racism, bullying, patriarchy. I want him to be tough in the face of pressure from peers and from a society that will try to fit him into the stereotype of being a man. I want him to be tough when it comes to standing up for his beliefs and convictions. I want him to be tough enough to go against centuries of beliefs that make him the favored sex. I want him to be tough enough to fight eons of deeply entrenched patriarchal systems. I want him to be tough enough to shrug off the venom that will unfailingly be directed at him by a lot of his own gender when he chooses to be an ally for women. But beyond all this, I want my son also to have that innate toughness to choose the kind of person he wants to become- the courage to be his own person not shackled by anyone’s expectations including mine. That’s the toughness that I will welcome and strive to foster in my son.

I am constantly trying to raise my son to not be defined by his gender. And I know there are millions of mother’s like me around the globe trying to raise their son’s to be allies to their daughter and to girls around the globe. Hopefully, these little boys won’t be corrupted by the toxic world environment we see and read about every day and when their time comes, will be, along with the girls,  harbingers of the kind of change the world so desperately needs.

PS: After reading this some of you might feel that a lot of what I’ve written has been generalized. Like the fact that all men have it easy or that all women are angry about their lot in life. Well, there are men who have had tough lives and women who are perfectly happy in patriarchal societies but for the most part, what I’ve mentioned here it true. My writing might also seem very straightforward but as we all know, there are no blacks and whites to anything in life. I’ve just tried to articulate to the best of my ability what I feel and what I’m trying to do. 

Competitive Motherhood

We had a PTA meeting at my son’s school the other day. And by school, I mean preschool. And I don’t know if I should be ashamed to say this, but I had no clue preschools had PTA meetings. Anyway, this being the offspring’s first official meeting and my first “school event” after D’s official entry into the hallowed portals of an educational institution, I was excited about going. I thought I would meet some lovely parents and I would finally have people to maybe go out with for a cup of coffee or crib about our kids.

But, within minutes of arriving at the school and meeting my first parent, I was disabused of that notion. I had conveniently forgotten something I had first experienced while I was pregnant- competition. Well, I was acquainted with competition much before, but the fact that the notion could be attached to something like pregnancy was news to me till I was carrying D. There was competition in everything- from getting the best doctors to putting on the least amount of weight, to having the least or worst morning sickness and to even the sort of childbirth you had. Natural birth with a midwife out of the confines of the hospital scored you most points, while cesareans were the lowest on the rung. (I should clarify here that I am in no way against natural childbirth. In fact, one of my closest friends did just that with both her babies. She found an atmosphere without the beeping of machines and the “hospital smell” perfect for her. I, on the other hand, cannot imagine having a child in a place other than a hospital.)Then came everything from breastfeeding to child-led weaning to hitting all the milestones. While I was shielded from most of that because I was with my parents, and I followed their example in raising my child, I was subject to all kinds of unwanted advice on how to raise my child (which I considered or rejected depending on the person who offered it or based on its merit).

(Image Courtesy: someecards.com)

But I digress. The comparison started when I mentioned whose mother I was. The minute D’s name left my mouth, the lady went, “Oh! The really tall boy”. While I might qualify as a midget, my son seems to have taken after his father and is pretty tall for his age but I’ve never had someone address him as the “really tall boy”. She then went on to tell me how her son was small and didn’t seem to be putting on weight or height no matter what she did. I tried to change the topic saying I was the same way and so was my sister and we both turned out ok and that each kid had his own stage and time and pace of growth but she didn’t seem satisfied. She went on to say how me and my sister were girls and how shortness in boys wasn’t a desirable quality. I didn’t want to tell her how misogynistic that was. Anyway, the said lady’s friend arrived and I was again introduced as the mother of the really tall boy. I resigned myself to the moniker and waited for the meeting to begin so people would finally stop the comparison. The meeting started and the school started talking about their teaching methodology. I was pretty impressed with what they were doing and in any case, my primary aim in enrolling the offspring was to get him to socialize and make friends and get him out of my hair for a while so I could get reacquainted with my brain and sanity.

