Hanuman!

We spent the weekend moving our stuff to our new apartment. In between the pain of doing so and lamenting the foolishness of hording hazaar stuff when basically living a nomadic life, we came across the DVD for Hanuman that we had picked last year in India. I bought it with the intention of watching it with Aayush and somehow never got around to doing it. The DVD made a reappearance during the upheaval of moving and seemed the best thing to do to cut through Aayush's boredom. A boredom he was choosing to dispense by unpacking everything we were packing.

So, I put it on and Aayush, a dutiful son that he is, promptly started watching in rapt concentration, the one in which he doesn't blink. Of course, I started sneaking a looksee with him and there it was. A large demon with a very ugly face, uprooting people , throwing them into the fire, crushing them under his feet, eating them. My first thought was that the DVD was too violent for Aayush. I mean, Aayush is too young to watch stuff like that, isn't he? Close on it's heels, was the observation that Aayush still wasn't blinking. The second thought right behind first one was the fact that everyone in India grows up hearing/reading these stories. The good -evil business, more to the point dev-rakshas business of Hindu mythology is drummed into our brains right from childhood. There is always a big war before the evil is vanquished and Indra Dev can go back to being the King of Devs again only to almost loose the throne to another evil character, leaving the triumvate Brahma-Vishnu-Mahesh to come up with another avataar. Yes, I was an avid Amar Chitra Katha reader. The point is that it never seemed violent to me before nor did I grow up with a violent streak.

I am realising how much you are influenced as a parent by your environment. If we were in Iraq/Afganisthan, the kid would actually have already seen much worse. If we were in Africa, I would be much more worried about where the next meal will come from. If we were in India, the thought would never have entered my mind. I shrugged off the thought, the packing duties and spent the next two hours watching the movie with Aayush. He spent the two hours thereafter trying to mimic Hanuman flying. The next time he watches it, he will rake around in his toy bin till he comes up with something that resembles Hanuman's Gadha. The phrase, "Don't you want to be a strong/brave boy?" has been replaced with "Don't you want to be like Hanuman?" Right now, Hanuman is as cool as Elmo and I will gladly take it. More importantly, Hanuman is now a approachable figure as opposed to the figure on the altar. He is his friend.

Just for the moment, the God-fearing side of me is very happy to see him sit cross-legged on the floor,fold his hands in prayer by aligning them perfectly instead of just clasping them.

Apparently, it is much cooler when someone on TV does it than when I or S do it. Aaj kal ke bachche, I tell you.

The Working Mom

I have heard it many times before and I do not get it. People saying they resented their mom going to work. My mom was a working Mom. So everytime I hear something like that, I go through my entire childhood as best as I can to find any moment that I felt the same thing and I never come up with any. I remember our birthday parties, which she planned, for which she cooked up a storm in the morning before going to work. I remember the time when my friends and I,all from different communites decided to call each other for traditional dinners representing each of our communities and my mom all enthused, cooking up a konkani feast without a word.I remember evenings in the kitchen with mom and us at the dining table talking about the day. I remember chats with her in the same kitchen where we discussed everything from my naughty little sister to the daily news. The one thing I don't remember is feeling that I was losing out with her not being at home.Never.Ever.

More importantly, I do not think that her involvement in my life would have been any different if she was a stay-at-home mom. She would still have been the parent she still is. The one who never forced her opinions on us but encouraged us to have our own opinions.The one who patiently heard out all the hormone-induced-no-grey-areas theories of my teenage years. The one who very calmly explained to me why she has to stand and stir the pot--and not sit on a chair welded to the floor that my toddler mind had thought up--without breaking into a laugh.The one who listened to my perfect plan to be the perfect parent and raise perfect kids and did not throw that plan back into my face when Aayush let out a bawl at 2.00AM on his first night home and I wailed "why doesn't he sleep?".I cannot think of my childhood being any different if she had been home and I do not and did not ever want it to be any different. I have always been fiercely proud of her,it is her I think of when the word supermom crops up. It is her I strive to be.

Which is why I don't get it when some of my friends, and lately some of the blogs I have discovered, mention it. I have achieved an higher level of understanding of all she did after I became a mother myself. After I entered the throes of motherhood, I find myself asking the question "What would she do?" several times. I thought most women, who have had a normal childhood, did the same. Look back and try to find answers from their childhood.

