Things I Never Say In Front of My Son

Being mindful means being aware about the situation and being aware about your reactions to the situations. The most ideal situation is certainly when you are completely mindful and in control. I don’t think any parent is that perfect, but here are a few things which I am absolutely clear of never saying in front of my son: 

Anything related to appearance: Like most women, I am never happy with my body but I never ever say anything in front of my son. I don’t even ask my husband the quintessential ‘if-I-am-looking-fat’ question in front of my son. I also never comment on other people’s looks or skin colour or appearance in front of him. I never use the term ‘good-looking’ to him either, instead I tell him he is ‘adorable’. I have been guilty of using the term ‘cute’ sometimes, but usually it is meant for his actions rather than his looks.  

Please click here to read the complete post.

Please click here to read other articles by me.

Raising Boys

There is this child, who is in the habit of hitting all other kids without any provocation. She happens to be a girl. The other day, she hit 2-3 kids, who ended up wailing. All of them happened to be boys. I am talking about kids between 2 to 4 years of age. The first thing one of the mothers jokingly said to her son in the process of consoling him is “What! How can you get hit by a girl? Are you going to bring dishonor to us?” She is a friend, more of an acquaintance. But still she is like you, me, people we know, people we are friends with. In other circumstances, I find her condemning the abuse cases, crime against women and generally the status of women in the society. This is how we are. We don’t see the connection between the two.

Image source: Huffingtonpost

Honestly, I don’t feel we can change the mindset of current and past generations because it has taken shape over a period of time, influenced by numerous factors. But, future generation? Yes, I think so. As parents of the future generation we have big roles to play in shaping their attitude towards women.    

At the cost of sounding politically incorrect, let me confess that I wanted a son because frankly, growing up as a girl has taught me enough lessons to understand that I would not be able to offer her the opportunities and freedom that she deserves. But it looks like I have bargained for myself a much bigger task. There is no wisdom in teaching your daughter to not get raped. It is more relevant to teach our sons to respect other [men or women] individuals, and their opinions and choices. And this calls for a certain mindset which needs to be inculcated right from the time they are born.   

Sure, our sons will learn a lot from the outside world but there are several lessons that begin at home.

Perception of women

I have a house help who is a chatterbox. She will discuss all her personal issues and her thinking at length. She is sometimes accompanied by her 10 year old son. I get extremely uncomfortable when she starts talking about how she sees women responsible for every man who strays, how she believes a man is right in hitting his wife if she does something wrong? Is it any rocket science to foresee how her child would grow up to perceive women?

Status of Women at Home

I am a stay-at-home mom by choice, and I take immense pride in it. I am empowered to take that decision and my decisions are respected in my household. Nobody tells me my job is to cook and raise children. My husband and I have chosen our roles according to what we wanted. I wanted to raise our son my way. My husband cannot imagine he could stay home without going out to work. For the record, I don’t cook. I know how to cook. I have trained my help to do that for us. But I want to save that time for our son and myself. The thing is when a child sees that women are respected in his home, he would naturally imbibe that as a reality.

Relationship between parents

A child learns a lot about relationships from the relationship his parents share. How do they address each other? How do they fight? Are they respectful towards each other and each others’ views? Do they make sexist comments? Do they put each other down?

The language we speak

Like the example I mentioned in the beginning, there are several examples of sexist comments that could pass our lips if we are not careful and aware. For example, you would find many men commenting on women drivers on the road. It is clearly stereotyping and completely unjustified.

Communication with them

At the end of the day, no matter how careful we are, our sons would go out into the big bad world. They would meet uncles who would say, “Why are you hiding behind Mamma? Are you a girl?” He would meet friends who would pressurize them to “be a man”. Only a strong bond with their parents can give them confidence to swim against the tide.

I feel we have the power to create a better future for our kids, but we need to remember that when we are raising sensible girls, we also need to raise sensitive boys.

Related Posts:

Raising Boys Vs. Raising Girls

The Need of the Hour

The Pseudo-Expert

Recently, a friend [fed up of all the Facebook Shares that I do of my posts on Parentous, I am sure], raised his concerns about my ‘expert advices’. I will soon complete one year with Parentous, in December; and therefore, I take this opportunity to clarify that I have always been a contributor, never an expert.

If only, I had everything worked out in my mind, parenthood would not have been as challenging and as revealing as it actually is. He said, ‘for all the advices you dole out, who knows how your own son is going to turn out in future’. And he isn’t wrong. Frankly, I welcome [if not encourage] such comments because they help me take a step back from my situation and try to look at it objectively.

Please click here to read the rest of the post.

Please click here to read my other articles.