But evidently, I was wrong in being impressed. When the teachers mentioned that they often had activities and studies for kids where they were grouped together based on interest and not age, some mothers took offense. Their major concern was that while younger children might benefit from interacting with older kids, the grouping was unfair to the older ones. They might not pick up things as fast, and might be late in meeting their milestones of reading, writing etc. The questions and arguments went on for so long, that after a while I zoned out. I’m sure I might have come off as an uncaring parent or a zombie masquerading as a mother, but I was at the point of not caring anymore. I don’t disagree with the school for one. My sister is five years younger than me, and she’s definitely the more accomplished of the two of us and I’m constantly learning new things from her. I also believe interacting with younger kids teach the older ones virtues like patience, sharing, compassion, and adaptability- qualities I believe will serve them well in life. When one of the teachers mentioned a much younger kid who was a whiz at math, I swear I could almost see some mothers turning green with envy.

(Image Courtesy: cartoonstock.com)

Competition is good, I agree, and in today’s world, it is pretty much unavoidable. But my parents always taught me to compete with myself. It was always, “We know you can do better than this. You’re capable of so much more”, and never, “You can do better than him. You have to.” There was never any comparison between me and the sister. We would compare often, but never our parents. We compare even now, but we’ve both come to realize we have our strong suits and are perfectly happy with the way we turned out. And I try to impart the same philosophy to my son. When he talks about a classmate who read them a story I ask who it was, and what story it was, and if he also shared something with the class. I don’t attempt to grab the nearest book and get him also to read. I know my kid is smart. He is curious and sensitive and tells silly stories and likes only happy endings to any story he reads; so much so that we often rework stories with somewhat sad endings to make them happy. He cares for trees and animals and those smaller than him. He is shy but I can see him slowly coming out of his shell since he’s started school and started being with other kids. And for me, those are accomplishments enough. I don’t want my child to have a Mensa-level IQ, or participate in all sorts of extracurricular activities the school offers, or read Wordsworth and Kafka when he’s 6. I just want a happy, well-adjusted child. The rest will come when he feels its time. If I’m branded a bad mother for this, then so be it. I’d rather be a bad mother than have a child who’s scarred for life because his mother was busy training him to be the best at everything that she forgot to let him be a kid.

And I try to impart the same philosophy to my son. When he talks about a classmate who read them a story I ask who it was, and what story it was, and if he also shared something with the class. I don’t attempt to grab the nearest book and get him also to read. I know my kid is smart. He is curious and sensitive and tells silly stories and likes only happy endings to any story he reads; so much so that we often rework stories with somewhat sad endings to make them happy. He cares for trees, and animals, and those smaller than him. He is shy, but I can see him slowly coming out of his shell since he’s started school and started being with other kids. And for me, those are accomplishments enough. I don’t want my child to have a Mensa-level IQ, or participate in all sorts of extracurricular activities the school offers, or read Wordsworth and Kafka when he’s 6. I just want a happy, well-adjusted child. The rest will come in time. If I’m branded a bad mother for this, then so be it. I’d rather be a bad mother, than have a child who’s scarred for life because his mother was busy training him to be the best at everything, that she forgot to let him be a kid.

Back to Blogging (yet again)

Life is a waiting game. Like in the case of me and this blog. It has been almost a year since I posted anything on this space. I had planned to post more frequently and it was not like I had a shortage of things to post about. It was more like me planning and the prodigal son disposing of all those plans with a flick of his wrist. I’d often jot down ideas or compose posts in my head. I’d read a book and want to review it and would do so often albeit in my head. I would read a piece of news that affected me profoundly and think of sharing my views here but would never get around to doing it. Being a full-time mom to a hyperactive toddler far from family and without any help, my world sort of collapsed to an ironclad routine that revolved solely around the pint-sized dictator I birthed. My days were a blur of cooking numerous meals, cleaning the house only to turn around and find it messier than before, doing innumerable loads of laundry, reading the toddler the same books over and over again till I could recite them in my sleep, and honing my diplomatic and marketing skills in supermarket aisles and checkout counters.