I do not understand this phenomenon where you start judging your parents,especially after becoming a mother yourself. It is bad enough that,as a young mother, you are judged by every tom, dick and harry who has ever been around kids. You are judged by strangers whose only contact with your life would be the moment your kid decided to yell in the middle of the store or heaven forbid, use his outdoor voice that one out of ten times in the library. It is not enough that she is judged by fellow mothers for whom the only way to feel they are doing a good job themselves is criticise someone else or that it is her parenting which is judged for anything that would go wrong in the now fully grown up kids' life. Now, the kids have to judge her, too. For the choice she ,the dad and in many cases in India, the extended family made together. Yes, tell your mom and anybody who is willing to listen, how you felt 'cheated off of your mother's attention growing up' in a childhood that 50% of the world's children would find nothing less than privileged.

For people like you,I have just one thing to say. GROW UP! You seem none the worse for it, you turned out to be the fine young women you are and seem to be. SNAP OUT OF IT . OK, that's more than one thing. So sue me. I would expect nothing less from someone who has already been the judge and jury for their mother's parenting.

Aayush-isms

Much as we prefer that the kids speak ‘konkani’ our mother tongue at home, we quite enjoy the American-isms they bring to the conversation.
Some of the recent additions to his vocabulary,

“It’s Trash” not garbage, not dustbin
"I made a Mess" Everything from cluttered toys, to food drippings on his clothes is a 'mess'
“Hi-Fi” after everything he does, whether going to the bathroom by himself, finishing his plate or pronouncing a new word. Every new accomplishment is followed by “I did it” complete with hands up in the air as if he has won the marathon and then “Hi-Fi”. Not giving a prompt 'Hi-fi' is akin to an insult of mammoth proportions, the kind that takes a good 40 minutes to make up for.
“No Way” His school tells me that saying ‘no’ teaches negativity to the kids. A statement I heard at the recent Parent-Teacher Meeting, “We are working on how we do not say ‘No’”. The kids being the obedient little brats that they are, promptly settled on “No Way”. Of course, they way they say it “Nowayyy” makes it one word and so very different from just “No”…

This ‘modern method of raising kids’ by treating them as adults and not as kids’ is good in its own way. But where my kids are concerned, highly overrated.

A recent conversation,

Method 1 : Including them in ideas
“Aayush, are we gonna ‘clean up’ the toys and books before we go to sleep?”

“No Way”

Try Method 2 : ‘Golden’ words
"Aayush, Please put away your toys and books? "

“No Way”

Try method 3 : Gentle Reasoning
"We have to clean up everything, otherwise it’s a mess, isn’t it? Then, you won’t find the books you want tomorrow. Your friend will come and say, ‘Aayush’s room is messy’ Right? we don't want that, do we? We are going to clean up, aren’t we? "

“No Way”

Try Method 4 : Reward System
“You will earn the merit sticker that you can show off at school tomorrow”

[thinking] “No Way”

Try Method 5 : My Mothers System
“pUra bitari kANu dAvari natle kAn tirpitA”
(Keep everything back or else I will twist your ears)

{Scrambling to help clean up}

Mom had it right.

The X and Y Factor...

Bee of jugalbandi.info has written an excellent piece titled 'Cooking and Chromosomes'। I wrote this piece as a comment to her post, but it turned out to be too long। So, decided to park it here...

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My husband gets a lots of comments like "You are lucky to have a wife who is career-oriented". These are, as you might guess, from guys who are the sole financial providers for their home. No, I am not saying this is the gender stereotyping of the opposite kind. Not at all. Quite simply, these guys just do not get the jumping through the hoops, the juggling of duties and the whole phletora of syncing we do to carry it off. Through their limited sense of proportion,they envision all things remaining the same, just the wife getting in a salary and doubling the family income. We, and anyone, who is or has been in our place, know the adjustments, the lifestyle changes and the sacrifices that we and the kids have had to make. However, these are things they will learn and come to terms with, once their spouses start their professional lives. For me, a comment like that opens a whole new can of worms. Are you not belittling everything that your wife is doing now, when you utter words like that? What does that speak about your relationship?

