27 posts tagged “parenting”

Chess

When it takes one hour to defeat your soon-to-be-six year old in chess, it means (a)  you suck at chess or (b) the kid is good.

Maternal vanity makes me choose (b).

Parenting

"If you don't finish up your Dosai, no karate class for you".

"If you don't clean up the room, no more books for you".

"If you don't finish up your lunch in school, no more lunch for you"

"If you don't braid your hair, it will fall off".

"If you don't drink up your milk, you are going to end up with osteoporosis like kollu paati".

All of the above within a span of 20 minutes. I am well on my way to becoming a professional blackmailer.  Anyone need my services?  Charges nominal.

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Soon-to-be-six: "If you tell a lie, God will dance in your brain and you will get irritated" 

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Neighbour:            What do you want to be when you grow up?
Soon-to-be-six:      A big girl.

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Soon-to-be-six:  "I don't like boys.  They are rash".
Mom ruminating: "I'd like to hear that in ten years.  ummm..on second thoughts, I don't think so."

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Soon-to-be-six: They show Tom&Jerry and Mr. Bean on TV during AV period in school. I don't like it.  I want to read my book.
Mom ruminating"YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS".

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My five-and-half year old stands on tip toes on a chair next to me, and says,

"See, I am standing next to you. We are now married.  And I am taller than you.  So, I am the husband."

Dracula

You'd think that having been a parent for five years now, I'd get have sufficient sense of what and what not to tell a five year old ? 

In an attempt to be a "cool" mom, and to make the wait on a red signal bearable, I told the kid a very diluted, and what I thought was a kid-friendly version of the story of Count Dracula, and now the child won't even go to the adjacent room alone at nights.

Is there any hope of redemption for me?

Kattabomman

Summer is here to stay.  And how. Today was a preview of what is to come over the next few weeks with the sun beating down mercilessly to melt tar on the road that sticks to footwear and sweat evaporating straight from the sweat glands.  That, and viral attack on the alimentary canal of a certain five-year old precluding outdoor activities, we are now confined to the current address.  A many-hundred-page activity book donated generously by Terri's daughter, was completed within hours.  Books issued by the school today for the following class were perused and proclaimed "satisfactory" for the next round of education. Latest spoils of war from Odyssey (e.g. The Magic School Bus - Blows its Top & Going Batty) reviewed and found interesting, and one book in particular taking the mom by surprise.

This book is one in the "The Underwater Friends" series brought out by Think Big Books, and is called "Kattabomman's trick". It is a really cute story of Kattabomman the turtle (who incidentally hates to be mistaken for a tortoise) playing a trick on his friends - a crab called Kumudam, a sword fish called Uncas, a fish called Forgetful, another one called Gunavathi and a prawn called Pran.  It is a simple story, made my daughter laugh, and tickled me pink with the absolutely cute names (Kattabomman, Kumudam, Pran), a far cry from pretentious Anglicised names found in books in English for children, written by Indian authors. And the language is simple and elegant (I am still reeling from watching an Tamilized episode of Dora, where Dora says "The star is here only"..bleah).  Each page has a small area that the child can colour.  This book is written by Sowmya Rajendran and illustrated by Nivedita Subramaniam.  Kudos.

We are now all set to collect the entire series, and given the low cost (Rs. 49/book ~ $1/book), it is not impractical.  I would strongly recommend it for kids five and under.

Mavadu

From the "I-don't-want-anything-even-remotely-recommended-by-mom-as-traditional-delicacy" phase, my daughter has graduated to eating lots of maavadu (aka vadu manga) pickle with a teeny bit of rice.  I am gratified that the genes are beginning to show.

Among the three of us, we have polished a few kilos of mavadu (made by the mil) in the past one week, the girls particularly acting like there is no tomorrow.  There are people who make these pickles and use it for an entire year until the next season brings more of the tender mangoes into the market.  We are NOT one of them.

Digression:  While searching for a good image to use with this post, I ran into a really nice blog in Tamil; the author, a descendant from dude's home town - Srirangam.  Dude is amused that I am excited about it.   I am too.

Image from http://food.sulekha.com/dishimages/578.jpg

Exam stress

I have ranted about this time and again.  Yet, every time I am faced with this situation, my blood pressure rockets and I have to control myself from creating a scene at the site of provocation.