Travelling With A Toddler: A Few Learnings

I know, several parents have already chronicled their travel experiences with kid/s here but I would still go ahead and offer my two pence on travelling with a toddler [mine is 2 years and 3 months old]. I am just back from an 8 day trip to Rajasthan. Barring the flights we took for reaching and leaving from Jaipur, rest all travelling involved road trips of long hours. We travelled to Jaipur-Pushkar-Ajmer-Jodhpur-Jaisalmer by road - one of the road trips lasting for as many as 10 hours! Had it been just the two of us, it would not have been as maddening as it eventually turned out to be. But sigh! You do and you learn. Not that I had not read hundreds of articles about travelling with toddlers but nothing can truly prepare you for the actual experience [much like having a baby].

Here are my learnings from this amazing trip on travelling with a toddler, which included air and road travel:

Please click here to read the complete post.

Please click here to read my other articles published on various platforms.

8 Reasons To Judge Other Mommies [and Daddies]

For this post and this post only, I forfeit all my claims of being non-judgmental of other people. I remember when I was a kid, my mom used to read a Hindi women’s magazine called Sarita. It had a section called ‘Mujhe Shikayat Hai’ or ‘I have complaints against’. This section used to be full of complaints against all and sundry on all kinds of issues. This post intends to accomplish a similar objective.  

Please click here to read the complete post.

Please click here to read my other Articles published on various platforms.

An Eye for An Eye?

The other day, we were on our daily evening stroll – my 2-year old son [D] and I. We met another lady from our building with her son, who is 2.5 years old. I was aware about her son’s habit of hitting other kids, but I let the kids play. All my son, who is yet to go to school or properly be in the company of other young kids, wanted to do was run around with the other kid. Let us call him P. His mother is a nice lady, of happy disposition. Now, D would call out to P to run around and hide and generally play. But every time he would be close to P, P would push him. Twice my son fell because of being pushed, but he did not pay much attention to it, got up and continued playing. Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt.

Please click here to read the complete post.

Please click here to read my other Articles published on various platforms.

Have We Discussed How To Raise Our Kids?

This post was first published on Parentous.

Disclaimer: My intention is not to annoy/offend any grandparent or parent but voice some common observations among family, friends circle and neighborhood.

It is common these days to find both parents working and kids being entrusted into the care of grandparents. But are we discussing the nitty-gritties of how we want to raise our children amongst us, the ones who are going to provide the primary care to the children? Are we all on the same page?

Few observations:

• One of my friends (more like an acquaintance) is a working mother to a 6 year old. Her child is with his grandparents the whole day when he is not at school. Left to himself, he would eat nothing which has any nutritional value (read wafers, biscuits, magi et al). On a holiday, he would be hooked to the TV either watching cartoons, or watching the unrealistic family dramas with his grandparents. He would sleep at midnight and wake up at whatever time he wants.
• I have seen little kids watching so-called saas bahu serials and crime-based shows with their grandparents for long hours (even actively discussing the plot). To make matters worse, these days the latest trend is of explicit content in TV-serials. As grown-ups we know what is real and what is shown to gain TRPs. But, do these kids have the wisdom or experience to differentiate between what is real and fictitious?
• I am very particular about the nutrition intake of my child, what he eats throughout the day. I have consciously kept him off the chocolates, biscuits, namkeens, other junk food, packaged juice, etc. During the day he eats what we eat for the main meals, while the in-between snacks are usually fruits, dry fruits, dalia, some cheese and on some rare occasions, glucose biscuits (if there is really nothing else). On the other hand, I have seen some grandparents giving the tiny tots biscuits, wafers, chocolates on demand because the kids would easily eat them. Of course, they would! Which kid would not? It is our responsibility to provide them nutrition. And slowly when they are hooked to the junk food, not finding anything else tasty, then the kids are called ‘spoilt’! I don’t think the kids are to be blamed here at all.
• The habit of eating while watching TV is a poor habit. It takes your attention away from the food and you don’t enjoy your food as you should. I have seen this happening in kids. They stop enjoying their food, and would do it only while watching TV so that they are not aware of what is going in their mouth, sometimes even spoon-fed by the grandparents.

In my humble opinion, even if the parents are delegating the responsibility of the child to someone else, there must be a set of rules, thoroughly discussed and properly communicated. Many grandparents are offended if you point out too many things because they feel they have done the job and have more experience. It is important that the parents address the issue tactfully on how they want to raise their child.

I am keen to know your thoughts.

I would like to repeat that in no way I want to point fingers at the grandparents because they are supposed to pamper. It is our responsibility as parents to discuss how we want to raise our kids. However, if we choose to raise our kids in this way then that is another matter altogether. 