With the toddler giving up his afternoon naps, my days became even more tightly regimented. Since I was also determined to raise a toddler who wasn’t always glued to the television, I had to come up with novel ideas to keep the son engaged. I wasn’t successful completely. If I needed to do any kind of work around the house, I had to put the son in front of the television; but I did manage to keep his afternoons and part of his morning television free. My days became so mundane that I could feel my brain cells dying. Granted, getting to spend time with my son and being able to shape his character and be a part of his likes and interests was rewarding; but I wanted some time for myself as well. And that was well nigh impossible with a husband who was work-obsessed and with no family or friends nearby. I managed a bit of reading on and off but that was about the extent of my “me-time”. My writing was ignored, keeping in touch with friends suffered, I didn’t cook as much as I would have liked to. I was neglecting myself.

The son started school sometime back and now I have a lot of time on my hands till he gets home. It’s been a huge change for him and it has been accompanied by its ups and downs. He has his moments of crying and distress and doubts. I have my moments of heartache and the sense of loss and the fact that this is the first in a series of goodbyes I’ll have to wave my son in his life. But I’ve been glad to reclaim some time and the house to myself. I finish my cooking in record time without him there to interrupt me every five seconds. I’ve finally finished a course I had abandoned halfway through because the son wasn’t giving me enough time to finish my studies and assignments. I’ve started reading more. I’ve been able to get back to my journal. And soon, I hope to get back to work as well.

And today, as I was making a list of the things I wanted to finish in the next month, and jotted down “write more”, I realized I hadn’t gotten back to this space in ages. I checked the blog and realized that my last post was almost a year ago. I’ve made a lot of comeback posts here before, but I’m hoping this one will be different. I’m hoping this time I’ll be able to stick to my word of posting more. I’m hoping I’ll be able to keep up the momentum and not give up like I did. I’m hoping this will be sort of a revival for this space that has been grossly neglected in the past few years. So here’s to new beginnings and better things and hopefully better writing as well.

The Cost of Conflict

When I was asked to draw a picture of my home, and I drew a series of chaotic loops, because chaos was all I had known in my short life, you wept. When I sat among the ruins of a railway station, my mouth open in a silent scream for my mother who’d never come, you wept. When my blazing green eyes bore into you from the cover of a magazine, reflecting the horrors I’d been through, you wept. When I crawled my way to a mouthful of food, naked, emaciated, trying to escape from the jaws of a patiently waiting death, you wept. When someone pointed a camera at me to take my picture and I put my hands up because I’d only seen guns being pointed at people, you wept. When in my quest to escape the horrors you inflicted on my land, my tiny frame washed up on a beach, you wept. And you weep now as you see me, bloodied, motionless and emotionless on an ambulance chair. 

What you see are a few, but there are millions like me. Millions whose voices you do not hear, whose pictures do not get to you, whose lives you do not know. Millions like me who have lost families, homes, limbs and life in our quest to survive. There are also millions who have had weapons thrust in their hands at an age when they should be holding teddy bears and schoolbooks. Millions who are asked to fight, but do not know what they are fighting for, or whom they’re fighting against. But that is another issue altogether.

I am tired of the world and all of you. Every time you see one of me, you weep, you vow to change and in a few days you forget. There are a few of you who fight tirelessly, but the most of you are secure in the knowledge that something like this would never happen to you. You are easily distracted. My problems and me are too much for you to handle. You do not know where, or how to begin. And even though I’m tired, this makes me angry.

I was always told that you people are intelligent and sensible; that you always learn from your mistakes and never repeat them. But you somehow seem to have forgotten to rectify the many mistakes that have made it impossible for me to live in this world. You seem to have forgotten all about the innocent millions like me, whose innocence is being sacrificed at the altar of your greed and your senseless every day. 

  

You make excuses of lofty ideals like “greater good of mankind”, “protecting the freedom of the individual”, “destroying terrorism”, “rooting out extremist elements” and what not. You fight in the name of religion, ideals, resources, beliefs, politics. You exhort people to war with entreaties of patriotism, and service of mankind and the like. You forget that all this makes sense only to you and others like you. 