My five-year-old moves to first class next year.  Her school, whose language of instruction ("first language") is English, requires that she chooses a "second language" in class 1. She is allowed to choose between Hindi and Tamil.  The principal of the school called for a meeting with parents of soon-to-be-first graders to advise that it is probably in the best interest of the child to take up their native language as their second language (e.g. Tamil for Tamilians, and Hindi for those that speak Hindi at home).  Sounds logical to me.

Some parents prefer to put their child in a language that is alien to their so-called "mother tongue", with the explanation that the child would pick up the mother tongue at home, so it helps if the school can teach a new language.  Which is also fine.

What I take strong exception to, is when parents, like a mom I was talking to today, believe that the child should take one language rather than the other because, that is the only way, in the tenth class public exam (which incidentally, is ten years away), the child would score a better total.  Why is it that our entire life is driven by the numbers that come on the report card that is granted on one year of our life?  Why are we subjecting ourselves and our kids to undue pressure to perform for the sake of those numbers?  Why has "learning" taken a backseat over "marks"? Why cannot a child enjoy the beauty of the Thirukkural or Silappadhikaaram or Rahim Doha when in school, instead of rote-learning something that can be vomited in the exam to score better marks, which would get him/her into a premier institution, perhaps, so that life would he handed to him/her on a golden platter, making the child a spoilt brat, unable to face difficulties, unable to enjoy beauty, and driven by secondary recognition all her life?

The importance given to the "public exam marks" bothers me particularly because I faced such enormous peer pressure in school to "score" at the expense of "education". The "school-first" rolling shield in the 12th Public exam remains nothing but a fuzzy distant memory.  The shield and the accompanying report card, that lies gathering dust somewhere in the loft gave me nothing other than a rude shock when I was out in the open facing life's many calamities (notably two back-to-back layoffs during the last financial recession), unable to handle it for want of perseverence, taking the setback as a direct indication of personal failure.  Precious years were lost searching for the true me, understanding that the 98% aggregate in 12th class was not quite an accurate image of me as I had assumed it to be.

A 12th standard boy in my daughter's school died of brain haemorrage, blamed on the enormous stress on the child to score in his public.  I dread to look at the newspapers soon after the public exam results are announced to read news of young boys and girls, with a rainbow life ahead of them killing themselves over a few numbers.  I feel impotent rage when kids at our elite institute of higher learning give up on life, unable to handle failure because the numbers that were so reassuring all these years were not satisfactory in one measely six months of their many years of existance.

Who is to blame?  Parents like us, who plan the child's public exam marks on the night they were conceived in love or passion. Will this ever change? Will there be fewer Lakshmi's who have nightmares of failing in exams, many many decades after they wrote their last exam in life?

Image source: http://www.leeds-yoga.co.uk/exam%20stress1.jpg

Dude is telling V a bed-time story, and in the process, asks her what happens when salt is added to water.

The very sleepy child replies "it gets wet".

One many

India is an intrusive country.  The concept of "privacy" was relatively unknown until recently, and even now the line between intrusion and concern is very blurred.  I have people I don't even know giving me all kinds of advise from what to cook today to having another child.  While I usually either ignore or indulge, the latter topic, of having another child sometimes gets me all worked up.  Not because of the intrusion into my private life, but because of their reasoning - a single child would be lonely, spoiled, selfish and bossy. 

I do not have a problem either way, and each family makes its choice based on their views, situations and support.  My mother was an only child by chance.  I was an only child by choice. My daughter is an only child, at least until now and I don't really foresee a change in status.  Most of my friends have single children, barring one recent entry into our Moms-Mafia who has three.  But I also know people with multiple children and I very sincerely believe that the behavior of the children is more influenced by parenting than having or not having siblings.  And most definitely, the single child is NOT lonely, NOT spoilt, NOT selfish and NOT bossy.  Let me explain.  I disclaim that I write based on my personal experience and I suspect it is applicable to most cases, but there may be exceptions.

Lonely: The concept of "lonely" comes from having someone and then removing them from the scene of action. For example, if you had a friend, and the friend moved, or if you had a sibling, who left for college, or you had a loved one that passed on, you would feel lonely.  But if you have not had a companion in the first place, there is no comparison and loneliness does not crop up. I even have a pet theory.  The single child makes sincerer friends and is more attached to them than children with siblings at home.  But that comes out of a personal experience, and probably cannot be generalised.  AND, a single child is never bored.  She develops her own set of activities that don't need anyone else, and in the absence of company, she is happy doing her stuff. I have noticed this with myself, my kid and my kid's friends who are an only child at home.

