Disclaimer: This is not a parenting advice. I am not qualified enough but this is a reminder to myself and open for feedback. All this is subject to change.
My daughter Ira is more than 2 years now and these are thoughts that crosses my mind many times. I do not know what is right or wrong but maybe when Ira is old enough she can give a feedback. Anyways my dear readers feel free to comment and share your experiences. Would like to see your comments!
Parents that says no
Consider this if your kid has spilt milk. What do we normally “Who spilt the milk” and mostly the kid would reply “Not me”. We are pushing them to lie or maybe even putting words in their mouth. What if we said “come lets clean it, bring that cloth”. Will it create a different meaning for them.
Lets take another example. The kids start writing on the wall with the chalk or crayons. Now we can keep saying “Don’t write on the walls” or “You should not write on walls”. Do you think kid is ready to take your don’ts, coulds, shoulds. I really don’t think so. Maybe if we always say “Please write on the notebook” with no reference to wall they may follow your advice (maybe some probability)
Both these examples are something discussed in a workshop we had in office and I could relate to them. So we may be directing should, must, don’ts to them but that will probably make them do the opposite and also take them away from us. For sure we have not done everything good in our life to instruct everything on our kids. They are also learning individuals like us and probably better ways would be always to converse so long they would want to. I see by the time kids are teenagers they don’t like conversing to parents probably because of our instructive recipe based behavior
The vulnerable One
मेरे जीते जी मेरे बच्चों को कस्ट नहीं होगा।
Haven’t we heard this many times. For people who don’t know Hindi this means ” As long as I am there, I will make sure that kids never suffer”
I find this somewhat weird, yeah if someone is talking about taking a term plan or some kind of insurance it may be okay but that would mean something else. If someone means that all their needs and demands will be met irrespective of externalities. Isn’t that giving false hope? Nobody is superhuman and there can be good and bad days and kids should be aware of what is going on. They should be aware of your vulnerabilities that they will see their life as well. Nothing is black and white and kids should see both sides. Sometimes I am amazed by the maturity kids can show. I am sure we as parents have not been able to solve all our own problems that we will be able to solve for them.
Another pithy saying from Kabir makes it very clear that hoarding of resources is futile, which as Indian parents we tend to overdo.
पूत कपूत तो क्यों धन संचय।
पूत सपूत तो क्यों धन संचय।।
This means ” If your kids are bad, then why save money, if your kids are good, then why save money”
Nobody is super hero and everyone has limits that we ourselves should know and also let kids know about it. Being the vulnerable one in front of kids is okay. The kids will grow up to face the world and maybe will be better prepared if they know that their parents were also vulnerable and they can’t fix everything. Nobody can fix everything be it your father or mother.
Gender Neutrality
“Don’t cry like a girl”
“Boys don’t cry”
मेरी बेटी तो बिलकुल बेटे जैसी है। (My daughter is like a son)
बेटी तो पराया धन है। (Daughters are for someone else’s wealth)
I think that kids when they are born are not aware of their sexuality for sure. There are signals that we keep hitting them with. Buy Barbies for girls and Guns/Cars for boys, She is my darling angel whereas a boys are the super hero. When very young babies (mostly girls) have their ears pierced mostly by the age they don’t even realize that their natural bodies are changed for some artificial reason. Many times boys grow up not having any friends who are girls or vice versa.
Sure there are differences between a girl and a boy but maybe we as parents don’t have to amplify that. We can be neutral and give them exposure to whatever a kid needs to get. At least we can try whereever possible, a boy can wear a pink and a girl can wear a blue, its after a color and nothing else.
What do you think? Does any of this makes sense to you? Do let me know.