For me, it means I get to wake up to bombs falling. I get to go to sleep to the sounds of gunfire. I get to see my family massacred in front of my eyes. I get to live a life without fun, without joy, without toys or even a place to call my home. I get to live a life maybe without limbs, or eyes or ears. I get raped and assaulted and killed. I try to escape and I die in the process. I stay and I get killed. If I do manage an escape, its months, years before I get to a place I can call my own. I sleep on forest floors and swim across oceans; I travel in jam-packed containers where I might suffocate to death. 

And sometimes, when I do get to freedom, you tell me you can’t have me in your country. That there are too many of us already, and we would upset the fabric of your country. I don’t understand. You deem it alright to destroy my home or you condone someone else’s destruction of it, and then you won’t have me in your own. You worry about your homes and your children; their right to be happy and run unfettered and unaffected by anything. While there are millions like me who have never known a day without war, not gone to sleep without the noises of destruction ringing in our ears, who have not known what it is like to be free, to not worry about waking up the next day, to not worry about their next meal or if we will lose our parents. 

I don’t understand how you can look at my face and not see your children’s faces there. I don’t understand this war or this conflict. I don’t understand the killing and the bloodshed. I don’t understand the terms you bandy about so casually to justify what you do. All I can do, is implore you to stop. To leave for me, a world where I can sleep in peace. A world where I will never be hurt by anything, in any fashion.  A world where I won’t be relegated to yet another iconic photograph..

(Images, Courtesy: Google Images)

Motherhood Woes

“Motherhood is a choice you make everyday, to put someone else’s happiness and well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when you’re not sure what the right thing is…and to forgive yourself, over and over again, for doing everything wrong.”- Donna Ball, “At Home on Ladybug Farm”

You assume motherhood to be something that comes to you naturally. That you’ll know exactly what  needs to be done, when it needs to be done. That you’ll hear your baby crying, and know if its because he is hungry, or sleepy or what not. Believe me when I tell you reality is far from that. Right after I became a mother, I had a nasty case of what people call “the baby blues”. I was lost, confused, crying. I couldn’t bond well with D. And I was left wondering if there was something wrong with me, and if I had made the biggest mistake of my life by bringing him into this world, when I didn’t have the smallest clue on what to do. Thanks to amazing parents and a wonderful spouse, I pulled through. I started bonding well with D, I started to understand when he was hungry and when he was sleepy. I started to realise what set him off, and what calmed him down. Things were starting to look good. 

But then, the thing about motherhood is that nothing is constant. Just when you get comfortable with a certain routine, and you think you have your little one all figured out, they change. Routines change, likes and dislikes change, sleep patterns change. And being ready for all that is a challenge. I had returned to work after having D, when he was around six months old. He seemed to be happy with my parents, and he seemed to be coping well without me during the day. I was happy to be able to do my own thing and being independent. But that lasted all of four months. D started getting fussier. He wasn’t happy when I left in the mornings. It got to a point where I had to sneak out of the house without him spotting me, and then I realised I had to put him at the top of my list. So I quit. 

As D grew, so did the things I had to handle. His tantrums, his rough play. When he got too excited, I had to learn how to calm him down. When he got physical, I had to get him to stop without using force myself. When he wouldn’t eat, I had to learn how to coax him. I had to learn to pick my battles. I had to learn to manage by myself when S was travelling and wasn’t home. I had to learn when to put my foot down. And all the while, I had to battle self doubt. Wondering if I was doing the right thing and what the right thing was. 

Motherhood is the hardest thing I have done without a doubt. It is fulfilling, granted, and even the smallest of your child’s accomplishments make you swell with pride; but there’s a downside to it as well that no-one talks about much. It’s a journey of doubt. You question everything you say and do. You wonder if you’re teaching your child the right things; if you’re equipping him with the right tools to face the world. You wonder if you’re giving his self, time to develop and bloom. You wonder if you’re crushing his spirit, when you tell him “No” to something you feel is unacceptable. Some days you break down and yell, and the instant you see their face, you turn to self-flagellation. You hate yourself for what you’ve done. You try to say that its ok; after all you’re only human. You wonder if you’re a horrible mother, and if you’re messing up your child for life. 