I am left with the same set of questions when I hear comments like the one's Bee is talking about. How much are you belittling your husband when you tell your friend that she is lucky to have a husband who shares the household duties? Sit back and think about it and observe for a couple of days, what your partner is doing around the house? Maybe, you will realise you are lucky,too (and maybe, you will stop eyeing my husband so much :-D )

Here is the other end of the spectrum. How many times have you waited at the office water cooler, for your male colleague to show up, so that he can replace the now emptied water bucket? How many times have you walked to that same cooler with your male colleague, and calmly waited till he replaced the bucket? That is gender stereotyping.

Here is what I think, is not gender-stereotyping. Making puran-polis with your MIL. My points above may seem like women-bashing, but they are not. They are just commonsense, as far as I concerned. No, I am definitely not the kind of woman who feels satisfied just by feeding and taking care of her family. No one can accuse me of being a consummate homemaker. Yes, I have had my share of bump-rides with my MIL. Through the ride, I have learned a few things. My two cents. It is never easy to get along with someone who is twice your age and not your parent, and suddenly thrust into that role. Any other person from that age-group, you would probably pay your respectful greetings and move on. There is no moving away from your in-laws, is there? By the same token, it is also not easy to get along with someone who is half your age and not your child, and suddenly thrust into that role. Yes, I have had a lot of teach-alongs with my MIL. Some I have enjoyed, some not-so-much. Some, I never saw the point of. Over the years, I have realised that just like I felt the age/experience/generation-gap, she must have, too. Yet, we had to find a common path. For her, these teach-alongs were that path. It was her way of saying "you are a part of the family". Much as I admire Jyothsna, for standing up to that idiot with the empty coffee pot and her not-so-kosher-reply, I think by refusing to go to that puran poli teach-along, she let go of an excellent oppurtunity to find common ground with her MIL. All my instincts and my experience with relationships so far, tell me, she is going to regret that one day.

Examples of personal relationship aside, I completely see Bee's point and it hits a really raw nerve in both me and my husband. We pride ourselves on raising our kids (a son and a daughter) to be themselves and not what someone else percieves they should be. Some things though still prick me. I never gave a second thought to the fact that my son helps me unload the dishwasher and arrange folded laundry while my daughter shows no interest in them until a visiting aunt pointed it out to me. To be fair, she was totally amused and more than a little proud of Anoushka. I still don't see any big deal with this. I don't see this as a plus for Anoushka niether do I see this as a minus for Aayush. The comment,though, had me thinking of other stuff. How on a recent toy buying spree, the proud daddy bought Aayush a racing car and a very cute doll for Anoushka. How I love to dress up Anoushka in a girly-girly way while with Aayush I just make sure he looks neat.How I do her hair with matching ribbons and all? Are we, subconciously, enforcing them into a sterotype when we do that? If we are, what should we be doing different?

There are two options I see. I should stop fussing with Anoushka, get her a crew cut like her brother, and stop buying dresses for her and start buying cars for her. The other option is start fussing with Aayush, let him grow his hair and start buying dresses and dolls for him . Both have their own set of problems, the main being it does not get us away from molding them into a stereotype. The former option has her fit neatly into the 'tomboy' mold and the second has him in the 'sissy' mold. They are still gender related stereotypes, aren't they? So, how does one go about raising their kids to be 'not gender-specific'? Even if I find a way to do that, how beneficial would it be? Yes, my son probably wouldn't expect the female colleague to make coffee for him, but most probably, he won't hold the door open for her, too. My daughter won't be expected to refill the coffee pot but she,probably, would have to refill the water cooler herself. What happens when puberty hits and it becomes obvious they really aren't that similar either?

If, by some miracle, despite all that, I end up successfully raising them gender-impartial, wouldn't I, as a parent, still have made the greatest disservice of all to them, by not letting them be who they really are? Him, a boy and her, a girl.

Dava ki dua

"Finish you dinner, sweety"

{No response}

"Finsh your dinner, Aayush"

{No response}

"Fin-ish your Dinner, AA-yush"

{Awarded with bland look}

"Finish your dinner or else.."

{Bland look, again}

"Finish your dinner or else I will take you to doctor for more shots"

{huh! you are getting desperate , mom}

"Finsh your Dinner and I will put your favorite DVD on"

{I am not falling for that}

"Finish your dinner and I will read you as many books as you want"

{you are going to do that, anyway}

"If you finish your dinner, you can have the medicine that will stop your ear-ache"

empty plate in a few minutes..