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.

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Raising Boys Vs. Raising Girls

The Need of the Hour

Is Woman a Property?

It was a simple incident but a sort-of an eye-opener. My neighbour called me up to sign as a witness in her passport application papers. The police men who had come for verification asked my name. I told them my name. Then one of them asked me to tell him my full name. I repeated my name. He wrote my first name and then asked my husband's name. Then it dawned on me that he was going to write my husband's name as the middle name. I have noticed my father's name in my mobile bill earlier as my middle name.

Image courtesy: footage.shutterstock.com

Although it was obvious, I still initiated this discussion with my Bai [help] since she is from this State. She said this is the norm here, and it has always been like this. You have your father's name with your name before marriage and your husband's name after your marriage. I said "wow! as in the case of property transfer?" She was bewildered. But tell me, isn't it so? First you are the property of your father and then your husband! In fact, more importantly, among Bais, several are married to good-for-nothing guys. So, they run the household with their money, and yet are essentially properties of their husbands!

I told her 'isn't it wrong?'. She said 'but it has been so forever now, and this is something which will never go'. Frankly speaking her thoughts are amusing to someone like me. She comes up with gems like 'a woman is always responsible when a guy has affairs outside of marriage, either the wife or the other woman. But always the woman'. I will dwell into this some other time. 

She was most surprised to know that I mostly used my maiden name. She said she has never heard this before. But frankly, this is the norm these days for several working women. There are too many hassles in getting the name changed on all the places. Some part of retaining our maiden names is convenience. 

I have also heard of certain castes where the girl is given a different name after marriage [in a way new identity]. When are we going to stop being someone's properties, I often wonder?