Every time your child throws a tantrum, or makes a scene when you’re out, you cringe, you turn apologetic and you wonder what you’re doing wrong. Aren’t you following everything every single parenting book and article says you should? Then why is your child such a terror? You wonder, and you read more, and worry your child has behavioural issues, and you read some more, and you freak yourself out to the point of tears. Trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve done that and I’m still doing that. 

You talk to friends who try to reassure you they’re going through the same, or have been through the same. And you reassure them on their bad days. You compromise on whatever time you try to keep to yourself in a day, to spend even more time with the offspring so he behaves better. You try different things to hold or spark his interest. You need him to behave better. And you utilise every single resource you can, to make it happen. 

And then, one day, realisation strikes. You realise you’re dealing with a child. A child who knows nothing much of the world. Who’s still discovering the sky, and the grass, and the birds, and the flowers, and what not. Who’s discovering who he is every single day. Who’s understanding a little more about himself, and you, and the world around him as the days go by. Who’s being faced with so much information, from so many quarters, every single day, that he finds it difficult to process and file away everything. Who gets so excited about certain things on certain days, that even eating seems like a distraction. 

And then you feel, maybe all these routines and all the things you wanted to teach your child, or are expected to teach him don’t matter all that much. Maybe you should only ensure that your child is happy, whatever he is doing. Maybe there’s still time to teach him all the social niceties and acceptable behaviours. Maybe you’re not messing up completely. Maybe you should just cut yourself some slack, and not be so judgemental. Maybe you shouldn’t lose it when he’s being too energetic, or too difficult, or just too much. After all, he’s going to grow up in the blink of an eye, and you’re going to be with him every step of the way guiding him, as long as he needs. 

Like I read somewhere, “Behind every great kid is a mom who’s pretty sure she’s messing up.” I’m hoping all my messing up turns into something amazing. 🙂 

(Image Courtesy: Google Images)

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?

The other day, me and lil D were talking about the moon and stars and I decided to take him out to the balcony to show him some. I opened the door, lifted him up and pointed to the sky, and paused… I was waiting to find a star so I could show it to him. I finally managed to find one that I’m sure was a planet, and pointed it out to him saying it was a star. Lil D looked in the direction vaguely and then went back inside to his toys. I finally had to show him pictures and videos on the laptop to show him the “lots of stars”, that he wanted to see. 

I was extremely sad. One of my best childhood memories involve me and Achan walking around the courtyard of his ancestral home during the quintessential power cuts that plague Kerala, and looking up at the night sky trying to find constellations. Thats how I first learnt to locate The Big Dipper and Orion and find the North Star. Back then, looking at the night sky was magic. You could see millions of stars spread out across the blue black sky. Just a glance made you feel inconsequential. Those short walks and talks with Achan triggered an interest in astronomy that survives to this day. I did entertain hopes of becoming an astronaut at some point during my school years, but considering my relationship with Mathematics, that dream quickly fizzled out. But the awe that the sight of the sky generated in me, still remains. 

Alas, the sky is no longer the same anymore. If I take a walk in the same courtyard today, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to spot any star. Maybe a stray firefly, but even they have become rare now. I think I might have to take D to some remote village or the top of a mountain for him to see the magnificent night skies of my childhood. We have polluted the world so much, that my child and his future generations might never be able to see the skies of my childhood. Excepts for pockets of the world that are still isolated from “development”, it would be impossible to see the masses of stars that I did in my childhood with our naked eye. 

Lil D already has an interest in the stars and the moon and rockets and spacecrafts. I want him to fall in love with the sky like I did. I want him to get his hands on books and read up about stars and how they were born and how they die. I want him to learn about galaxies and the cosmos and feel the same sense of awe that I felt when I realised how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. I want him to see the Northern Lights and maybe hear them talk. I want him to think of his place in the world. I want him to have a better understanding of how our universe works and I want him to work towards taking care of whatever is left of it. 

But the way the world is; the way we have made the world in our mad dash for progress, I just might have to take him miles away to some small field in a country for that to come true. Or buy a telescope. Makes me sad; thinking about the legacy we are leaving our little ones- a planet where you look up and cannot even see stars…

Image Courtesy: National Geographic

Misogyny from the cradle?