Open Letter to the Advertisers

This post was first published on Parentous.

Dear Advertisers,

I am writing this letter in the capacity of a mother of a child at an impressionable age.

I don’t watch TV, and as a consequence neither does my child who is in my care throughout the day. [And thank God for that!] As a toddler, he is learning the ways of the world, a tiny step a day. I put in a lot of effort in trying to instill good values and good habits in him.

The other day, I happened to catch a few advertisements on TV, quite by chance. So, I will take this opportunity to share my concerns about this ad and on retrospect this ad too, but I would suggest you must take it as concerns of a mother about several such ads. These are just two of the many on TV.

The first advertisement shows a child making faces at fruits and vegetables, while the other one shows kids turning up their noses at milk. These may be real-life scenarios in several households, but not all. May be it looked like a wonderful idea to connect with mothers of children who shun nutrition by turning up their noses at fruits, vegetables and milk. But when I watch these ads, it feels extremely unsettling. I want to turn off the TV because I don’t want my child to watch these ads. I am relieved that he is fond of fruits, vegetables and milk but kids emulate other kids. It does not help that children in these ads are making faces at fruits, vegetables and milk.

I will neither throw statistics at you nor quote psychologists. I won’t even link strong public opinions on such ads or tread on how misleading ads can be. I just want to say, it is worrying for me, or any other mother like me, to let our kids watch these kinds of advertisements. It just negates all the hard work we do in making sure they favor natural food like fruits, vegetables or milk over packaged sweetened juice or milk additives laden with sugar or chocolate.

Today, my child is too young but tomorrow he may want to watch some TV. So, for me, the concerns do not end at how TV could be addictive for young kids; but I am in fact more anxious about the kind of advertisements on TV. Moreover, these days a lot of ads of products, which are not even directly related to kids, are targeting children. This is highly alarming. In a few countries around the world, there are strict regulations on targeting young children by marketers and it is highly unlikely we have anything noteworthy in India.

That is all I have to say. For now.

Yours sincerely,

A Concerned Mother of a 2 year old 

Note: Dear parents, is it me or you feel the same way too?

Gender Stereotyping the Kids

This Post was first published on Parentous - the Parenting blog.

Instance 1.

I and ‘the star’ were going for our evening stroll. The star, all of 15 months now, is a little shy in front of the strangers. In the lift, we met an uncle from the building.

Uncle: “Why are you hiding behind your mom? What makes you so shy? Are you a girl?”

(I got really pissed off on hearing this)

Me: “What is wrong in being shy? He is just a kid, not comfortable with strangers.”

Uncle (immediately got defensive): “Beta, don’t mind, I was just joking.”

Instance 2.

A group of boys, all aged between 9-11, were playing football in front of my building.

I and ‘the star’, were going back home. I overheard 1 boy telling the other boys, about one of them.

“This guy always says no to everything”

Then he looked at the boy in question and said, “are you a girl?”

Then looking at other boys, said “I think he was supposed to be a girl but by mistake he was born a boy!”

Instance 1 is a small example of how our kids are subjected to gender stereotyping in day-to-day life, while Instance 2 is another small example of its impact on young minds. They form opinions, categorize and judge each other, and grow up to become prejudiced individuals.

No wonder this couple went too far in protecting their child from getting stereotyped and stifling his real personality.

What is Gender Stereotyping?

Gender Stereotyping is basically putting down someone because of their “sex” or not believing they are able to do something because they are either male or female. [Source: Wiki Answers]

What is the impact of Gender Stereotyping on kids?

When you start judging a person’s capabilities on the basis of gender, you are doing him or her grave injustice.

I believe, all the issues related to gender discrimination and gender insensitivity spring from stereotyping. When you start judging a person’s capabilities on the basis of gender, you are doing him or her grave injustice. What is worse is that at some point we start believing that it is okay to do so.

At home, kids observe parents and their roles, their interaction with each other and their expectations from children, which initially shapes their outlook about gender roles. Eventually, this reflects strongly in their self-image and opinions about their capabilities.

Why should our children feel less capable or, conversely, more privileged because of their gender?

As a parent we have a huge responsibility of opening their minds and sensitizing them about gender issues. The reason being even if at home we give them a neutral environment, outside of home they would encounter discrimination at every step.

We have to make sure that we are raising well-rounded, unbiased individuals.

The best gift we can give our children is unprejudiced upbringing and equal opportunities. Little kids are impressionable. They are like sponge, taking in everything that parents teach or tell or do. We have to make sure that we are raising well-rounded, unbiased individuals. And eventually, this shall have far-reaching implications on the society at large.

Here’s an interesting article on Gender Stereotypes.