But this, I tend to agree that single kids may have trouble adjusting to a crowd. We are paranoid about meeting people. About having to maintain conversation.  We are most happy when ignored. Single-children CANNOT fight with anyone because they don't know how.  And very often take things lying down. That is both good and bad, especially when the child grows up to have a significant-other.  Good because the home is a haven of peace; bad because there is a lot of walking-all-over oneself.
 
Spoilt: NO. And this does not come out of defense. These days, all parents indulge in their progeny, irrespective of the number of them.  If any, parents of a single-child are extra strict with the kid because (a) they are worried about the stereotype that single child will be spoilt and (b) they have only one chance, and are under self-inflicted pressure to do a good job.  In fact, I suspect it is the other extreme. Parents of a single child are so obsessed with their child that they simply do not give the child the space she needs and therefore the child could get exasperated with all the rules and regulations set down and the micromanagement of their lives by the parents.  My parents were very strict with me to the point of a breakdown (why are you late? where did you fall down? Who are your friends? Why are you wearing that? why do you have a headache etc. etc.), and I am sometimes very surprised at how lenient my in-laws were with my husband and his siter while they were growing up.  And I can see myself laying down so many rules to my own daughter that I disgust myself at times.

In fact, I notice that my daughter picks up bad words and unacceptable behavior at school from classmates, who have themselves learnt them from their older siblings.

Selfish: NO.  NO WAY.  Single children don't have the concept of "this is mine" because there is no one else in the house that they have to say that to.  So, as they grow up, they are some of the most generous people in the world.  I am generous to a fault.  Nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is mine.  I can see the same trait in my daughter.  My mom was like that too.  And every single-child that I know has no problems sharing her toys or her snacks.  Only children with siblings at home with whom they have to fight over toys tend to be selfish.  In fact, I recently read a paper by people who actually studied the phenomenon scientifically and their results seem to corroborate my theory  They say that

children without siblings were 28% more likely to share than children with siblings. On the other hand, the youngest children in a family were 17% less willing to share than children who had only younger siblings..

Bossy:  Most single-children (that is not even grammatically right, is it?) are insecure with themselves, and desparately want to be accepted by their peers.  Being bossy will not really help in that, will it?

No, I am not extolling the single child.  I merely want to dispel the myths that surround us.  We have our faults. Heck all of us do.  The faults are inherent in us and cannot be attributed to presence or absence of siblings.  Yes, it must be really nice to have a sibling to fight with or love unconditionally and all those romantic stuff. But on my defense, it also is good to exclude politics and misunderstandings in life between siblings as they grow into adults.  Having siblings, in the past, probably lightened the burden of taking care of ageing parents, but I doubt if it is relevant any more because many older people today have all their children living abroad or away, or keep shuttling between their children, which I am not sure is a great feeling at that age.  There are people who choose to remain child-free and they have their reasons which work for them.

Each person has his own reasons to choose any specific lifestyle.  And I believe it is arrogance on the part of another to judge the choice.

Image from http://farm1.static.flickr.com/101/312922513_5d2a615ff2.jpg?v=0 

Globe

Ever since she got her "globe", my four-year-old is into Geography.  Her particular areas of interest are the poles - North and South, and she is constantly traveling to the poles in her sail boat - a plastic tub that holds her toys.  She, it seems, can go to the Antarctic either through Tasmania or Tanzania (?!).   She also wants to know why a mountain is named after a parrot and a man ("Kili-man-jaro").  Anyone know answers?

And there is another place she visits often - the "dino" Jungle.  She usually takes her grandmother there too, because mom is unwilling to come along.  Poor grandmom puts up with all the mumbo jumbo of stegosaurus, triceratops and iguanadons that infest the jungle.  There is something about grandkids that makes grandparents pliable to anything. I'll probably know better when it's my turn.

Sometimes I wonder if she is getting an information overload, and if she would require therapy as she grows up, unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality. But then, probably not. I am usually confused myself about the divide between imagination and reality and I am approaching middle age. I have not needed the couch yet (the operative being "yet"). 

Mrs Eipe (my teacher in middle-school who would liberally sprinkle my geography answer sheets with cent-percent ) would be so proud.