Its the year 2016 and yet misogyny seems to be rampant around the globe. From campuses shrugging off sexual assault like its no big deal, to actors and politicians who have no qualms about stating their misogynistic views, and the number of people supporting them, we live in a scary world. And as mother to a two year old son, I try every day in whatever small way I can to make sure he doesn’t grow up feeling entitled because of his gender. And I hold on to some hope that, if not in my lifetime, then maybe in his we’ll see a world free of misogyny in all its forms.

But that hope took a severe beating the other day when I was shopping online for some clothes for myself. The store is a big name retailer that makes clothes mainly targeted at women in their teens and twenties; I saw that they had clothes for kids as well. Now, since I love shopping for D as well, I decided to check out their kids section. Unfortunately they had clothes only for five years and up but as I was randomly scrolling down, my eyes fell on a t- shirt with a message that read, “Sorry ladies, I only date models”. 

I was shocked at first. And then I was mad. Really, really mad. This is a t -shirt meant for boys from ages 5 to 14. As a mother, I wouldn’t even dream of putting my kid in something like this. And neither would a lot of mothers I know. But I cannot imagine how the people who made this, thought that a t- shirt like this was OK for kids as young as 5. I don’t think D would even know who or what a model is at that age. And personally, I don’t like t-shirts with messages on them. I find the messages on kids t- shirts reinforce gender roles at a very young age. I always find messages like “boys will be boys” and “little princess”; and I hate them. Kids are born with no idea about gender roles you know? And these messages just start sending messages to kids that they shouldn’t be seeing or hearing. We are trying to confine them to the gender roles set down by society and severely limiting their creativity, originality and personality.

What scares me more is, what if there are people who think its ok for their kids to wear something like this t- shirt? What if sometime down the line, D meets someone who is wearing this and comes home to ask me who a model is? How do I explain it to him? And when I explain who a model is, what is the message he takes away from it? Will he feel that in spite of the way he looks (not that looks are important) or the kind of person he is, he’s entitled to a female who looks like a model? How much harder will it be for me and the husband to teach him otherwise? As he gets older his peer groups and kids his age will influence him more than us. Imagine him being around children who are sporting these kind of clothes. 

To those of you thinking I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, and its just a message on a t-shirt and its all in good humour; it is not. We live in a world that is increasingly glorifying the male and putting down the female. Sexual assaults and commonplace and are often punished with mere months in prison. Acid attacks are met with nonchalance. Women are stalked and hacked to death in broad daylight. Male celebrities are making rape comments and sexist statements and getting away with it. Women celebrities are being attacked and questioned for simply stating their political views. In a world where women are consistently being portrayed as commodities and second class citizens, I simply DO NOT want my child to be exposed to more of such nonsense at an age when he’s not even old enough make decisions regarding his own food or sleep. 

When parents like me and S are trying our damnedest to ensure that our son doesn’t grow up with preconceived notions about gender roles. When we are trying to teach him that his love for trucks and his love of cooking are equally ok with us. When we are trying to show him that its not just Amma who’s comfortable in the kitchen but Acha as well. When women I know are teaching their daughters that they can be warriors and pirates and Kings, we do not need this nonsense; this utterly disgusting portrayal of male entitlement and reduction of women to chattel. Shame on people like these. And oh, I’m no longer shopping from them anymore. 

Supermoms!!

There are times in your life when you think you know everything that is to be known about something and then suddenly, one day, the bubble bursts and the world comes crashing down on your head. And as you lie under the rubble of your imaginary world and try to extricate yourself you keep wondering why no one clued you in on how things actually were. It happened to me in the last couple of weeks which is precisely why you guys did not see me on this space. Wondering what the hell I am rambling on about? Let me fill you in.

From the time L’il D was born, I have been with my parents. D is eight months old now and in all this time, I have never had to take care of him all by myself. True, there have been shopping expeditions and marriages and certain occasions where I have had to handle D for a few hours here and there, but other than that, I have always had my Mom and Dad to fall back on. But a couple of weeks back, I had to head to Singapore with S for some paperwork and we had to take D along.

