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

5 Magazines I absolutely Love [UBC Post 26]

I love magazines, probably not as much as I love books but they come a close second. And you know what, much to my husband's dismay, I hoard them too.

I wish I could say Harvard Business Review or The Economist, even our own Outlook as my favourite magazines. But thank you very much, that is not the case. There are two things which I can never get tired of reading about - Books and Filmy (celebrity) Gossip. 

Here are 5 Magazines which I absolutely love:

Image courtesy: ebharat.in

PEOPLE: Somehow I remember I first saw this magazine while standing in the queue of Mumbai-Pune Shivneri buses at Dadar (Mumbai). I was waiting for my turn and checking out magazines in the stall next to the ticket counter. I think the introductory issue had then-much-in-love Deepika and Ranbir. I didn't give it a second glance, brushing it off as yet another celebrity magazine amongst several. But I had heard about the international PEOPLE magazine. So, on one of the days when I went to Landmark, I bought it. And I have never looked back. I have been a subscriber for I think 4 years now. It is not like the usual sensational celebrity gossip magazine. It has a certain standard in the kind of features, interviews it covers. The candid pictures are awesome, but still the first thing I check out even in this magazine is the book reviews section towards the end. I have bought several books from these recommendations. Know more about this magazine here.

Image courtesy: bollywoodlife.com

FEMINA: I don't even remember clearly for how long I have been reading FEMINA. In my humble opinion, it is the best women's magazine in India. From gossip to fashion trends, from inspiring stories to interiors, food, makeovers and what not! What I love most are the special issues like the one you can see alongside. The current issue is about 100 years of Indian cinema. Femina has been around for so many years now that its special issues are reflections of changes in the society over the years. No wonder, I refuse to part with them. Here is their official page.

Image courtesy: bollyone.com

FILMFARE: I have recently converted into a Filmfare fan. I always thought it was quite boring and repetitive. But recently I saw a few issues and I liked them. It is no secret that Fimfare finds favours with most of the film celebrities. It has gorgeous pictures and some good interviews. So, why not! For me, filmy gossip is never enough. I am always open to reading more.  
Here is the official page of the magazine.  

BRUNCH: BRUNCH is a weekly magazine from the house of Hindustan Times. Actually it is a weekly supplement of the daily newspaper. It also has a Quarterly variant called BrunchQ. I absolutely love Brunch. I love reading about books, culture, society, films, art, etc., and Brunch has all of that. My only grouse is that we don't have a Pune edition of HT. I had been lucky to get Sunday editions (for Brunch) by my papaerwala, but now he is unable to get it for me. So, I have subscribed myself the Quarterly one. Though I can read the online version of the weekly Brunch but I never actually get around to it. Where is the time!  

Image courtesy: murganigroup.com

LOUNGE: LOUNGE is another weekly from Hindustan Times. It is actually the Saturday paper of HT'S Mint. Mint's Lounge, very similar to BRUNCH, covers trends, social changes, books, culture, movies and anything related to society or culture worth talking about. I used to get even this on Saturdays by my paperwala without subscribing to Mint for all days. But now I don't get it. I read the online version once in a while. Of course, it is not the same thing.

So, what are your favourite magazines?

Judging other women

Most of us are inclined to be judgemental all the time. And that includes me.

We would often ‘judge’ the actresses who had chosen to marry already-married actors / producers / directors (read Hema Malini, Sridevi). Long time back when I read about Sridevi and Boney Kapoor’s marriage, and a slew of gossip articles over the years on how Sridevi distanced Boney Kapoor from his children from first marriage; I always felt it was wrong of her to marry a married man in the first place and then create a rift between him and his children.

Recently, the PEOPLE magazine featured Sridevi on its cover page with her daughters. In the Cover story, I came to know that actually it was Boney Kapoor who pursued Sridevi relentlessly for 15 years before she agreed to marry him. Suddenly, my perception of her changed completely. And most importantly, I was ashamed of being so quick to judge someone I knew nothing about and that too a fellow-woman.

That is the problem with women. And that includes me too. We often place the blame on other women, are far too quick to judge them.

As mothers, we judge the choices of other mothers. If someone chooses to bottle-feed, we think the mother is not putting enough effort. If someone chooses to get back to work fast, we judge her for being so focused on her career. If someone chooses to be home, we feel it is not really the need but laziness.

As working women, we criticize other working women. If someone sticks to the office working hours, we feel they are just looking at the clock all the time and not serious about their work. If somebody goes beyond the working hours, we feel the woman is too ambitious.

And certainly this does not end here. There is always power tussle between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law, women co-workers and so on and so forth. If we started sticking to each other and standing up for each other, so many of our problems will be solved. Isn’t it? 

May this year we stand up for each other!

Chick-lit

I have already proclaimed sufficiently and strongly that I just love buying books and yeah, reading them occasionally. But till now I had not ordered anything online. I would visit bookshops, look through books, read the back covers and mostly I felt that I just needed to own it. So that was my usual practice. But now, I have discovered the world of online book shopping. What I do is first find out the latest or famous books in the genre which I want to read or in case I have discovered a writer, then find out about all the books he / she has written; then I check about prices offered by various sites. I would say www.firstandsecond.com is good in that respect because they do not charge delivery charges, so you are sure of how much you are paying for that book. I have just bought two books from there—Love Story by Erich Segal (for Rs 125) and Entry from backside only by Binoo John (for Rs 95). Although one generally gets better deals off the shelf but the sites are really helpful when you are looking for a particular book, not available in your regular bookstore. Also, the online Bookstores have various versions of the same book in different prices so you can take your pick.

But, anyways, what I really wanted to talk about was getting introduced to an altogether new genre called “Chic-lit”. Actually, I have always read and liked chick-lit novels but never knew that this genre had a name. The Encyclopedia on thefreedictionary.com defines "Chick lit" as “a term used to denote genre fiction written for and marketed to young women, especially single, working women in their twenties and thirties. “ It was when I read “Shopaholic & Sister” and tried “Googling” for other books by Sophie Kinsella that I bumped onto this word. There are several sites devoted to chic-lit or literature for women. The last chick-lit I read and absolutely loved was I don’t know how she does it by Allison Pearson.