I was nervous and apprehensive when S told me the news. As the day of our departure neared, I started getting more and more terrified. But my Mom bolstered my courage saying she had handled me all on her own when I was a kid, and handled me and the sister when she was born, and she had done all this on her own with nobody’s help, and this was in addition to cooking and cleaning and packing Dad off to office and supervising my homework and all. Now us new gen kids have this thought that since we live in faster, crazier times when compared to our parents, we are better equipped to multi task. After all we have been doing it for ages. Plus I am an MBA grad to boot and managers are born to multitask, right?

(Image Courtesy:welcomelittle.com)

Thus prepared, I boarded the plane for Singapore. D started howling the minute the plane picked up speed on the runway and nothing seemed to calm him down. I kept trying to shush him while also trying to not show my mortification. I kept thinking that I had become one of those parents that other passengers go home and tell their families about. “You have no idea. There was this annoying kid on the plane that refused to stop crying and his mother was so inept she couldn’t even get him to keep quiet. These new gen moms I tell you, absolutely clueless”. While these horrifying images were playing in my mind like the trailer of a bad science fiction movie, D thankfully stopped crying and decided to sleep. Score one for clueless mom. I leaned back in my seat with a serene smile plastered on my face. D was also an absolute angel on landing that by the time me and S had gotten to our apartment I was drunk on my success and telling my Mom this was all a piece of cake.

Come evening on our first day in Singapore, D started getting cranky. Now evenings are when D is mostly cranky so I didn’t worry much. I was sure once he had had his evening walk, his bath and his dinner he would be the golden boy once again. But boy, were the Fates against me and how! D screamed the minute we got into the lift to take him down. He screamed when we tried to take him to the park for his stroll, he screamed through his bath, quieted down for a little while as I fed him his dinner but started screaming right after. No amount of comforting on my part would get him to calm down. S was staring at me helplessly. I was on the verge of tears and was thinking of how soon I could get back to my parents. I felt like an absolutely awful mother who couldn’t even get her crying baby to calm down. D cried for an hour almost and then exhausted he fell asleep. I thanked all my Gods and wiped my eyes. Relieved and exhausted, with visions of food and sleep dancing around in my brain, I put lil D on the bed. The instant that happened he woke up howling again. My little one refused to sleep on the bed. And for the two weeks I was in Singapore, I sat day after day, night after night with D in my arms, eyes bleary and bloodshot, my legs going to sleep, drinking copious amounts of coffee to stay sane.

And in those two weeks, all I did was take care of D. S made all of D’s food, put the clothes through the washer and dryer and folded them, cooked when he could, ordered in most of the time, made me vatfuls of coffee and went to work.

(Image Courtesy: blog.tiffinohio.com)

It was during those two weeks that I realized how absolutely ridiculous the term “stay at home mom” was. The person who coined that term should be given a masterclass as to what being a full time mom entails. I have a few amazing friends- absolutely lovely women- who have chosen to take time off their careers to spend time with their kids. After my two weeks with D, I have new respect for them and this huge decision they have taken. Even the most hectic, crazy day at work is cakewalk compared to a day with D. I swear!

And these women I know, are absolute superheroes. One of them cooks, cleans, takes care of baby, travels, updates her cooking blog when she can and takes time to keep in touch with her friends regularly. Another one does all this, takes courses on coursera and blogs every week. Yet another one is also a frequent blogger, an amazing mom and has time to ping me on whatsapp or meet me for lunch once in a while. The list could go on and on. You guys are marvellous. I don’t know how you do it!

Then there are people like me and a few other friends who have the luxury of being able to work, of not having to cook or clean or take care of our babies full time. All thanks to an amazing support system of parents and grandparents and all kinds of help. And although at times I felt like an awful mother for not being able to manage my baby or do everything on my own, I have made peace with the way I am. Maybe I am not cut out to do everything by myself. I am who I am. I love my kid and if I had to stay at home full time for him, I would do that in a heartbeat but I like the way things are now and I want it to be this way for as long as possible. But the next time someone tells me “Oh! She’s just a stay at home mom”, they will be in for the dressing down of their life!! Thats a promise!